Tuesday, August 24, 2010

TuteSpark Week 5


Culture Jamming

A colloquialism referring to a species of media activism usually presented in the form of a fraudulent mass media event.
To me, it is making the unrealistic, realistic.
Rather than the rest of our world, that is so scared of offending everyone and stepping on people's toes, culture jamming breaks down the barriers and shows the truth. It is a reality check in this world that covers up the real issues at hand. Culture Jamming can be demonstrated in numerous ways, not just by edited pictures. An example is a video Fall Out Boy did a few years ago to help make people aware of child soilering in Uganda.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAgbZdrWiN4
First Cultural Jamming:

It is hard to pinpoint the "first" instance of cultural jamming as it can be argued it started in the late 1800's or the 1950's. I vote, it started to became a confrontation in the 1950's. (Studies in Art Education, 2004, http://thedepartmentofaesthetics.org/VisCultJAM.pdf, Accessed 26th August 2010)

Most Influential Jamming:

An extremely good example of influential culture jamming was the iPod mock posters of the Iraqi war that is currently an issue. In America these posters kept showing up on billboards and across many. (TUAW, http://www.tuaw.com/2004/06/11/more-ipod-iraq-mock-posters-showing-up/, Accessed 27th August 2010) It caused necessary alarm. It caused a lot of attention because the iPod advertisement is such a popular and well known one. People would look at the picture to the left and not even realise the mock posters were embedded unless they took another look. The picture on the right (>>) demonstrates four of the pictures that were being displayed, especially around New York City and LA.
This personally was my favourite example of culture jamming as well. Bringing the realistic into the unrealistic world.
Most Damaging Jamming:
Cultural Jamming is a very powerful tool. In the case of Nike, using slave and child labour to manufacture their shoes was a huge example of how powerful culture jamming is. It erupted in 2001. Pictures were posted on billboards, sent through emails, and in the newspapers. Documentaries were made and schools were taught in Geography and Social Science subjects about how Nike was abusing the lives of children, and underpaying those less fortunate. It again erupted into a worldwide known issue in 2004 and 2006 as it was seen that Nike had not fixed their child and slave labour issue and the appalling conditions of their working environment.
(Not My Tribe, http://notmytribe.com/2000/slave-labor-in-modern-times-89.html#more-9, Accessed 27th August 2010)
(Child Labour, http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=32, Accessed 27th August 2010)

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