Culture Jamming

A collaboration of political activism and participatory culture seeking to upend consumer capitalism, including interviews with The Yes Men, The Guerrilla Girls, among others. Coined in the 1980s, “culture jamming” refers to an array of tactics deployed by activists to critique, subvert, and otherwise “jam” the workings of consumer culture. Ranging from media hoaxes and advertising parodies to flash mobs and street art, these actions seek to interrupt the flow of dominant, capitalistic messages that permeate our daily lives. Employed by Occupy Wall Street protesters and the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot alike, culture jamming scrambles the signal, injects the unexpected, and spurs audiences to think critically and challenge the status quo. The essays, interviews, and creative work assembled in this unique volume explore the shifting contours of culture jamming by plumbing its history, mapping its transformations, testing its force, and assessing its efficacy. Revealing how culture jamming is at once playful and politically transgressive, this accessible collection explores the degree to which culture jamming has fulfilled its revolutionary aims. Featuring original essays from prominent media scholars discussing Banksy and Shepard Fairey, foundational texts such as Mark Dery’s culture jamming manifesto, and artwork by and interviews with noteworthy culture jammers including the Guerrilla Girls, The Yes Men, and Reverend Billy, Culture Jamming makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of creative resistance and participatory culture.

America is no longer a country but a multimillion-dollar brand, says Kalle Lasn and his fellow "culture jammers". The founder of Adbusters magazine, Lasn aims to stop the branding of America by changing the way information flows; the way institutions wield power; the way television stations are run; and the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music, and culture industries set agendas. With a courageous and compelling voice, Lasn deconstructs the advertising culture and our fixation on icons and brand names. And he shows how to organize resistance against the power trust that manages the brands by "uncooling" consumer items, by "dermarketing" fashions and celebrities, and by breaking the "media trance" of our TV-addicted age. A powerful manifesto by a leading media activist, Culture Jam lays the foundations for the most significant social movement of the early twenty-first century -- a movement that can change the world and the way we think and live.

America is no longer a country but a multimillion-dollar brand, says Kalle Lasn and his fellow "culture jammers". The founder of Adbusters magazine, Lasn aims to stop the branding of America by changing the way information flows; the way institutions wield power; the way television stations are run; and the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music, and culture industries set agendas. With a courageous and compelling voice, Lasn deconstructs the advertising culture and our fixation on icons and brand names. And he shows how to organize resistance against the power trust that manages the brands by "uncooling" consumer items, by "dermarketing" fashions and celebrities, and by breaking the "media trance" of our TV-addicted age. A powerful manifesto by a leading media activist, Culture Jam lays the foundations for the most significant social movement of the early twenty-first century -- a movement that can change the world and the way we think and live.

A collaboration of political activism and participatory culture seeking to upend consumer capitalism, including interviews with The Yes Men, The Guerrilla Girls, among others. Coined in the 1980s, “culture jamming” refers to an array of tactics deployed by activists to critique, subvert, and otherwise “jam” the workings of consumer culture. Ranging from media hoaxes and advertising parodies to flash mobs and street art, these actions seek to interrupt the flow of dominant, capitalistic messages that permeate our daily lives. Employed by Occupy Wall Street protesters and the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot alike, culture jamming scrambles the signal, injects the unexpected, and spurs audiences to think critically and challenge the status quo. The essays, interviews, and creative work assembled in this unique volume explore the shifting contours of culture jamming by plumbing its history, mapping its transformations, testing its force, and assessing its efficacy. Revealing how culture jamming is at once playful and politically transgressive, this accessible collection explores the degree to which culture jamming has fulfilled its revolutionary aims. Featuring original essays from prominent media scholars discussing Banksy and Shepard Fairey, foundational texts such as Mark Dery’s culture jamming manifesto, and artwork by and interviews with noteworthy culture jammers including the Guerrilla Girls, The Yes Men, and Reverend Billy, Culture Jamming makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of creative resistance and participatory culture.

Alternative and Activist New Media provides a rich and accessible overview of the ways in which activists, artists, and citizen groups around the world use new media and information technologies to gain visibility and voice, present alternative or marginal views, share their own DIY information systems and content, and otherwise resist, talk back to, or confront dominant media culture. Today, a lively and contentious cycle of capture, cooptation, and subversion of information, content, and system design marks the relationship between the mainstream ‘center’ and the interactive, participatory ‘edges’ of media culture. Five principal forms of alternative and activist new media projects are introduced, including the characteristics that make them different from more conventional media forms and content. The book traces the historical roots of these projects in alternative media, social movements, and activist art, including analyses of key case studies and links to relevant electronic resources. Alternative and Activist New Media will be a useful addition to any course on new media and society, and essential for readers interested in new media activism.

This reader was developed to be used in numerous courses taught in sociology. It is appropriate for an introductory course, as well as a social problems or special topics course. The readings have been selected from numerous well respected sociology journals and they have been edited to make them more "user friendly" for the undergraduate student. This reader allows undergraduate students to read about the major topics in sociology in the words of the original authors. The reader includes a topic guide to help the instructor better integrate the material into their course and well-crafted section openers place each article in context for the student. This series of readings has been vetted by an Advisory Board of sociology instructors to ensure quality.

This book analyses rape culture through the lens of the ‘me too’ era. Drawing feminist theory into conversation with peace studies and improvisation theory, it advocates for peace- building opportunities to transform culture and for the improvisatory resources of ‘culture- jamming’ as a mechanism to dismantle rape culture. The book’s key argument is that cultural attitudes and behaviours can be shifted through the introduction of disrupting narratives, so each chapter ends with a ‘culture- jammed’ re- telling of a traditional fairy tale. Chapter 1 traces an overlap of feminist theory and peace studies, arguing that rape culture is most fruitfully understood through the concept of ‘structural violence.’ Chapter 2 investigates the gender scripts that rape culture produces, considering a female counterpart to the concept of ‘toxic masculinity’: ‘complicit femininity.’ Chapter 3 offers analysis of non- consensual sex and a history of consent education, culminating in an argument that we need to move beyond consent to conceptualise a robust ‘respectful mutuality.’ Chapter 4 ’s history of sexual harassment in the workplace and the rise of #metoo argues that its global manifestations are a powerful peace- building initiative. Chapter 5 situates ‘me too’ within a culture- jamming history, using improvisation theory to show how this movement’s potential can shape cultural reconstruction. This is a provocative and interventionist addition to feminist theory scholarship and is suitable for researchers and students in women’s and gender studies, feminist theory, sociology and peace studies.

Banksy, the Yes Men, Gandhi, Starhawk: the accumulated wisdom of decades of creative protest is now in the hands of the next generation of change-makers, thanks to Beautiful Trouble. Sophisticated enough for veteran activists, accessible enough for newbies, this compact pocket edition of the bestselling Beautiful Trouble is a book that’s both handy and inexpensive. Showcasing the synergies between artistic imagination and shrewd political strategy, this generously illustrated volume can easily be slipped into your pocket as you head out to the streets. This is for everyone who longs for a more beautiful, more just, more livable world – and wants to know how to get there. Includes a new introduction by the editors. Contributors include: Celia Alario • Andy Bichlbaum • Nadine Bloch • L. M. Bogad • Mike Bonnano • Andrew Boyd • Kevin Buckland • Doyle Canning • Samantha Corbin • Stephen Duncombe • Simon Enoch • Janice Fine • Lisa Fithian • Arun Gupta • Sarah Jaffe • John Jordan • Stephen Lerner • Zack Malitz • Nancy L. Mancias • Dave Oswald Mitchell • Tracey Mitchell • Mark Read • Patrick Reinsborough • Joshua Kahn Russell • Nathan Schneider • John Sellers • Matthew Skomarovsky • Jonathan Matthew Smucker • Starhawk • Eric Stoner • Harsha Walia