“When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks. “ - Narrator from Fight Club (1999)
This quote is not far from the truth. Almost all major stadiums and arenas in North America are sponsored now. MTS Center, Investors Group Athletic Center and CanadInns Stadium are only a few examples within our own city. Society is at a point it time where it is surrounded by media telling us what to do and how to do it, and rarely giving anyone a moment to think for ourselves. There are advertisements and logs everywhere and anywhere, from buses to shopping carts to pop-up ads on websites, to apps on a smartphone.
Resistance is futile.
Or is it? There are those that oppose this consumerism through visual culture jamming. These artists will take an image from the mass media and reconstruct it in such a way that it has a different context, usually political. Culture jamming allows creators and viewers alike to critically examine messages that the media is sending to a society of consumers.
Teenagers, in particular, are incredibly consumed with materialistic objects that surround their daily life. Certain brands and labels notate power and status among peers, and ridicule follows if someone displays the wrong one. The technology that delivers such brands to the hands of today's youth is so advanced and instantaneous that it reinstates Marshall McLuhan's theory of the “Global Village”. This information spreads like a virus and avoiding the messages is next to impossible.
Just as the technology can infect an entire generation with its messages of mass consumption, it can also be used to oppose these mass media powers in ways that were inconceivable in McLuhan's time, but would make him proud today. Like jamming a transmission on the radio, the culture jammers, such as Adbusters, Negativland and even Steven Colbert, are also trying to scramble the message being sent by advertisers to consumers. There is a plethora of technological platforms to which culture jammers can immediately get their point across : Websites like facebook or YouTube, Twitter, text or multimedia message through a cell phone or emails. These are all mediums that teenagers are well aware of and quite well versed in. Incorporating a media literacy course into the curriculum would be very beneficial to students and, as Pat Kippling points out, it teaches students to be better citizens. When students understand and can deconstruct the advertising that is forced upon them, they become more aware of the media saturated world they live in.
Teachers can incorporate the concept of culture jamming across a wide variety of disciplines as a visual text. In their article “Jamming Visual Culture”, James Albright and Chris Walsh state that many of the texts that students are reading now are digital (internet, TV, or Video) rather than print. This instant access of information allows them to process and consume images and text faster than the generation before them. But are they aware of what is being thrown at them? It is in this question that the need for visual literacy and media awareness courses becomes important.
Students in a media awareness class would likely take on a project of their own culture jam such as creating a fake advertisement, website hoax, or re-branding a major corporation. Not only would students be able to investigate the meaning behind the message, they would be able to create their own works according to the criteria. As photo-editing software is becoming more mainstream, many students may already be exposed to these programs at home and could readily create these anti-consumerist advertisements. They could then post their messages in the virtual world(such as on a blog or on a class website) or they could display their piece in the classroom or even in the community.
However, culture jamming can be taken to an extreme where the art becomes vandalism and some empowered students may take the idea too far. Graffiti in Winnipeg is a growing problem, so much so that spray paint is under lock and key and is not sold to anyone under the age of 18. Arts education is all about encouraging students to push boundaries, however, as part of their studies, students must understand the severe consequences that can result from culture jamming.
When students are educated in media literacy, they are better able to analyze and reflect upon the messages that the media places upon them. It is through visual discourse of the images being projected that the student is allowed to think beyond what they see and instead of media telling them what to think,culture jamming urges the audience to control the message.
References
Albright, J., & Walsh, C. (2003). Jamming visual culture. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 11(2), Retrieved from http://academia.edu.documents.s3.amazonaws.com/895176/Jamming_Visual_Culture.pdf
City of Winnipeg, . (2010, July 7). Winnipeg works graffiti removal service. Retrieved from http://www.winnipeg.ca/publicworks/graffiti/
Darts, D. (2004). Visual culture jam: art, pedagogy, and. Stuhes in An Education, 45(4), Retrieved from http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/001/665/VisCultJAM.pdf
Derry, M. (1993). Culture jamming:hacking, slashing and sniping in the empire of signs. Open Magazine Pamphlet, Pamphlet #25. Retrieved from http://www.rebelart.net/source/dery.pdf
Karen,K.. (2007, March 22). Culture jamming, the good, the bad and the ugly [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://lets--talk--about--it.blogspot.com/2007/03/culture-jamming-good-bad-and-ugly.html
Lloyd, J. (n.d.). Culture jamming: semiotic banditry in the streets . Retrieved from http://www.hums.canterbury.ac.nz/cult/research/lloyd.htm
Perry, S.E. (2002). The ambivalent intermediary:adbusters and the pursuit of counter-hegemony. Cultural Reflections, 4(Spring), Retrieved from http://anthropology.uvic.ca/publications/2002_cult_refl_vol_4.pdf
Sandlin, J.A., & Milam, J.L. (2008). Mixing pop (culture) and politics. Curriculum Inquiry, 38(3), Retrieved from http://faculty.rcoe.appstate.edu/jacksonay/sandlinmilamcriticalpedagogy.pdf
