The reading is titled ‘Pranking rhetoric: “culture jamming” as media activism’ which is written by Christine Harold. Her main focus in the essay is theory of culture jamming and the rhetorical appropriation of pranking. She has stated that the consuming desire of consumers is controlled by the corporate powers and the control from the powers has been increased in recent years, consumers are so passive in the case that some may not resist from this increase. Therefore, culture jamming is a very way to resist from the act of the corporate powers. So what culture jamming is?
Culture jamming is a ‘rhetorical process of intervention and invention’ which is to say it interrupts some power structures or discourses and uses the original resources existed to recreate or invent a new idea to challenge or oppose the original one. This introduces noises to the issues, or gives alternatives to audiences to think about the issue critically, or reveal the truth of the issue behind, etc. In the essay, Harold has listed some examples from Adbusters. Adbusters is a medium for global culture jammers to post their culture jammed pieces online in order to ‘change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power, and the way meaning is produced in our society’. It not only publishes magazines but also holds campaigns. Here is an example from Adbusters.
This picture shows us the evolution of human beings. And the culture jammed part is the word ‘buyological’ which is assonance of ‘biological’. This means that human’s evolution recently doesn’t evolve not in the way of what human originally do already but with tones of products and brands.
However, Harold stated that what adbusters is doing is not comprehensive as it just asks people to say ‘No!’ to the corporate powers that audiences is not really involved in. So, she has suggested the pranking rhetoric as a tool of culture jamming. Pranking defines as to trick, to fold, and to adorn. What pranksters do is to strategically augment and utilize the precious resources to a new invention which is often comedic in challenging consumer culture. People use this method to resist ‘by playfully and provocatively folding existing cultural forms in on themselves’. This becomes the main characteristics of culture jamming nowadays especially in Hong Kong. Here is an example listed in the essay which is about The Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO). BLO was founded in 1989 and aimed at revealing and correcting the problem of gender – based stereotyping in children’s toys. They have a project of buying hundreds of Barbie and G.I Joe and selling them out during the Christmas shopping season. In the project, they have exchanged the voice box of Barbie and G.I Joe that Barbie would say, ‘Vengeance is mine!’ while G.I Joe would say ‘Let’s plan our dream wedding!’. What amazing is that children loves the edited toys more than the original one.
This kind of resistance not only enhances the involvement of audiences, but also brings large responses to consumerism and corporate power which is provocative.
We have considered 4 questions to the discussion part.
1. Are there any pros and cons of online jamming?
2. Why do you share pieces with culture jamming through online social network like facebook?
3. According to utilitarianism by Immanuel Kant while majority happiness is fulfilled, materials of online jamming would be moral, do you agree? Why?
4. Is there any relationship among protest and online jamming?
For the first question we discussed, this would lead to the effectiveness of online jamming and there are some other advantages rather than resistance aspect. For the second question, this leads to the issue of constructing identity and impression management. Besides, the third question raised concern of utilitarianism by Immanuel Kant as what people shared or jammed is using the original resources like news, drama or movies so morality or ethics can be discussed whether majority happiness is more important than the feelings of minority/the victims and the copyright of the creation. As we have mentioned before, there are some culture jammed products are created to resist in political aspects so we considered the forth question about relationship of protest and online jamming.
To conclude, why does the topic related to our course? First, the medium people share and spread the culture jammed ideas are usually online social network so it has reached the question of online and offline identity that online identity is being constructed while people share the idea. Second, the person, or victim, being culture jammed is actually a cyborg. As the idea of ‘human body should end at skin’ and ‘human has linkage with every part of the body’ has been mentioned in lectures, the person, being edited by technology like Photoshop and slaughtered into different parts to suit in the jammed one, is a cyborg.
By Leung Frances and Ng Angela
If the message of the culture jamming is positive, e.g. it aims to tell people the other side of the fact or asking more people to be conscious on a particular issue, putting it online is a good way to fulfill those goals. Because nowadays, people being more active on internet, putting this kind of culture jamming online can reach a huge amount of people then draw the public awareness effectively. However, if the nature of the message aims to confuse people and lumping things together, online jamming could be said as a horrible creature.
ReplyDeleteI often share some jamming picture on my Facebook, because I want my friend would also concern on the issue which expressed throught the jamming picture. A picture is a very easy form of tool to let people to re-think the subject/ questions of the case. Of course, I would hope that my friend would have the same point of view as me to agree/ disagree on the issue.
I agree the presenters that online jamming is a kind of catalytic agent to protest, especially when people put other picture online. Because there are so many people going online, and keep checking with their own online social network (facebook or twitter), they would follow the post whenever they want. when the online jamming is againsing the governmenmt policies, the online jimming will become a horn which drawing attentions and asking people to participate.
Culture jamming is undoubtedly a brilliant way for rebellion- no matter to the tradition or government. Take an example of the “Grass-mud-horse” (the alpaca) (as the presenter mentioned)which has caused a big impact in the mainland China society. Besides, share message online can caught citizen’s attention immediately. For example, citizens in mainland China has posted a message online for the “Pro-Cantonese Protest”, 2000 people were gathered and protested within two days. Culture jamming helps to rich the common consensus easily. Since the culture jamming (product) is hardly be detected through the “Big MaMa” (the government censorship system), the message can “survive” and last longer. Therefore, the combination of culture jamming and online network is by far the best way for rebellion.
ReplyDeleteYet, culture jamming can be resulting in cyber-bullying. Innocent people may get involved with an issue without committing crimes or making political decisions. Internet users can make fun of someone they hatred through culture jamming.
It can also be a tool for a company to attack another company. For instance, Company A and Company B are both fast food restaurants. Company A wants to attack Company B, so it hired someone to culture jammed Company B with rumors, therefore endangering Company B’s business.
This is a serious problem we have to concern. Since the impact of culture jamming is too huge, we may have to reconsider the ethics of internet using.
Sharing posts of culture jamming, in my opinion is not a big deal.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone want share funny things to others especially in digital age, the purpose of sharing is make fun instead of hurting others. Therefore, culture jam is possible.
Almost cases of culture jam are related to politics. For an example, Act Now" Campaign was edited by online jammer to “All wrong” campaign. It is other way for jammer to express their opinion or even anger to government. On positive side, they just change the context of the poster. It is better than holding a protest on street. This kind of jamming will not affect the real life movement.
One point I have impressed is culture jam can be a cyborg. This point I have never think before and I think this concept have expand which cyborg is not only for machine but image. If culture jam can regard as cyborg, many “P.S” (Photoshop) girls can also call cyborg. It seems cyborg is more related to our life.
The picture of “The BUYOLOGICAL URGE” is really applicable to the new generation. It is very true that human’s evolutions nowadays are with tones of products and brands. Our desires to purchase the products and services are in ever-greater amounts.
ReplyDeleteTo a large extent, culture jamming is a very useful way to raise people awareness when you want to catch people’s eyes. And it is actually a good tool for some folk organization which is not enough capital to promote their event. For this cyber generation, facebook, twitter, youtube, weibo etc, these kinds of platforms highly facilitate the mobilization of culture jammed products. Thus, those culture jammed products can be spread widely in just a minute. And of course, there is always the other side of culture jamming, so people should make their own choice when making the culture jammed products.
Overall your presentation is very impressive, as your group can apply the concept of cyborg in this topic which bring me to think about the image also can be a cyborg. That means the photo which is holding in my hand may also is a cyborg!
Culture jamming is a good way to arouse the public attention about an issue, no matter for entertainment or political used. The message can be transfer very quickly via the internet in a short time. However, not all the culture jamming can successfully raise the awareness from the public. Sometimes the successfulness is depends on the creativity of creator and the nature of issue.
ReplyDeleteFinally, the idea that culture jam can be a cyborg is quite impress me. :)
I think culture jamming can bring us more fun to the real life. I think the internet can let us share the staff such as photo song video to our friend very quickly. It will make our life become more and more interesting.However,culture jamming will be bad if someone using it works on the "cyber bullying". I hope all the people can have a good use on the internet and the culture jamming will be full of fun =]
ReplyDelete