5: Tute§park

Engage with the term "Culture Jamming".

• First Culture Jam
  
• Most Influential Jam
  
• Most Damaging Jam

These 3 examples should be posted in your blog with an explanation of where and why they were found and used.
Culture Jam: the act of using existing mass media to comment on those very media themselves, using the original medium's communication method.

Culture jamming is an anti-corporate movement where the aim is to expose the corporation's agendas and get society to think about the propaganda they are fed. The jams usually use the corporation's ad-campaigns against them by changing one or two words or pictures to highlight their real agendas or ethics.



First Culture Jam
I had trouble finding the first culture jam and I'm sure that what I am about to write isn't the first.

Socialist Alternative writes about the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies), a revolutionary group that protested against conscription during the First World War. They culture jammed by composing new lyrics to popular religious songs and even parodied government recruitment posters.

The IWW leader, Tom Barker, was found guilty of distributing the material and faced jail time for his participation.

Most Influential Jam
The first person that came to mind when I read the tute*spark was Banksy. I have only known about Bansky since I went to Europe in 2008 and a friend showed me one of his works in Brick Lane, but he has been working as an underground graffiti artist since 1992 in the streets of London.

Bansky's identity is still unknown but that doesn't affect the impact his culture jams have had, with the term "The Banksy Effect" being coined to describe the impact his work has. His works usually deal with an array of political or social themes including anti-capitalism, anti-war, anarchism and anti-authoritarianism.

He is known for his facetiousness and is quoted as saying:

• Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world, I can't even finish my second apple pie.
  
• We don’t need any more heroes; we just need someone to take out the recycling.
  
• We can’t do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves.

Most Damaging Jam
For a culture jam to do some real damage it needs to be both seen and heard by a lot of people. When Morgan Spurlock set out to create a documentary in 2003, he had only one corporation in his sights: McDonald's.

Spurlock goes on a radical diet made up of only McDonald's food for 4 weeks to show the drastic effects it has on a person's physical and psychological well-being. He also explores the fast food industry's corporate influence including how it encourages poor nutrition just so they can increase their bottom line (no pun intended).

Throughout the documentary Spurlock is encouraged by his doctors and those closest to him to stop with his "McDiet" as they feared for his health, especially after he experienced heart palpitations in Day 21 of the experiment. His health deteriorated quite significantly and he put on approximately 11kg.

As a result of Spurlock's film, McDonald's discontinued their Super Size option (one of Spurlock's rules of the experiment was to Super Size his meal when offered) and created a healthier options menu with items such as salads and wraps.