Culture Jamming and Politics

In the past few weeks as we’ve talked about culture jamming it got me thinking about the many examples of this in real life and why they are effective. Many examples of culture jamming, and the ones that I generally are able to remember the most, tend to be more politically oriented.

I think a classic example of this would be the Billionaires for Bush movement that existed throughout much of former President George W Bush’s Presidency, and especially during the 2004 Presidential Election campaign. The Billionaires for Bush were a grassroots movement of people who opposed the President, and would satirize him and his supporters by dressing as so called “billionaire moguls” and CEOs that would normally support the President and most Republicans in general. They would generally hold up signs promoting pro-Bush policies in a rather mocking way, and would often go to anti-war or anti-Bush rallies and pretend to be defending the Bush Administration, when in reality they were merely mocking the Administration. While I didn’t agree with the group, I found their method to be rather effective because they managed to draw a lot of attention at events and would do so in a more peaceful/nonviolent way. By posing as a satire of the Bush supporters, they were able to last throughout the entire previous decade as an effective grassroots movement. In fact just recently due to the healthcare debate, they have adopted a new name for the moment, called “Billionaires for Wealthcare”.

This is one of many examples of political culture jamming that I think has been used lately and could eventually be used in the future as well. Obviously not all examples of culture jamming are political, but when you tie in politics or a political issue toward a group, then it can be used as a very effective culture jamming method.