Culture jamming is a mechanism in which an activist or activist group attempts to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions including corporate advertising. Many culture jams are simply aimed at exposing questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture so that people can momentarily consider the branded environment in which they live. Culture jams re-figure logos, fashion statements, and product images to challenge the idea of "what's cool," along with assumptions about the personal freedoms of consumption. Culture jamming sometimes entails transforming mass media to produce ironic or satirical commentary about itself, using the original medium's communication method. Usually employed in opposition to a perceived appropriation of public space, or as a reaction against social conformity. Prominent examples of culture jamming include the adulteration of billboard advertising by the BLF and Ron English and the street parties and protests organised by Reclaim the Streets.
The BLF at work
The phrase "culture jamming" comes from the idea of radio jamming: that public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independent communication, or to disrupt dominant frequencies. Culture jamming can be traced as far back as the 1950s. One can attempt to trace the roots of culture jamming in medieval carnival, which Mikhail Bakhtin interpreted as a subversion of the social hierarchy (in Rabelais and his World).
One of the most influential groups is The Situationists, based in Europe and originally led by Guy Debord. The Situationists, or Situs, were the first revolutionary group to analyse capitalism in its current consumerist form.
In a spectacular demonstration of the validity of their ideas, a group of Situationists, along with anarchists, at the Nanterre University were instrumental in sparking the Revolt of May 1968 which swept the country, bringing it to a state of near-revolution, with 10 million workers on General Strike, many of them occupying their workplaces.
The most notorious television interruption incident, however, occurred on November 22nd 1987, when a still-unknown individual hijacked two local television stations in Chicago, broadcasting a couple of short segments inspired by the popular Max Headroom character. First, Channel 9 (WGN-TV)'s Nine O'Clock News programme was interrupted for around thirty seconds by video of a man in a Max Headroom mask standing in front of a swaying sheet designed to look like static interference. There was no audio on this video, apart from a persistent buzzing sound. Around two hours later, a PBS (WTTW) broadcast of the 'Doctor Who' serial 'The Horror of Fang Rock' was interrupted by the same video, this time with audio, and the unknown individual could be heard to say 'That does it, he's a freakin' nerd' before laughing and continuing to utter random phrases. A number of small edits made it apparent that the video was pre-recorded, and WTTW engineers were unable to interrupt the broadcast until it cut out after ninety seconds. To date, there is still no explanation for the event, and the identity of the perpetrator(s) is unknown. However, the Max Headroom incident became nationwide news in the US, largely because of widespread fear that anarchist groups could continue to hijack television broadcasts.
David Hennessy argues that incidents such as the Max Headroom signal intrusion represent a major attack on viewers' perception of television as an order, safe environment, since "viewers expect to see something that has been culturally sanctioned, so any interruption (such as the Max Headroom incident) represents nothing less than a breakdown of one of the key mechanisms by which society communicates with itself" (Hennessy, 2008, p. 140). Accordingly, it was noted at the time that several individuals had anxiety and panic attacks as a result of the intrusion incident, and the US was gripped with fear that another such attack could be coming soon. In fact, the Max Headroom incident was not repeated, and many critics have struggled to understand why someone would launch just two attacks and then disappear. When the WMAQ-TV channel pretended to suffer a similar attack, the station received numerous panicked calls from viewers. As Hennessy goes on to note, "many people see television as a kind of proof that the world is working as expected, and interruptions to the service can generate considerable unease" (Hennessy, 2008, p. 142). Ultimately, the Max Headroom incident represented a major loss of control. As a form of anarchist intervention in the affairs of the mainstream media, Max Headroom-style culture jamming has been shown to be an effective means of causing panic.
Some critics argue that culture jamming, although apparently harmless, may yet lead to an eventual crisis situation. For example, it's one thing to interrupt a television broadcast of a sitcom or a science-fiction series, but it's another thing to seamlessly insert a fake broadcast into, for example, a news programme; in this way, it might be possible to convince the public that nuclear war has broken out, or that a terrorist attack has been launched. The potential for disaster in such a situation is clear, and while culture jamming remains relatively rare, many critics believe it's only a matter of time before a culture jamming incident causes significant panic and damage.
David Hennessy argues that incidents such as the Max Headroom signal intrusion represent a major attack on viewers' perception of television as an order, safe environment, since "viewers expect to see something that has been culturally sanctioned, so any interruption (such as the Max Headroom incident) represents nothing less than a breakdown of one of the key mechanisms by which society communicates with itself" (Hennessy, 2008, p. 140). Accordingly, it was noted at the time that several individuals had anxiety and panic attacks as a result of the intrusion incident, and the US was gripped with fear that another such attack could be coming soon. In fact, the Max Headroom incident was not repeated, and many critics have struggled to understand why someone would launch just two attacks and then disappear. When the WMAQ-TV channel pretended to suffer a similar attack, the station received numerous panicked calls from viewers. As Hennessy goes on to note, "many people see television as a kind of proof that the world is working as expected, and interruptions to the service can generate considerable unease" (Hennessy, 2008, p. 142). Ultimately, the Max Headroom incident represented a major loss of control. As a form of anarchist intervention in the affairs of the mainstream media, Max Headroom-style culture jamming has been shown to be an effective means of causing panic.
Some critics argue that culture jamming, although apparently harmless, may yet lead to an eventual crisis situation. For example, it's one thing to interrupt a television broadcast of a sitcom or a science-fiction series, but it's another thing to seamlessly insert a fake broadcast into, for example, a news programme; in this way, it might be possible to convince the public that nuclear war has broken out, or that a terrorist attack has been launched. The potential for disaster in such a situation is clear, and while culture jamming remains relatively rare, many critics believe it's only a matter of time before a culture jamming incident causes significant panic and damage.
- Carducci, Vince (2006) `Culture Jamming: A Sociological Perspective', Journal of Consumer Culture 6(1): 116-3
- link: http://libcom.org/thought/situationists-an-introduction
- link: http://www.24houressay.co.uk/essays/bio/broadcast_signal_intrusion.html
For our culture jam we decided to see how easy it would be to infiltrate the 'pop' scene and deceive the public. To do this we had a number of ideas during our brainstorm but decided to choose a popular nightclub on the Gold Coast and create a rumour of a surprise guest to build hype. We chose Sin City located in Surfers Paradise and focused on the night of their '2nd birthday bash' the 10th September. We firstly created fake facebook and twitter accounts to encourage 'followers' and 'friends'. We received 104 friends on facebook.
Link to facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001513009795&ref=ts
Link to twitter page: http://twitter.com/Sin_City_GC
On the day of Sin City's birthday bash we announced via facebook and twitter that Jay Z would be performing at the club that night, people started commenting on facebook and passing the message on. We designed a promotional poster for the event and printed off 20 copies, posting them around the universities. Bec and I saw a student look at the poster and call his friend to tell him.
Our topic wasnt controversial but it was very interesting to see how easy it is to potentially cause havoc and start rumours, especially today with the availability of social media technology.
