AdBusters
Encyclopedia
British Columbia°N date=October 2011°W
The Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian-based not-for-profit, anti-consumerist
, pro-environment
organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn
and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver
, British Columbia
. Adbusters describes itself as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age."
Characterized by some as anti-capitalist or opposed to capitalism, it publishes the reader-supported, advertising-free Adbusters, an activist magazine with an international circulation of 120,000 devoted to challenging consumerism
. Past and present contributors to the magazine include Christopher Hedges, Matt Taibbi
, Bill McKibben
, Jim Munroe
, Douglas Rushkoff
, Jonathan Barnbrook
, David Graeber
, Simon Critchley
, Slavoj Zizek
, Michael Hardt
, David Orrell
and others.
Adbusters has launched numerous international campaigns, including Buy Nothing Day
, TV Turnoff Week
and Occupy Wall Street
, and is known for their "subvertisements
" that spoof popular advertisements
. In English, Adbusters has bi-monthly American, Canadian, Australian, UK and International editions of each issue. Adbusters's sister organizations include Résistance à l'Aggression Publicitaire and Casseurs de Pub in France, Adbusters Norge in Norway, Adbusters Sverige in Sweden and Culture Jammers in Japan.
and Bill Schmalz, a duo of award-winning documentary filmmakers living in Vancouver. Since the early 1980s, Lasn had been making films that explored the spiritual and cultural lessons the West could learn from the Japanese experience with capitalism.
In 1988, the British Columbia Council of Forest Industries, the "voice" of the logging industry, was facing tremendous public pressure from a growing environmentalist movement. The logging industry fought back with a television ad campaign called "Forests Forever." It was an early example of greenwashing: shots of happy children, workers and animals with a kindly, trustworthy sounding narrator who assured the public that the logging industry was protecting the forest.
Lasn and Shmalz were outraged by the use of the public airwaves to deliver what they felt was deceptive anti-environmentalist propaganda. And they responded by producing the "Talking Rainforest" anti-ad in which an old-growth tree explains to a sapling that "a tree farm is not a forest." But the duo wasn't able to buy airtime on the same stations that had aired the forest-industry ad. According to a former Adbusters employee, "The CBC's reaction to the proposed television commercial created the real flash point for the Media Foundation. It seemed that Lasn and Schmaltz's commercial was too controversial to air on the CBC. An environmental message that challenged the large forestry companies was considered 'advocacy advertising' and was disallowed, even though the 'informational' messages that glorified clearcutting were OK."
The foundation was born out of their realization that citizens do not have the same access to the information flows as corporations. One of the foundation's key campaigns continues to be the Media Carta, a "movement to enshrine The Right to Communicate in the constitutions of all free nations, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
For the foundation, concern over the flow of information goes beyond the desire to protect democratic transparency, freedom of speech or the public’s access to the airwaves. Although it supports these causes, the foundation instead situates the battle of the mind at the center of its political agenda. Fighting to counter pro-consumerist advertising is done not as a means to an end, but as the end in itself. This shift in emphasis is a crucial element of mental environmentalism.
In a 1996 interview, Kalle Lasn
explained the foundation's goal:
To counter the belief that advertising focuses on looking toward external rewards for a sense of self, Adbusters recognizes a “natural and authentic self apart from the consumer society”. The magazine aims to provoke anti-consumerist epiphanies. By juxtaposing text and images, the magazine creates a means of raising awareness and getting its message out to people that is both aesthetically pleasing and entertaining.
Activism also takes many other forms such as corporate boycotts and ‘art as protest’, often incorporating humor. This includes clever billboard modifications, google bombing, flash mobs and fake parking tickets for SUVs. A popular example of cultural jamming is the distortion of Tiger Woods’ smile in to the form of the Nike swoosh, calling viewers to question how they view Woods’ persona as a product. Adbusters calls it "trickle up" activism, and encourages its readers to do these activities by honoring culture jamming work in the magazine. In the September/October 2001 "Graphic Anarchy" issue, Adbusters were culture jammed themselves in a manner of speaking: they hailed the work of Swiss graphic designer Ernst Bettler
as "one of the greatest design interventions on record", unaware that Bettler's story was an elaborate hoax
.
On September 13, 2004, Adbusters filed a lawsuit against six major Canadian television broadcasters (including CanWest Global
, Bell Globemedia
, CHUM Ltd.
, and the CBC
) for refusing to air Adbusters videos in the television commercial spots that Adbusters attempted to purchase. Most broadcasters refused the commercials fearing the ads would upset other advertisers as well as violated business principles by “contaminating the purity of media environments designed exclusively for communicating commercial messages”. The lawsuit claims that Adbusters' freedom of expression was unjustly limited by the refusals. Adbusters believes the public deserves a right to be presented with viewpoints that differ from the standard. Under Section 3 of the Broadcasting Act, television is a public space allowing ordinary citizens to possess the same rights as advertising agencies and corporations to purchase 30 seconds of airtime from major broadcasters. There has been talk that if Adbusters wins in Canadian court, they will file similar lawsuits against major U.S. broadcasters that also refused the advertisements
. CNN
is the only network that has allowed several of the foundation's commercials to run.
unanimously overturned a BC Supreme Court
ruling that had dismissed the case in February 2008. The court granted Adbusters the ability to sue the Canadian Broadcasting Company and CanWest Global, the corporations that originally refused to air the anti-car ad “Autosaurus”. The ruling represents a victory for Adbusters, but it is the first step of their intended goal, essentially opening the door for future legal action against the media conglomerates. Kalle Lasn
declared the ruling a success and said, "After twenty years of legal struggle, the courts have finally given us permission to take on the media corporations and hold them up to public scrutiny."
is the primary means through which Adbusters challenges consumerism. The magazine was described by Joseph Heath
and Andrew Potter in their book The Rebel Sell
as "the flagship publication of the culture jamming movement." Culture jamming is heavily influenced by the Situationist International and the tactic of détournement
. The goal is to interrupt the normal consumerist experience in order to reveal the underlying ideology of an advertisement, media message, or consumer artifact. Culture jamming aims to challenge the large, influential corporations that control mainstream media and the flow of information. It is a form of protest
. The term "jam" contains more than one meaning, including improvising, by re-situating an image or idea already in existence, and interrupting, by attempting to stop the workings of a machine.
As already noted, the foundation's approach to culture jamming has its roots in the activities of the situationists and in particular their concept of détournement. This involves the "turning around" of received messages so that they communicate meanings at variance with their original intention. Situationists argue that consumerism creates “a limitless artificiality”, blurring the lines of reality and detracting from the essence of human experience. In the "culture jamming" context, détournement means taking symbols, logos and slogans that are considered to be the vehicles upon which the "dominant discourse" of "late capitalism" is communicated and changing them – frequently in significant but minor ways – to subvert the "monologue of the ruling order" [Debord].
The foundation's activism links grassroots efforts with environmental and social concerns, hoping followers will "reconstruct [their] self through nonconsumption strategies." The foundation is particularly well-known for its culture jamming
campaigns, and the magazine often features photographs of politically-motivated billboard
or advertisement vandalism
sent in by readers. The campaigns attempt to remove people from the “isolated reality of consumer comforts”.
There are three versions of the Blackspot Sneaker. The V1 is designed to resemble the Nike
-owned Chuck Taylor All-Stars
. There is also a V1 in "fiery red."
The V2 is designed by Canadian shoe designer John Fluevog
. It is made from organic hemp
and recycled car tires.
After an extensive search for anti-sweatshop manufacturers around the world, Adbusters found a small union shop in Portugal. The sale of more than twenty-five thousand pairs through an alternative distribution network is an example of Western consumer activism marketing.
, which is critical of Adbusters, claimed that the blackspot shoe's existence proves that "no rational person could possibly believe that there is any tension between 'mainstream' and 'alternative' culture."
In the June 2008 cover story of BusinessWeek Small Business Magazine
, the Blackspot campaign was among three profiled in a piece focusing on "antipreneurs." Two advertising executives were asked to review the campaign for the article's "Ask the Experts" sidebar. Brian Martin of Brand Connections and Dave Weaver of TM Advertising
both gave the campaign favorable reviews.
Martin noted that Blackspot was effectively telling consumers, "We know we are marketing to you, and you are as good as we are at this, and your opinion matters," while Weaver stated that "This is not a call to sales of the shoe so much as it is a call to participate in the community of Adbusters by buying the shoe."
. Adbusters' senior editor Micah White
said they had suggested the protest via their email list and it "was spontaneously taken up by all the people of the world.” Adbusters' website said that from their "one simple demand—a presidential commission to separate money from politics" they would "start setting the agenda for a new America." They promoted the protest with a poster featuring a dancer atop Wall Street's iconic Charging Bull
.
While the movement was started by Adbusters, the group does not control the movement, and it has since grown worldwide
.
Heath and Potter posit that the more alternative or subversive the foundation feels, the more appealing the Blackspot sneaker will become to the mainstream market. They believe consumers seek exclusivity and social distinction and have argued that the mainstream market seeks the very same brand of individuality that the foundation promotes; thus they see the foundation as promoting capitalist values.
The Blackspot Shoes campaign has stirred heated debate, as Adbusters admits to using the same marketing techniques which it denounces other companies for using.
were Jewish. The article questioned why the political implications of this neoconservative influence on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East
, given the role of Israel, were not a subject of debate.
In October 2010, Shopper's Drug Mart pulled Adbusters off of its shelves after a photo montage comparing the Gaza Strip
to the Warsaw ghetto
was featured in an article critiquing Israel's embargo of Gaza. Two frequently pro-Israel Canadian organizations, the Canadian Jewish Congress
and Honest Reporting Canada, rallied to have the magazine blacklisted from bookstores, accusing Adbusters of trivializing the Holocaust and of antisemitism. "The argument is obscene, and continues the disgusting tradition of some supporters of the Palestinian cause to turn Jews into Nazis and Palestinians into Jews. In so doing, these propagandists not only demonize Israelis (i.e., Jews), but minimize the murderous extent and intent of [Nazism's] genocidal project." Adbusters responded to the charges in an op-ed printed in the National Post
, arguing that the charge of antisemitism was being used to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli policies, namely "Israel's occupation of Palestine." Adbusters also pointed out that the Canadian Jewish Congress has itself been the target of complaints by Jewish Canadians, including the left-leaning activist and author Naomi Klein
, who signed an open letter declaring, "We are appalled by recent attempts of prominent Jewish organizations and leading Canadian politicians to silence protest against the State of Israel. We are alarmed by the escalation of fear tactics." Some American academics, including Norman Finkelstein
, an anti-Zionist political scientist, also Jewish, have also compared Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto.
The pictures of the Warsaw ghetto were obtained from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum a year and a half before their use and were provided for a one-time use only. When advised of the use, the museum sent Adbusters a cease and desist letter demanding that the photos be immediately removed from Adbusters’ website. It was later discovered that the images used by Adbusters were in the public domain and/or not owned by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The confusion resulted from the fact that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has pictures on file that they do not own the copyright to, but merely provide access to.
”. These critics feel a need for “resistance against the causes of capitalist exploitation, not its symptoms”.
Academic and news sites:
The Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian-based not-for-profit, anti-consumerist
Anti-consumerism
Anti-consumerism refers to the socio-political movement against the equating of personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions...
, pro-environment
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn is an Estonian Canadian author, magazine editor and activist. Near the end of World War II his family fled Estonia and Lasn spent his childhood in a German refugee camp. He was then resettled in Australia. In the 1960s, he founded a market research company in Tokyo, and in 1970, moved...
and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. Adbusters describes itself as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age."
Characterized by some as anti-capitalist or opposed to capitalism, it publishes the reader-supported, advertising-free Adbusters, an activist magazine with an international circulation of 120,000 devoted to challenging consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
. Past and present contributors to the magazine include Christopher Hedges, Matt Taibbi
Matt Taibbi
Matthew C. "Matt" Taibbi is an American author and journalist reporting on politics, media, finance, and sports for Rolling Stone and Men's Journal, often in a polemical style. He has also edited and written for The eXile, the New York Press, and The Beast.- Early years :Taibbi grew up in the...
, Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben
William Ernest "Bill" McKibben is an American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College...
, Jim Munroe
Jim Munroe
Jim Munroe is a Canadian science fiction author, who publishes his works independently under the imprint No Media Kings.Munroe was managing editor at the magazine Adbusters in the 1990s, before publishing his debut novel Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask in 1999...
, Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture, and his advocacy of open source solutions to social problems.Rushkoff is most frequently regarded as a media...
, Jonathan Barnbrook
Jonathan Barnbrook
Jonathan Barnbrook , is a British graphic designer and typographer. He trained at Central St Martin's and at the Royal College of Art .- Work :...
, David Graeber
David Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber is an American anthropologist and anarchist who currently holds the position of Reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him, and his...
, Simon Critchley
Simon Critchley
Simon Critchley is an English philosopher currently teaching at The New School. He works in continental philosophy. Critchley argues that philosophy commences in disappointment, either religious or political...
, Slavoj Zizek
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
, Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt is an American literary theorist and political philosopher perhaps best known for Empire, written with Antonio Negri and published in 2000...
, David Orrell
David Orrell
David John Orrell is a Canadian mathematician and author who is living in Oxford, England. He received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Oxford. His work in the prediction of complex systems such as the weather, genetics and the economy has been featured in New Scientist,...
and others.
Adbusters has launched numerous international campaigns, including Buy Nothing Day
Buy Nothing Day
thumb|Buy Nothing Day demonstration in [[San Francisco]], November 2000Buy Nothing Day ' is an international day of protest against consumerism observed by social activists. Typically celebrated the Friday after American Thanksgiving in North America and the following day internationally, in 2011...
, TV Turnoff Week
TV turnoff
Screen-Free Week is an annual event where children, families, schools and communities are encouraged to turn off screens and "turn on life"...
and Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street is an ongoing series of demonstrations initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters which began September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district...
, and is known for their "subvertisements
Subvertising
Subvertising is a portmanteau of subvert and advertising. It refers to the practice of making spoofs or parodies of corporate and political advertisements. Subvertisements may take the form of a new image or an alteration to an existing image or icon, often in a satirical manner...
" that spoof popular advertisements
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
. In English, Adbusters has bi-monthly American, Canadian, Australian, UK and International editions of each issue. Adbusters's sister organizations include Résistance à l'Aggression Publicitaire and Casseurs de Pub in France, Adbusters Norge in Norway, Adbusters Sverige in Sweden and Culture Jammers in Japan.
History
Adbusters was founded in 1989 by Kalle LasnKalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn is an Estonian Canadian author, magazine editor and activist. Near the end of World War II his family fled Estonia and Lasn spent his childhood in a German refugee camp. He was then resettled in Australia. In the 1960s, he founded a market research company in Tokyo, and in 1970, moved...
and Bill Schmalz, a duo of award-winning documentary filmmakers living in Vancouver. Since the early 1980s, Lasn had been making films that explored the spiritual and cultural lessons the West could learn from the Japanese experience with capitalism.
In 1988, the British Columbia Council of Forest Industries, the "voice" of the logging industry, was facing tremendous public pressure from a growing environmentalist movement. The logging industry fought back with a television ad campaign called "Forests Forever." It was an early example of greenwashing: shots of happy children, workers and animals with a kindly, trustworthy sounding narrator who assured the public that the logging industry was protecting the forest.
Lasn and Shmalz were outraged by the use of the public airwaves to deliver what they felt was deceptive anti-environmentalist propaganda. And they responded by producing the "Talking Rainforest" anti-ad in which an old-growth tree explains to a sapling that "a tree farm is not a forest." But the duo wasn't able to buy airtime on the same stations that had aired the forest-industry ad. According to a former Adbusters employee, "The CBC's reaction to the proposed television commercial created the real flash point for the Media Foundation. It seemed that Lasn and Schmaltz's commercial was too controversial to air on the CBC. An environmental message that challenged the large forestry companies was considered 'advocacy advertising' and was disallowed, even though the 'informational' messages that glorified clearcutting were OK."
The foundation was born out of their realization that citizens do not have the same access to the information flows as corporations. One of the foundation's key campaigns continues to be the Media Carta, a "movement to enshrine The Right to Communicate in the constitutions of all free nations, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
For the foundation, concern over the flow of information goes beyond the desire to protect democratic transparency, freedom of speech or the public’s access to the airwaves. Although it supports these causes, the foundation instead situates the battle of the mind at the center of its political agenda. Fighting to counter pro-consumerist advertising is done not as a means to an end, but as the end in itself. This shift in emphasis is a crucial element of mental environmentalism.
Mental environmentalism
The subtitle of Adbusters magazine is "The Journal of the Mental Environment."In a 1996 interview, Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn is an Estonian Canadian author, magazine editor and activist. Near the end of World War II his family fled Estonia and Lasn spent his childhood in a German refugee camp. He was then resettled in Australia. In the 1960s, he founded a market research company in Tokyo, and in 1970, moved...
explained the foundation's goal:
"What we're trying to do is pioneer a new form of social activism using all the power of the mass media to sell ideas, rather than products. We're motivated by a kind of `greenthink' that comes from the environmental movement and isn't mired in the old ideology of the left and right. Instead, we take the environmental ethic into the mental ethic, trying to clean up the toxic areas of our minds.
You can't recycle and be a good environmental citizen, then watch four hours of television and get consumption messages pumped at you."
Anti-advertising
Adbusters is anti-advertising: it blames advertising for playing a central role in creating, and maintaining, consumer culture. This argument is based on the fact that the advertising industry goes to great effort and expense to associate desire and identity with commodities. Adbusters believes that advertising has unjustly "colonized" public, discursive and psychic spaces, by appearing in movies, sports and even schools, so as to permeate modern cultures. Adbusters' goals include combating the negative effects of advertising and empowering its readers to regain control of culture, encouraging them to ask "Are we consumers and citizens?."To counter the belief that advertising focuses on looking toward external rewards for a sense of self, Adbusters recognizes a “natural and authentic self apart from the consumer society”. The magazine aims to provoke anti-consumerist epiphanies. By juxtaposing text and images, the magazine creates a means of raising awareness and getting its message out to people that is both aesthetically pleasing and entertaining.
Activism also takes many other forms such as corporate boycotts and ‘art as protest’, often incorporating humor. This includes clever billboard modifications, google bombing, flash mobs and fake parking tickets for SUVs. A popular example of cultural jamming is the distortion of Tiger Woods’ smile in to the form of the Nike swoosh, calling viewers to question how they view Woods’ persona as a product. Adbusters calls it "trickle up" activism, and encourages its readers to do these activities by honoring culture jamming work in the magazine. In the September/October 2001 "Graphic Anarchy" issue, Adbusters were culture jammed themselves in a manner of speaking: they hailed the work of Swiss graphic designer Ernst Bettler
Ernst Bettler
Ernst Bettler is a fictional Swiss graphic designer. He was invented by Christopher Wilson in a 2000 hoax article published in the second issue of Dot Dot Dot, a magazine of visual culture....
as "one of the greatest design interventions on record", unaware that Bettler's story was an elaborate hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
.
Media Carta
"Media Carta" is a charter challenging the corporate control of the public airwaves and means of communication. The goal is to "make the public airwaves truly public, and not just a corporate domain." Over 30,000 people have signed the document voicing their desire to reclaim the public space.On September 13, 2004, Adbusters filed a lawsuit against six major Canadian television broadcasters (including CanWest Global
CanWest Global Communications
Canwest Global Communications Corporation, which operated under the corporate brand Canwest, was a major Canadian media company based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with its head offices at Canwest Place...
, Bell Globemedia
Bell Globemedia
Bell Media is the mass media subsidiary of BCE . Its operations include television broadcasting and production , radio broadcasting , Digital Media, and Internet properties.Bell Media is the successor-in-interest to Baton Broadcasting...
, CHUM Ltd.
CHUM Limited
CHUM Limited was a media company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 1945 to 2007. Immediately prior to its acquisition, it held full or joint control of two Canadian television systems — Citytv and A-Channel — comprising 11 local stations, and one CBC Television affiliate, one...
, and the CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
) for refusing to air Adbusters videos in the television commercial spots that Adbusters attempted to purchase. Most broadcasters refused the commercials fearing the ads would upset other advertisers as well as violated business principles by “contaminating the purity of media environments designed exclusively for communicating commercial messages”. The lawsuit claims that Adbusters' freedom of expression was unjustly limited by the refusals. Adbusters believes the public deserves a right to be presented with viewpoints that differ from the standard. Under Section 3 of the Broadcasting Act, television is a public space allowing ordinary citizens to possess the same rights as advertising agencies and corporations to purchase 30 seconds of airtime from major broadcasters. There has been talk that if Adbusters wins in Canadian court, they will file similar lawsuits against major U.S. broadcasters that also refused the advertisements
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
. CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
is the only network that has allowed several of the foundation's commercials to run.
Legal action
On April 3, 2009, the British Columbia Court of AppealBritish Columbia Court of Appeal
The British Columbia Court of Appeal is the highest appellate court in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The BCCA hears appeals from the Supreme Court of British Columbia and a number of boards and tribunals. The BCCA also hears criminal appeals from the Provincial Court of British...
unanimously overturned a BC Supreme Court
Supreme Court of British Columbia
The Supreme Court of British Columbia is the superior trial court for the province of British Columbia. The BCSC hears civil and criminal law cases as well as appeals from the Provincial Court of British Columbia. Including supernumerary judges, there are presently 108 judges...
ruling that had dismissed the case in February 2008. The court granted Adbusters the ability to sue the Canadian Broadcasting Company and CanWest Global, the corporations that originally refused to air the anti-car ad “Autosaurus”. The ruling represents a victory for Adbusters, but it is the first step of their intended goal, essentially opening the door for future legal action against the media conglomerates. Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn is an Estonian Canadian author, magazine editor and activist. Near the end of World War II his family fled Estonia and Lasn spent his childhood in a German refugee camp. He was then resettled in Australia. In the 1960s, he founded a market research company in Tokyo, and in 1970, moved...
declared the ruling a success and said, "After twenty years of legal struggle, the courts have finally given us permission to take on the media corporations and hold them up to public scrutiny."
Digital Detox Week
In April 2009, the foundation transformed TV Turnoff Week into Digital Detox Week, encouraging citizens to spend seven days "unplugged" without any of electronic devices such as video-game systems and computers.One Flag
The "One Flag" competition encouraged readers to create a flag that symbolized "global citizenship", without using language or commonly known symbols.Culture jamming
Culture jammingCulture jamming
Culture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
is the primary means through which Adbusters challenges consumerism. The magazine was described by Joseph Heath
Joseph Heath
Joseph Heath is a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto. He also teaches at the School of Public Policy and Governance. He received his BA from McGill University, where his teachers included Charles Taylor, and his MA and PhD degrees are from Northwestern University, where he studied...
and Andrew Potter in their book The Rebel Sell
The Rebel Sell
The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed is a non-fiction book written by Canadian authors Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter in 2004...
as "the flagship publication of the culture jamming movement." Culture jamming is heavily influenced by the Situationist International and the tactic of détournement
Detournement
A détournement is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and consist in "turning expressions of the capitalist system against itself." Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was...
. The goal is to interrupt the normal consumerist experience in order to reveal the underlying ideology of an advertisement, media message, or consumer artifact. Culture jamming aims to challenge the large, influential corporations that control mainstream media and the flow of information. It is a form of protest
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...
. The term "jam" contains more than one meaning, including improvising, by re-situating an image or idea already in existence, and interrupting, by attempting to stop the workings of a machine.
As already noted, the foundation's approach to culture jamming has its roots in the activities of the situationists and in particular their concept of détournement. This involves the "turning around" of received messages so that they communicate meanings at variance with their original intention. Situationists argue that consumerism creates “a limitless artificiality”, blurring the lines of reality and detracting from the essence of human experience. In the "culture jamming" context, détournement means taking symbols, logos and slogans that are considered to be the vehicles upon which the "dominant discourse" of "late capitalism" is communicated and changing them – frequently in significant but minor ways – to subvert the "monologue of the ruling order" [Debord].
The foundation's activism links grassroots efforts with environmental and social concerns, hoping followers will "reconstruct [their] self through nonconsumption strategies." The foundation is particularly well-known for its culture jamming
Culture jamming
Culture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
campaigns, and the magazine often features photographs of politically-motivated billboard
Billboard
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
or advertisement vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
sent in by readers. The campaigns attempt to remove people from the “isolated reality of consumer comforts”.
Blackspot Shoes campaign
In 2004, the foundation began selling vegan, indy shoes. The name and logo are "open-source"; in other words, unencumbered by private trademarks. Attached to each pair was a leaflet - "Rethink the Cool" inviting wearers to join a movement, and two spots - one for drawing their own logos and another on the toe for "kicking corporate ass."There are three versions of the Blackspot Sneaker. The V1 is designed to resemble the Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
-owned Chuck Taylor All-Stars
Chuck Taylor All-Stars
Chuck Taylor All Stars, or Converse All Stars, also referred to as "Chuck Taylors", "Converses", "All Stars", "Chucks" or "Cons", are canvas and rubber shoes produced by Converse. They were first produced in 1917 as the "All Star," Converse's attempt to capture the basketball shoe market...
. There is also a V1 in "fiery red."
The V2 is designed by Canadian shoe designer John Fluevog
John Fluevog
John Fluevog is a Canadian shoe designer. His shoes are noted for their progressive, art deco inspired styles. His shoes often include messages—for instance, "Resists alkali, water, acid, fatigue and Satan" -- engraved into the soles.-Career:...
. It is made from organic hemp
Hemp
Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...
and recycled car tires.
After an extensive search for anti-sweatshop manufacturers around the world, Adbusters found a small union shop in Portugal. The sale of more than twenty-five thousand pairs through an alternative distribution network is an example of Western consumer activism marketing.
Reception
Heath and Potter's The Rebel SellThe Rebel Sell
The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed is a non-fiction book written by Canadian authors Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter in 2004...
, which is critical of Adbusters, claimed that the blackspot shoe's existence proves that "no rational person could possibly believe that there is any tension between 'mainstream' and 'alternative' culture."
In the June 2008 cover story of BusinessWeek Small Business Magazine
BusinessWeek
Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...
, the Blackspot campaign was among three profiled in a piece focusing on "antipreneurs." Two advertising executives were asked to review the campaign for the article's "Ask the Experts" sidebar. Brian Martin of Brand Connections and Dave Weaver of TM Advertising
TM Advertising
TM Advertising is a full-service agency with offices in Dallas, Seattle, Austin, Houston, New Orleans and Toronto, one of the largest full-service agencies in the southern US. The agency has an interactive group called t:m interactive, which now accounts for about 25% of TM's revenue...
both gave the campaign favorable reviews.
Martin noted that Blackspot was effectively telling consumers, "We know we are marketing to you, and you are as good as we are at this, and your opinion matters," while Weaver stated that "This is not a call to sales of the shoe so much as it is a call to participate in the community of Adbusters by buying the shoe."
Occupy Wall Street
In mid-2011, Adbusters Foundation proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, a growing disparity in wealth, and the absence of legal repercussions behind the recent global financial crisis. They sought to combine the symbolic location of the 2011 protests in Tahrir Square with the consensus decision making of the 2011 Spanish protests2011 Spanish protests
The 2011 Spanish protests, also referred to as the 15-M Movement and the Indignants movement, are a series of ongoing demonstrations in Spain whose origin can be traced to social networks and Real Democracy NOW among other civilian digital platforms and 200 other small associations...
. Adbusters' senior editor Micah White
Micah M. White
Micah M. White is a senior editor at the magazine Adbusters and a writer for The Guardian. He was an early organizer of the Occupy Wall Street protests, and a close collaborator to Kalle Lasn. He lives in Berkeley, California.- Biography :...
said they had suggested the protest via their email list and it "was spontaneously taken up by all the people of the world.” Adbusters' website said that from their "one simple demand—a presidential commission to separate money from politics" they would "start setting the agenda for a new America." They promoted the protest with a poster featuring a dancer atop Wall Street's iconic Charging Bull
Charging Bull
Charging Bull, which is sometimes referred to as the Wall Street Bull or the Bowling Green Bull, is a bronze sculpture by Arturo Di Modica that stands in Bowling Green Park near Wall Street in Manhattan, New York City...
.
While the movement was started by Adbusters, the group does not control the movement, and it has since grown worldwide
Occupy movement
The Occupy movement is an international protest movement which is primarily directed against economic and social inequality. The first Occupy protest to be widely covered was Occupy Wall Street in New York City, taking place on September 17, 2011...
.
Commercial style
The foundation has been criticized for having a style and form that are similar to the media and commercial product that it attacks, that its high gloss design makes the magazine too expensive, and that a style over substance approach is used to mask sub-par content.Heath and Potter posit that the more alternative or subversive the foundation feels, the more appealing the Blackspot sneaker will become to the mainstream market. They believe consumers seek exclusivity and social distinction and have argued that the mainstream market seeks the very same brand of individuality that the foundation promotes; thus they see the foundation as promoting capitalist values.
The Blackspot Shoes campaign has stirred heated debate, as Adbusters admits to using the same marketing techniques which it denounces other companies for using.
Accusations of antisemitism
In March 2004, the foundation was accused of antisemitism after running an article that alleged many neoconservative supporters of the Iraq War within the Bush AdministrationGeorge W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
were Jewish. The article questioned why the political implications of this neoconservative influence on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, given the role of Israel, were not a subject of debate.
In October 2010, Shopper's Drug Mart pulled Adbusters off of its shelves after a photo montage comparing the Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip
thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
to the Warsaw ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
was featured in an article critiquing Israel's embargo of Gaza. Two frequently pro-Israel Canadian organizations, the Canadian Jewish Congress
Canadian Jewish Congress
The Canadian Jewish Congress was one of the main lobby groups for the Jewish community in the country, although it often competed with the more conservative B'nai Brith Canada in that regard. At its dissolution, the president of the CJC was Mark Freiman. Its past co-presidents were Sylvain Abitbol...
and Honest Reporting Canada, rallied to have the magazine blacklisted from bookstores, accusing Adbusters of trivializing the Holocaust and of antisemitism. "The argument is obscene, and continues the disgusting tradition of some supporters of the Palestinian cause to turn Jews into Nazis and Palestinians into Jews. In so doing, these propagandists not only demonize Israelis (i.e., Jews), but minimize the murderous extent and intent of [Nazism's] genocidal project." Adbusters responded to the charges in an op-ed printed in the National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
, arguing that the charge of antisemitism was being used to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli policies, namely "Israel's occupation of Palestine." Adbusters also pointed out that the Canadian Jewish Congress has itself been the target of complaints by Jewish Canadians, including the left-leaning activist and author Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization.-Family:...
, who signed an open letter declaring, "We are appalled by recent attempts of prominent Jewish organizations and leading Canadian politicians to silence protest against the State of Israel. We are alarmed by the escalation of fear tactics." Some American academics, including Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
, an anti-Zionist political scientist, also Jewish, have also compared Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto.
The pictures of the Warsaw ghetto were obtained from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum a year and a half before their use and were provided for a one-time use only. When advised of the use, the museum sent Adbusters a cease and desist letter demanding that the photos be immediately removed from Adbusters’ website. It was later discovered that the images used by Adbusters were in the public domain and/or not owned by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The confusion resulted from the fact that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has pictures on file that they do not own the copyright to, but merely provide access to.
Ineffective activism
Some critics claim that culture jamming does little to incite real difference. Others declare the movement an easy way for upper- and middle-class citizens to feel empowered by engaging in activism that bears no personal cost, such as the campaign “Buy Nothing DayBuy Nothing Day
thumb|Buy Nothing Day demonstration in [[San Francisco]], November 2000Buy Nothing Day ' is an international day of protest against consumerism observed by social activists. Typically celebrated the Friday after American Thanksgiving in North America and the following day internationally, in 2011...
”. These critics feel a need for “resistance against the causes of capitalist exploitation, not its symptoms”.
See also
- Ad creepAd creepAd-creep refers to the increase of advertising. The virtues of advertising are debated, but ad-creep especially refers to advertising which is invasive and coercive, such as ads in schools, doctor's offices and hospitals, restrooms, elevators, on ATM's, on garbage cans, on vehicles, and on...
- Culture JammingCulture jammingCulture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
- Downhill BattleDownhill BattleDownhill Battle is a non-profit organization based in Worcester, Massachusetts. It launched in August 2003 and argues that the four major recording labels have an oligopoly that is bad for both musicians and music culture...
- Engaged BuddhismEngaged BuddhismEngaged Buddhism refers to Buddhists who are seeking ways to apply the insights from meditation practice and dharma teachings to situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering and injustice...
- Free Culture movementFree Culture movementThe free culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify creative works in the form of free content by using the Internet and other forms of media....
- Geez MagazineGeez MagazineGeez is a quarterly Canadian magazine dealing with issues of spirituality, religion, and progressive politics, created by Aiden Enns and Will Braun....
- Indymedia
- No LogoNo LogoNo Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies is a book by Canadian author Naomi Klein. First published by Knopf Canada in January 2000, shortly after the 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference protests in Seattle had generated media attention around such issues, it became one of the most influential books...
- Timeline of Occupy Wall StreetTimeline of Occupy Wall StreetThe following is a timeline of Occupy Wall Street which began on Saturday, September 17, 2011 as an occupation of Wall Street, the financial district of New York City and is an ongoing demonstration....
- Situationist International
- StayFree! MagazineStay Free!Stay Free! is a non-profit magazine about the politics of culture based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by Carrie McLaren in 1992 while working at Matador Records, it tends to focus on "the perversions of media and consumer culture." Each issue has a theme, such as pranks, copyright, or marketing...
External links
Academic and news sites:
- Interview with Kalle Lasn - Founder of Adbusters
- Culture Jammers find magic button for peace and quiet Sun Herald (April 13, 2005) Daniel Dasey.
- Activism for the Mind: Reclaiming Our Cerebral Commons, Kalle LasnKalle LasnKalle Lasn is an Estonian Canadian author, magazine editor and activist. Near the end of World War II his family fled Estonia and Lasn spent his childhood in a German refugee camp. He was then resettled in Australia. In the 1960s, he founded a market research company in Tokyo, and in 1970, moved...
with Natasha Mitchell, ABC Radio National, All in the Mind March 12, 2005.