Marylin Bordwell starts off by describing "uncommercials," specifically the one featured above, to introduce the topic of culture jamming. Culture jamming is technique used to get people to rethink consumerism and the affect media has on them by using rhetorical strategies. "It confronts consumption by targeting the purveyors of excess consumption and challenging them on their own turf" (Bordwell). Adbusters Media Foundation is a leading organization that practices culture jamming; they create national days where people don't watch television or use their cars, they try to undo what the media ingrains into our minds. They release "unadvertisements" in the forms of picture ads, Internet ads, magazines, newspapers, campaigns books and television commercials. I do think that it is an effective form of activism. As Bordwell states, "advertising consumes us as we consume it." People feed into what the media defines as cool or socially accepted, through the advertisements they see every day. Media creates a socially accepted norm that is constantly changing and as it does people feel the need to keep up with it in order to avoid judgement from others. It's not a healthy way to live and definitely does not make people feel great about themselves when they deviate from that norm (for the most part). With organizations like Adbusters, people can decide for themselves that they no longer want to live relying on the media for approval. Once they have someone to show them how consumed they have been, passions to make change emerge and activists are created. Although the reading talks about critiques to Adbusters and how they aren't radical enough to make change, I disagree slightly. They may not be able to make change on their own but with the support from the people they touch they could very well start a movement and progress away from a consumer society. I do think they would need an extremely large number of supporters however.
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