Popular Culture Media and Society: Culture Jamming Essay

IntroductionCulture pile is a strategy often utilized by the anti-globalization movement in the creation and reappropriation of memes, or unforgettable and persistent ideas. Traditional assimilation fix strategies find included a vicissitude of actions, ranging from billboard liberation, wherein artists recoup billboards as public space, to media activism, wherein activists attempt to garner newborns coverage through some grad of operate action in value to have their message heard.Additional tactics such as burlesque advertisements ge bed to mock a particular brand or sedulousness and branding removal, wherein activists remove all(prenominal) marks of branding from products, have also been deployed. Culture imperativenessmers attempt to expose the norms of western industrial differentiateliness and call them into question tho often their attempts argon non public enough to r severally a large reference and encourage a large scale inquisitive of the status quo. The destructions of the kitchen-gardening crush community atomic number 18 to interject new norms into societies that effectively turn mainstay the meanings of current kindly norms. despite the best intentions of those holding indoors the movement, traditional cultivation crowd r arely requires it into customary farming and is frankincense often thwarted in the attempt to successfully challenge the norms perpetuated by globalization.The purpose of this study is to judge the ways in which refinement jamming that permeates the media and crosses the line from sub stopping point to pop farming washbowl challenge hegemonic structures of business leader plot of ground simultaneously reinforcing those challenges by increasing their popularity. Through the study of popular nuance artifacts from a variety of genres I hope to determine whether or not popular culture whitethorn serve as an effective strategic forum for the introduction of culture jamming artifacts, as opp osed to the traditional and much(prenominal) subversive tactics being deployed by culture jammers.Towards an discernment of Culture JammingCulture jamming and studies of culture jamming have typically focused on the ability of an activist group or individual to effectively redeploy the signs and symbols of a controlling system in a manner that disrupts their meaning and critiques the overall system from which the symbols originate. In his recently republished 1993 pamphlet on culture jamming, Mark Dery (2001) states that culture jammers introduce noise into the signal as it passes from transmitter to receiver, encouraging idiosyncratic, unintended interpretations. Intruding on the intruders, they invest ads, newscasts, and new(prenominal) media artifacts with subversive meanings simultaneously, they decrypt them, rendering their seductions impotent (para. 36).From Derys perspective culture jamming kitty be seen as actions or artifacts that are politically or subversively charg ed. Jamming sess range from humbug to media gags, but always aims to make a statement against a particular target of power or popularity in spite of appearance a culture.Similarly, semiotic theorist Umberto Eco (1984) advocates that 1 form of media tooshie be utilized to afford comment pointed at another(prenominal)(prenominal) type of medium in order to restore a critical property to passive reception (p. 138). Eco refers to acts and artifacts that have this potential to be part of semiotic guerilla warfare. The signs and symbols of a culture are open to interpretation. epoch within a culture there may be a common meaning for these signs and symbols within a culture that meaning is not set in stone. A sign or a symbol may be used to contradict its make popular meaning. Thus we can see how semiotics blowouts an important role in developing tools for the toolbox of the culture jammer. The lack of fixed meaning in the signs we see on a daily basis renounce culture jammers t o turn back symbols as semiotic weapons against their creators.Kalle Lasn (2000) defines culture jamming as the demarketing of marketing. As the hold of Adbusters magazine, Lasn has pushed for the reclaiming and redeployment of particular brand names, icons, and advertising campaigns through a process known to culture jammers as subvertising. Lasn explains in his book, Culture Jam that culture jammers utilize Debords notion of detournement, or turning back specific aspects of a spectacle against itself. In the case of culture jamming, brands and their advertising are turned back upon themselves to produce questions and inconsistencies astir(predicate) a particular advertisers ideals as seen through its campaigns.Lasn (2000) also claims that successful culture jamming can function as a pincer movement utilizing both high visibility media campaigns that challenge industry in combination with grass roots campaigns for local action. The challenge to an industry or target combined wit h encouragement of behavioral change has the potential to change the perception of the target on a broad scale while also reducing support for the target.A well-organized pincer willing get millions of hoi polloi thinking about their livesabout eating better, driving less, jumping off the make treadmill, downshifting. Eventually the national mood will evolve (pg136).Lasns pincer attack attempts to make that which is shortly chic or popular in a society unpopular on a abundant scale. As fewer people within the society buy into the imagery of a particular industry or brand the industry loses financial support and must either change its practices or baptismal font rejection by the community at large.Lasn has spear headed grass roots campaigns such as Buy cryptograph Day an annual campaign urging consumers to avoid buying anything on the last Friday of November (a date normally known among retailers as Black Friday as it often marks record profits for retailers as a result of holi day shopping). Lasn combines this grassroots campaign with thirty-second television ad spots on CNN each year as well as more locally oriented promotion such as fliers that activists can print off the Internet and disseminate at will.Christine Harold (2004) claims that the culture jammer seeks to undermine the marketing magniloquence of multinational corporations, specifically through such practices as media hoaxing, corporate sabotage, billboard liberation, and trademark infringement (p. 190). These strategies are used by jammers in an effort to glut the system by supplying audiences with contradictory messages. Their goal is to generate a qualitative change in the minds of the audience about the subject matter targeted.Harold (2004) critiques traditional culture jamming as a grandiloquenceal strategy because it often relies upon revelation of hidden virtues and rejection of the systems it attempts to play upon. In her analysis, Harold specifically indicts Lasns publications and others who deploy parody or direct negation of corporate logos in their attempts to cause questioning of norms. Reliance on parody as a mechanism for revealing truth requires audiences to deconstruct the common meaning of a sign with little to work with but the sign itself. Additionally, parody causes a commitment to rhetorical binaries that articulate rejection of the targeted idea with little room for the idea to be reframed. rife powers within a criticized system can easily utilize these tactics for their own means. The reliance on a recognized symbol helps to maintain its cultural prominence. The rhetorical binary used by culture jammers allows the targeted entity to easily deflect criticism and quash the questioning of norms. small-arm Adbusters and activists of similar ideology may station forth a message of rebellion and rejection corporate targets can use these concepts of rebellion and rejection to sell their products. recent advertisements for Sprite illustrate this co ncept well as they focus on rejecting celebrity culture and cover ones own character by purchasing the product.Harold (2004) advocates a more appropriative orgasm to culture jamming seeks to be appropriated by commercial media in order to redirect the focus of dominant media systems. Much of Harolds argument focuses on the value of media activism via prank, pointing to groups such as the Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO) and biotic Baking Brigade (BBB) as groups that have successfully received positive media coverage through their pranks.Clearly, we can see that culture jamming may be an effective strategy for putting dominant hierarchies, organizations, and systems into question. However, Reinsborough and Harold (2004) both raise interesting points in terms of the effectiveness of the strategy, with Harold illustrating the problems of strategies that are not appropriative and Reinsborough recognizing that subversive media strategies (such as those Harold advocates) are often l imited in scope.When considering Reinsboroughs (2003) usage of the word meme the concept that he is referring to is not necessarily identical to that articulated by memetic theorists. Susan Blackmore (1999) has broadly defined memes as e rattlingthing that you have learned by mimicry (pg6).The definition of imitation from a memetic perspective should not be confused with copycat acts. Instead, imitation should be seen as memes passing from one mind to another. In his article on culture jammers and the being Wide Web, Stephen Downes (1999) defines the meme as a contagious idea that disperses from one mind to another (para. 2). He articulates that memes are a way to represent the ideas contained within advertising and explains that in order for ideas to take hold in ones mind they must appeal to the audience in a way that helps them to be remembered.Similarly, Kalle Lasn (2000) speaks of infotoxins, or infoviruses, that permeate dominant media forums. Lasn claims that disinformatio n is propagated through media and public relations spin resulting in the establishment of ill-advised beliefs about the world. In one example, Lasn refers to the medias portrayal of anti-automobile activists as limiters of personal freedom as a contributing factor in the failure of activists to popularize their message. The movement becomes unable to stimulate a expectation shift towards a culture that is less dependent upon petroleum products. As the activists are seen as anti-freedom harms they are attempting to solve such as global warming are not taken seriously.Additionally, he argues that while the effects of global warming can be seen on both local and global scales, disinformation that has been spread through dominant media forums has led to a sense of complacency about the issue in the minds of Americans. Lasn believes these infoviruses are untruthful memes that must be challenged through the production of counteractive memes that outperform those that movements wish to q uestion. We build our own meme factory, put out a better product and beat the corporations at their own game. We identify the macromemes and the metamemesthe vegetable marrow ideas without which a sustainable future is unthinkableand deploy them (pg124).Both Reinsborough (2003) and Lasn (2000) seem to be identifying that memes are memorable and popular concepts that have the ability to be spread in order to transform cultural norms. Blackmore (1999) and Downes (1999) distinctly illustrate that memes are made up of ideas that are picked up from popular culture and imitated. The process of culture jamming can be seen as one generating memes that hold a meaning that challenges existing norms. To top to the analogy of the gene, culture jamming can be seen as a form of memetic engineering with a goal of producing a dominant and meaningful meme that causes new traits, or meanings, to become exemplified within a culture.Understanding the Transformative Potential of commonplace CultureC ommunication and mass media scholars have examined the extent to which popular culture may contribute to the formation of cultural norms and social structure. Guy Debord (1977) implicates popular culture in large subdivision of what he labels the society of the spectacle. Debords (1977) view of the world in the era of global capitalism is one in which popular culture serves to provide images or representations of the world that do not represent its historic state, but instead inspire audiences to digest the world around them as commodities as a heir for the real.Artifacts such as films are not representative of art, but are tools to inspire audiences to strive towards the achievement of consumer goods and respect the hierarchal structure. Debord (1977) points out that the society of the spectacle is replete with images and representations that drive audiences to become consumers. This consumption leads audiences to respect the morphologic hierarchies that repress them. In essenc e, the complacency most audiences have towards the consumption of images and subsequently the world around them drives this structuralism.While Debord (1977) implicates popular culture and the spectacle as paramount in the construction of a social order of consumption, he does offer some hope for those striving to work against the consumptive nature of capitalist hierarchies in the form of detournement By creating contradictions, negations, or parodies of a given work, corrections can be made to the meaning of the work in order to create a meaning that is more representative of the true states of societies.Marshall McLuhan (1964) argued in his groundbreaking work, Understanding Media, that popular culture experienced a drastic shift with the advent of technologies such as film, piano tuner and television. Whereas popular culture had been print dominated in years previous, the shift to new types of media changed the way media was created and the effect was dramatic. McLuhan argues t hat the introduction of printed schoolbookual matters into cultures undermined the tribal aspect of communities and collective ideas that had once dominated small communities.Cultures became more individualistic and increased the power of logic and rationale of the written word as opposed to common among group members. The advent of new media brought about a more collective consciousness as individuals were haggard to its aesthetics. New tribal communities formed that were rooted in both local and global norms. Audience word picture to new and different sights and sounds increased the divided understanding across cultures. McLuhan also illustrates that the spread of media united people as a result of the medias importance by comparing media to staples of a societys economy.Television, for example, can be used to construct the cultural norms of a society. Those people who are active audience members of a particular television show or genre are likely to have shared beliefs, for ming a tribal community of their own. McLuhan argued that the community building potential of television and the syndication of programming created the potential for these cultures to spread globally.While McLuhans work was performed in the 1960s the subsequent popularity of the Internet seems to confirm at the very least that communities of people who make up television audiences extend worldwide as fan sites, bulletin boards, and blogs dedicated to television programs cross multiple borders and cultures. Television, much of McLuhans media, is a part of popular culture. enquiry has also been conducted suggesting that popular culture has the ability to reaffirm existing cultural norms or as a tool in transforming current norms.Lee Artz (2004) has examined the cultural norms that are present in the bulk of the spirit produced by the Walt Disney Co. Artz argues that the autocratic production process embraced by Disney executives results in four dominant themes present in nearly every animated film the company has released. These themes include the naturalization of hierarchy, the defense of elite coercion and power, promotion of hyper-individualism and the denigration of democratic solidarity (p. 126). The prevalence of these themes can be identified through study of the narratives contained within Disney films as well as through the stylistic chemical elements of the aliveness itself.The ease with which animated film can be translated and transported into the languages and cultures of peoples worldwide offers a large audience to Disney in marketing its films and film-related products. The portability of Disney products from one culture to another is a problematic notion for Artz (2004), as he explains the social stratification present and reaffirmed in the films produced is largely representative of the global capital system that allows Disney to thrive as a media giant.Artz suggests that effective resistance against these thematic representations cannot be implemented by rogue Disney artists injecting subversive messages into films. Instead, cooperative creations and narratives and the appropriation and subsequent use of animation technology by artists, writers, and producers committed to the promotion of democracy would be more effective.This conclusion appears to be impirically proven. While not discussed in Artzs work, subversive strategies have been employed by disgruntled artists involved in the production of Disney films (such as the post-production inclusion of an image of a topless woman in the background art of The Rescuers). However these acts did not generate substantial negative publicity for the company.Peter Simonson (2001) has examined the successes the animal-rights group People for the estimable Treatment of Animals (PETA) have experienced as a result of using communication strategies rooted in popular culture. PETA seeks to change predominant cultural norms in the area of animal welfare.Their traditional communica tive strategies have relied on the generating news controversy and gaining news coverage. Simonson proposes that social movements and organizations seeking to change popular morals or norms rely upon social noisea multifaceted concept that can be defined as messages that are compelling or loud enough to be heard amidst the signals of mass-media. Noise disrupts commonly held social meanings and is often discordant or disagreeable to a subset of the audience.Scholars have also focused on what makes a particular artifact or action popular. John Fiske (1989) studied culture as popular culture in terms of texts. By making textual analysis of artifacts in popular culture, Fiske began to make claims about the structure of popular messages. Fiske introduced the concept of the producerly text as a primary characteristic of popular culture. The producerly text is conceptually anchored in the distinctions made by Barthes (1977) among the writerly and readerly texts.Barthes contends that reade rly texts are those that we are able to read passively. Interactions between the audience and these texts are receptive there is no need to question or interpret the text in a different way than it is written. Writerly texts can be seen as those texts that require the reader to eer evaluate and rewrite the meaning of the text, and writerly texts usually require some specialized knowledge or a toolset to decode (Fiske 1989).Many scholars and activists concur that there is a risk when entering into pop culture that the rhetoric used by those critiquing dominant ideologies and structures may be co-opted. The potential exists for the message to be appropriated by those in power for their own means the message becomes incorporated by those in power in order to embolden their own claims or profits. The same process that allows activists to change the meaning of texts is available to everyone.Popular culture has the potential to create and transform both societal structure and norms. Addi tionally, communities of common exposure and belief can be developed using popular culture as a medium. There may be a risk of that subversive ideas can be incorporated by dominant systems of power, but this internalization does not necessarily limit the transformative potential popular culture holds. When considering the culture jammers intent of questioning and changing norms popular culture becomes an interesting point of cultural injection.ConclusionIn essence, the popular culture jam seeks to be appropriated into pop culture- it becomes pop culture and helps to redefine that which is popular. The result is a sort of subpropriation, where in the author seeks to have his or her work popularized in order to simultaneously popularize a antecedently subversive concept or idea. However, this appeal to the popular does not necessarily stop culture jamming from occurring. Entry into popular culture does not dictate that the message will be recuperated by industry. Rather, popular cultu re jamming takes place at a different point than other types of culture jamming. The jam in popular culture jamming occurs at the point that the artifact, action, or behavior becomes popular.The most explicit effect of moving towards a jamming of popular culture is the increased access to larger audiences. Popular culture does not request to be covered in the same way that news-oriented communication or advertisements often do. Instead, popular culture places demands upon media outlets to not only be covered but also be distributed to the masses. This sense of demand results because the popular is attractive to the media as a potential form of profit.Again, we see Fiskes (1989) theories on production and incorporation at work. A popular culture jam spreads as a result of its popularity. Often this popularity is created by the irresistible profits that may be yielded from an artifacts incorporation into the popular. In essence, one aspect of the structures that propagate and allow for globalization (and the subsequent problems that those in anti-globalization movements perceive to be resultant from it) to persist and thrive are turned back to criticize either itself or another portion of the hierarchal structure.Popular culture, despite the criticisms it often faces for lack of sophistication or intelligence, is an important element of our lives. Popular culture may also serve as a tool for those struggling against globalization, uncontrolled consumerism, and capitalist exploitation. Each time we turn on a television or listen to the radio or log on to the Internet we are exposing ourselves to popular culture. Popular culture should not be perceived as an intellectual wasteland. While much of that which makes up popular culture may be perceived as being detrimental to society by any number of people, activists and media scholars cannot ignore or reject it.Popular culture needs to be embraced and transformed through the use of producerly texts in order to imp rove and transform the genre into another persuasive conduit for activists. Popular culture is not going away. In the age of new media popular culture is becoming even more pervasive in our lives as media formats are combined. If embraced as a rhetorical forum by culture jammers, popular culture can be transformed into a more revelatory and revolutionary space for communicating ideals that activists wish to make popular.ReferencesArtz, L., (2004), The Righteousness of Self-centered Royals The World According to Disney Animation, scathing Arts Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, 116-146.Blackmore, S., (1999). 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