This essay examines the historical development, political activism, and techniques of culture jamming, analysing how this movement generated a monumental change in advertising.
Commercial branding has been embraced by conglomerate companies for over 50 years, saturating targeted milieu with obtrusive emotional messages designed to segment the public into certain groups, with the intention to market their products in a misleading way. The study behind psychographics and demographics aids companies in narrowing down who they are targeting, giving the public little chance to escape these subliminal messages.
1977 brought forward an activist movement, later called B.U.G.A. U.P. (Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions), …show more content…
Bands such as The Clash, The Damned and the Ramones helped lead and aid the punk movement which promoted youth rebelliousness and anti-authoritarian beliefs. The pioneers of punk rock, Sex Pistols, who were responsible for the punk movement, reprised an influential tactic called the situationist prank (Colegrave and Sullivan, 2013) this form of hoax was always political and advocated against the capitalist system. This was the first time media pranks and pop culture became intertwined. The key to a situationist prank was the detournement technique. “Détournement appropriates and alters an existing media artifact, one that the intended audience is already familiar with, in order to give it a new, subversive meaning.” (Malitz, …show more content…
The way these companies portray themselves through advertising are through positive lifestyle ideals, hiding from society the ugly truth that occurs behind the glossy billboards: Child labour, tax evasion, terrible working conditions for staff and cheap quality product that they sell at premium prices. Not only do these corporations create “need” for products but also fabricate false lifestyle ideals and generate harmful narcissistic messages. The desired outcome for the culture jammer is to debunk these falsities, modify, replace or begin a debate about the truth these companies try so hard to
Commercial branding has been embraced by conglomerate companies for over 50 years, saturating targeted milieu with obtrusive emotional messages designed to segment the public into certain groups, with the intention to market their products in a misleading way. The study behind psychographics and demographics aids companies in narrowing down who they are targeting, giving the public little chance to escape these subliminal messages.
1977 brought forward an activist movement, later called B.U.G.A. U.P. (Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions), …show more content…
Bands such as The Clash, The Damned and the Ramones helped lead and aid the punk movement which promoted youth rebelliousness and anti-authoritarian beliefs. The pioneers of punk rock, Sex Pistols, who were responsible for the punk movement, reprised an influential tactic called the situationist prank (Colegrave and Sullivan, 2013) this form of hoax was always political and advocated against the capitalist system. This was the first time media pranks and pop culture became intertwined. The key to a situationist prank was the detournement technique. “Détournement appropriates and alters an existing media artifact, one that the intended audience is already familiar with, in order to give it a new, subversive meaning.” (Malitz, …show more content…
The way these companies portray themselves through advertising are through positive lifestyle ideals, hiding from society the ugly truth that occurs behind the glossy billboards: Child labour, tax evasion, terrible working conditions for staff and cheap quality product that they sell at premium prices. Not only do these corporations create “need” for products but also fabricate false lifestyle ideals and generate harmful narcissistic messages. The desired outcome for the culture jammer is to debunk these falsities, modify, replace or begin a debate about the truth these companies try so hard to