Culture Jam

Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication) is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It attempts to "expose the methods of domination" of mass society. Culture jamming employs techniques originally associated with Letterist International, and later Situationist International known as détournement. It uses the language and rhetoric of mainstream culture to subversively critique the social institutions that produce that culture. Tactics include editing company logos to critique the respective companies, products, or concepts they represent, or wearing fashion statements that criticize the current fashion trends by deliberately clashing with them. Culture jamming often entails using mass media to produce ironic or satirical commentary about itself, commonly using the original medium's communication method. Culture jamming is also a form of subvertising. Culture jamming aims to highlight and challenge the political assumptions underlying commercial culture, and argues that culture jamming is a response to socially imposed conformity. Prominent examples of culture jamming include the adulteration of billboard advertising by the Billboard Liberation Front and contemporary artists such as Ron English. Culture jamming may involve street parties and protests. While culture jamming usually focuses on subverting or critiquing political and advertising messages, some proponents focus on a different form which brings together artists, designers, scholars, and activists to create works that transcend the status quo rather than merely criticize it. In addition to these political and cultural aims, researchers have noted that the pleasure involved in culture jamming plays an important role in sustaining participation. Analysts argue that fun can link individual acts of subversion to a broader, imagined protest community, helping disparate actions feel part of a shared project. This affective style both draws on and resists the dominant emotion regime of late capitalism, making emotional engagement not only a tactic but also an end in itself.