Culture Jamming

Culture jamming (name coined in 1984) is a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It purports to "expose the methods of domination" of mass society to foster progressive change.

Historically, anti-consumerism activity introduced by the "AdBan" - "Boycott All Commercial Media" mail art campaigns started via "Media Free Times - periodical Multimedia Random Sampling of Anarchic Communications Art" established in 1972 as a prototype for remote learning with the use of "multi-media periodicals", that are now commonly referred to as "web pages", was a precursor of Adbusters and associated with "The (San Francisco) Bay Area Committee for Open Media and Public Access." a part of the Free Speech Movement. The work contained lectures and the theoretical outlines for use of telecommunications and media for de-schooling and de-design of mainstream education and an alternative, the Virtual Free University, dedicated to media ethics and resistance to indoctrination.

Culture jamming is often seen as a form of subvertising. Many culture jams are intended to expose apparently questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture. Common tactics include re-figuring logos, fashion statements, and product images as a means 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 mass media, using the original medium's communication method. Culture jamming is 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. While most culture jamming focuses on subverting or critiquing political or advertising messages, some practitioners focus on a more positive, musically inspired form of jamming that brings together artists, scholars and activists to create new forms of cultural production that transcend rather than merely criticize or negate the status quo.

Terms sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming include guerrilla semiotics and night discourse.