Blog Post 4

This week we talked about the different ways people can take action for social movements. Some of these techniques include culture jamming, bodily staging, and other forms of guerrilla communication. One of those techniques that stood out to me the most was culture jamming. I knew some examples of culture jamming before this class, however, I didn’t know that there was a technical term for it that related to communications and social activism. I also thought it was interesting how this topic can relate to satire in entertainment as well. Culture jamming refers to when activists use already existing platforms to display messages, usually in reference to criticizing the actual platform being used. The most common example I knew of was the technique of billboard hacking since I had seen versions of this in the past, but I wasn’t really aware of all the other forms like actual hacking with the Anonymous group. I also was able to see connections between culture jamming and satirical comedy. In class, we watched Kendall Jenners Pepsi commercial, and then right after we watched the SNL sketch that was making fun of the actual commercial. Although satirical comedy isn’t directly considered culture jamming, I saw a lot of connections between the two because both take an already existing topic or format and then alter it in some way to make commentary on a social issue.