Culture jamming around us

http://weburbanist.com/2007/10/08/culture-jamming-political-commercial-and-social-signs-of-our-times/

Culture jamming always exists in our world in the recent years. No matter the posters, advertisements or slogans; all can be source for us to make culture jamming. In this blog, I know there are three kinds of cultural jamming: commercial, political and social signs.

Previously, the commercial form is the most well known form of culture jamming, as the commercial or commodity advertisements are worthier to create subvertisements in order to against the original ads. These images mainly target consumers themselves with a specific message to let the consumers to think about why they consume. Like an example posted in the blog, the logo of McDonald’s is pasted on the electrocardiograph, meaning that it will be harmful to health if a person always have McDonald’s meals. This subvertisement just used a simple artwork to present an image.

Nevertheless, more and more political or social forms of culture jamming exist nowadays. The culture jam posted in the blog invoked me that Hong Kong also had such political and social forms of culture jamming. For instance, there was a MTR advertisement originally promotes its service and extension project. The advertisement had a slogan “I’m sorry for the bother” apologizing that the constructions work may bother the neighbors and admire their patient. However, some netizens base on this advertisement to create other contents, like talking about the Octopus sold customers’ personal information to other companies for making profit. Thus, the netizens pasted the CEO of the Octopus onto the MTR poster, and changed the slogan into “I haven’t thought that personal information can make profit.” Because of the relationship between the MTR and the Octopus, the scandal of the Octopus can be linked to the MTR easier. Therefore, this kind of culture jamming is a direct way to link the original advertisement and social issue.

I think culture jamming is a good way to express people’s opinions. Apart from the above example and the works posted in the blog, we cannot escape from culture jamming in our world. Most culture jamming are in image form, I think it is easier to be remembered or arouse other’s interest rather than just use an article or vocal.

Here are the images I have mentioned above:

The original image

Culture jam by netizen