Sociological view of culture jamming

http://www.csub.edu/~rdugan2/SOC%20577%20Pop%20Culture/culture%20jamming.pdf

This is a very long article, but had some interesting points on where culture jams may have came from, as well as how counter culture facilitates consumerism, but in a different better way. Also, that as a society, we focus on our consumer culture as a way of belonging. Here's my long winded summary:

The arthurs point out that culture jamming, in different forms, has been around since about the mid 18th century, originating perhaps with Rousseau and his writings, stating that he saw "civilization, ingrained in the formal pedagogies of European academies and the overly mannered rituals of its social institutions, corrupts humankind".

Following this was the English Romantic Movements, which Wikipedia defines as: A rev0lt against aristocratical social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music and literature". After this, Marx followed with his Communist Mannifesto which also speaks agains the hierarchy of capitalism. These are not jamming as we know it today, however still protested consumerism in their time in the way that culture jams do today.

The author points out that though culture jammers today are against the ways in which mass production is done (i.e sweat shops, low pay etc), they are also essentially creating new markets for products in doing so. An example is the boom of "green products" which are better on the environment, anti sweat shop produced products etc. However, even though it is still consumerism, the culture jams have changed the behaviours of some producers, as they are being more environmentally friendly, not using sweat shops or increasing pay for workers. What I found interesting here, is that he defines "Good culture" as natural, and things that are made from the Earth and "Bad Culture" as man made, or being made "from the top down". This stuck me as similar to the High culture and pop culture we discussed in class.

The author also points out that, with this view, no matter how much we protest against the mass production of things, it is in our social nature to consume. From the sociological perspective he is taking, as a culture we buy to feel belongingness to the culture or group. So even if we are not buying things produced in sweat shops, we look for other ways to do this.

I thought this was an interesting take on culture jamming, consumerism and the history of culture jams. A long read but still pretty cool.

-BritFan

Some more recent culture jams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66xFYpooGpo

This video tells us things we pretty much already know about culture james, what they are, who makes them etc. It does however, show a lot of neat jams based within the 21st century, and many which are politically charged which I found pretty neat. It also goes over some key points in why these culture jams are remerging today (counter act consumerism/captialism, take a stand against mass production etc).

Thought I would share incase some of you haven't seen these jams before.

-BritFan

Graffiti 2

I also liked this one....very grass roots!

Abbey Road

Graffiti

I was thinking about early forms of culture jams and that it is possible that people would have come up with the idea out of convience. So if someone sees a poster or a billboard that inspires them with a message they want to convey to the public and they then take action to convey that message. This action could be graffiti. Graffiti to change the text or image of a advertisement is a culture jam. I was going through images of these that I could online and I found many culture jams that seemed to be born spontaneously out of the need to express oneself. Graffiti is a form of culture jamming that can be created very easily.
I found many images of advertisements that had been commented on related to women's issues. Many dealing with the portrayal of women in the media and in society in general. The specific one that was most interesting to me was an advertisement for a car, saying "If it were a lady, it would get it's bottom pinched." Then underneath written with spray paint is "if this lady was a car she'd run you down." I find this culture jam not only funny but very telling on how women were seen in the time this advertisement was made. In this ad women are being objectified by being compared to a car and the statement is that it would be perfectly acceptable to grab this supposed car/women's butt with the only invitation being that she looks good.
I think that graffiti is an early form of culture jamming that began because of it's accessibility to people who want to express themselves.

Interesting Blog

http://afeministresponsetopopculture.blogspot.com/

Above is a link to another feminist blog which critiques media and pop culture. The woman who writes it has a masters degree in women's studies and shares plenty of pictures/rants about numerous articles and signs she comes across. The also shares a lot of counter culture.

She takes on the movie "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell". I have never seen this movie and by the looks of it, I probably don't want to. The quotes she pulled out of this movie were seriously disturbing!!

Another interesting post was one about the shows "According to Jim" and "Roseanne", where the wives appear to be "powerful" women, but in which the men in their lives continue to treat them like property. Again...disturbing.

Anyway, hopefully you ladies like this blog as much as I did!!

-BritFan

I scanned these culture jams from a day planner that I bought my friend for christmas! With the rise of second wave feminism, women began to fight for equality with men of the white, upper class. Some women decided they were no longer happy being submissive, housewives and attempted to resist the 1950's dominant discourse. In this time period media constructed an "ideal" image of how a nuclear family should look and act; women were expected to be content cooking and cleaning. As we learned in class, in order for a women's status to be changed and in order to resist hegemonic views of society; representations surrounding women needed to shift. Here are come culture james that counteract the classic 1950's woman.

Danger Powers

Early Culture Jamming

So far I have read a lot of websites that when you put in a search like...origins of culture jamming you get a very specific answer about how culture jamming was coined by an Alt-rock group from Berkley California in 1984 or there abouts. This is a very simple and perfectly acceptable explaination for where culture jamming came from....but what about before culture jamming got it's name, people had to have been doing it. Culture jamming is a protest. It can be a protest about whatever the artist thinks is corrupting or leading the world astray. It's a manifest form of protesting that allows the message of the protester to be conveyed to whatever audience they choose to expose it to. I read an article online by Steve Mizrach that said some of the first culture jammers were people who practised detournement. Detournement began in medieval times with authority figures dressing up in fool's clothing to atest that their authority is socially created and maintained. It changed through time into the changing of dialogue in popular images to convey a message that is a response to the ideologies that are already appearent in mass media. Culture jamming changing from the authority figures showing or perhaps throwing in their subjects face the power that they hold is a way of showing that this authority is made by the society that existed at the time and is only upheld by the societal beliefs that exist. The switch to protesting these societal conventions is action to try to throw down these societal beliefs and change the pattern that has existed since medieval times. So as you can see culture jamming existed far before the 1980's.

Andy Warhol: An early example of culture jamming that I want to bring up is Andy Warhol, specifically his very famous cambell's soup image. Warhol's art is classified as pop art, which I take to mean as comveying whats popular in art. The cambell's soup image is a blatant comment on consumerism in the Western world. In no other nation would an image of a soup can become something that people would celebrate. It is a comment on rising consumerism in the 1960's, painted in 1968. If Warhol was making pop art and chose the simple image of the soup can it was to let the viewers know that the country is addicted to buying and owning things, hoarders of anything that will allow them to be able to say that they own the newest or latest thing. Think about how many people might have had this image hanging on their wall, further perpetuating the message. Not only is the image of consumerism obvious in image itself but the actual art is furthering the point. The point is...people will buy anything.

Abbey Road

This cultural artifact dramitizes who holds power. Women who resist the"cultural norms " of what it means to be a feminin, are considered the "bitch". In this case being compared to a dog implys that wives are low on the hierarchy of power, and they are clearly a threat to ones safety.

Danger Powers

Another Pic!

I found this earlier and forgot to post it. It goes well with the assignment theme!! Its a flashback to earlier media forms, but culture jammed with today's technology.

And how hilarious...Cola for a better child. Drink cola to fit in!! Boy...wish my mom had given me more cola when I was a kid.

Source: http://www.kozinets.net

-BritFan

Random, but pretty funny.

So, I was browsing a local blog/comic and found this and thought it was pretty funny. This is done by Kyle Lees, who is also the cartoonist for the Argus. It's not really a culture jam that we are used to seeing, but fits with the class theme because it is making fun of what "pop culture" is...essentially about imagery and looking a certain way etc. And its local!! Can't go wrong with that!!

If you wanna check out more of this comic, its available @:
http://www.premise-beach.com

-BritFan

Hey guys,

I was browsing on you tube and found this hilarious culture jam video. Watch it!

Divorcing in the Privacy of your own home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQtJ8nD4MFY&feature=related

It pokes fun at how cultural ideals are changing.

Danger Powers

Article: To Play with Stream - READ IT!!

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/18799874/culture-jamming-as-subversive-recreation

This is a really good article that gives a little background to some of the history of culture jamming, and why it is remerging as a means of counter culture.

The resurgence of culture jamming in the 20th and 20st century, according to this author, has been taking place as a means of countering mass production, consumption and mass transportation due to the increase in consumerism we've seen. Not only that, but globalization has created mass production and consumption an issue world wide, and people are starting to backlash.

The internet serves as a vehicle for mass media, but also as an important role for culture jammers in getting their messages out to a wide audience. Where as before, culture jams may have only been on local zines and billboards, now we can access sites like Adbusters and Google, which provide numerous sources of counter culture. What was interesting in this article, was culture jamming going on in Solvenia. These issues have recently begun, there and the population is already up in arms and producing a lot of counter culture. Before the society was more focused on the state socialism and recently it has turned to focus on counter capitalism.

The author does not see a bright future for culture jamming into the 21st century, because they see it as already having been written off and over popular with the novelty wearing off. They also say that no major social change can come of it. In my opinion, although there may not have been MAJOR social change as a result of culture jamming, it is still a creative and effective way to get peoples attention towards problems in our society. What do YOU think??

- BritFan

Whats the Point?

Culture Jamming is a effective way to illustrate how dominant ideologies are changing. The famous painting American Gothic, by Grant Wood is a classic representation of the social values in the United States during that particular time period (1930's) Culture Jams have been useful in demonstrating the chaging social ideals, in this case from religious farmers to materialistic consumers. In the classic image the American couple are represented as simple farmers who have no material possessions except their wooden house, the clothes on their back and their pitchfork. The Culture Jammed picture depicts a modern American with fancy clothes and accessories, an abundance of technologies (car, cell phone, satalite dish) and an American with more leisure time (the golf club replacing the pitchfork) To take it a step further this classic painting has been jammed several times over.

Everyone can recongize Paris Hilton and her sidekick Nicole Richie; and how they have
highly sexulaized the image of the American. This parody shows how some American values have shifted from hard work to no need to work... if your hot.

To see more American Gothic parodies go to:

http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=American+Gothic&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=

Danger Powers

Some of this information has been paraphrased from Practices of Looking; An Introduction to Visual Culture. Written by Marita Struken an Lisa Cartwright

Getting started...

Where did culture jamming come from? What does it mean; who started it; what's the point; why is it resurging in the late C20 / early C21?

The Doctor

Testing

The Dr.