Wednesday, March 30, 2011

presentation agenda

hello, I am Joseph. I am going to present the topic, resistance, on Thursday. Here is my presentation agenda.

1. Summarize one core reading
2. Discussion on "culture jamming"
3. Culture jamming products in Hong Kong
4. Discussion
5. Conclusion

6 comments:

  1. Hi Joseph,

    Thanks for sharing us a very interesting phenomenon, especially the culture jamming in Hong Kong. Yet, I am wondering how effective it is.Because pranking, in my point of view, is somehow not serious and is mainly made for entertainment. Hence, in consideration of it, audience may not take the prank or one's message seriously. They giggle, they share among their friends (probably it lasts for a very short period), then what else?

    Besides, I do think there are limitations of culture-jamming, such as regional culture differences. For example, the case of "Fook kai, Just because you are here" you have shown today. There will only Hong Kong people gain the resonance rather Canadian, American even Chinese. Or another example like the advertisement of Tommy (talked yesterday), people never understand the humour, as least I myself, if they are not from the same cultural background. Therefore it goes back to the question: How effective the culture jamming is?

    By the way, thanks for your presentation today. :)(If I have made some ideas/statements wrong, please correct me =P)

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  2. Dear all, What Joseph presents to us is very meaningful for me. This is because his presentation gives a new point of view, culture-jamming may not be understood by everyone.

    Like what Sue has said, region is very important in culture-jamming. I personally agree with it. This is because cultural jammings hides some humours in it. Those humour may only be understood by that location of people only. Like in the example of 'Fook Kai',Sue is right to say that only Hong Kong people will understand the real meaning although others can simply know what it means by translation. I do not know if it is what Sue means.

    Regarding the effectiveness of culture-jammings, it is true that we can see many jammings now, but we treat most jammings as jokes or trivial things.We can make those jammings parts of our lives. We may think it is trendy to say such words but we may somehow forget the real meaning of it again.

    Let me give you an example, we all know that in Hong kong, the political reform has a logan called ' Act Now ' and the jamming version is 'All Wrong'. It is a very hot issue in Hong Kong, nevertheless, after the jamming , many Hong Kong, as lease some of my friends frequently apply those words in their life. They use the words, not about the political form, but just use them as a 'jargon' ( I don't know if I can use this word) to express their feelings, this may somehow change the society.

    Therefore, a successful culture jamming may not be effective in challenging or resisting that particular issue, but instead, it may affect people' ordinary ways of living and make it part of their lives.

    I do not know if I can answer Sue's question, feel free to comment.

    By the way, how about the ethics of culture-jamming? Should there be any touchy issuse that we should avoid like racism and gender, if there are jammings like those, are they the same as the online racism and gender issues ( what we have studied few weeks ago)? Thanks very much!

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  3. Hey all, please allow me to say a few words here :>

    I think culture jamming is quite effective ideally. It raises questions for us to introspect about the conventional notions in which we always take them for granted. Without the contribution of culture jamming, we may not even notice anything wrong when we go astray. However, I think that not all culture jamming pieces appear nowadays are effective at all. The striking factor contributing to the success of a particular culture jamming piece is whether the jamming hits the nail on the head. Usually, if it successfully arouses resonance, it is more likely to provide spaces for introspections.

    As for the question about the ethics of culture jamming Gordon just raised, I do think this is a critical issue we should think about. As every person has different standard of judgment, it is sometimes difficult to determine which judgment is right or wrong. However, what we should do is to avoid initiating personal attack. Just like the video clip Joseph showed us yesterday. It shouldn’t be appropriate to pick out single attributes of certain group of mainlanders and apply these attributes to describe the whole group of Chinese, tease them and attack them in an indecent way.

    After all, I think we shouldn’t worry too much about the ethical issue. People have critical thinking. People spread out the jamming only when they agree with it. If any jamming goes extremely too far, people ignore and forget it. It is definitely not a popular one too. Popularity, sometimes, speaks for everything. Don’t know if you agree with it.

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  4. Hey all, popularity is also an important factor. Don't we see those jamming targets are well-known brands? Calvin Klein is a very good example to show this.

    When I read the comment, I think we can refer back to the notes, jamming is going to resist capitalism. Actually, Capitalism is already the most popular mode in the world now. Therefore, Alice is correct to say that popularity speaks for everything!

    However, ironically, I am thinking some people may take culture jamming as an opportunity to make them famous so that they can make it as profession and earn money. Is it simply another mode of capitalism? Feel Free to give comment!

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  5. Reply to Sue:
    Yes, entertainment is really a important element in culture jamming products, especially pranking. One thing we may consider is without jokking or kidding, can those products remains attractive to public. To certain extent, the success of pranking is base on the works of kuso process. It is no doubt that some people may treat the culture jamming products as silly and no value to treat it seriously. However, when comparing the cause and effect, supply and demand relations, there must be a positive distribution to support jamming products remain in casual, kidding format.

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  6. To Gordon,
    Thanks for yor kind appreciation. I am very happy to hear that my presentation did give you something. I agree with you that the effectiveness of a jamming does not only base on the immediate effect. If we can still remember the main idea of a former jamming long time ago and apply it in daily life, it is easily to say that jammi8ng is success.
    And the ethnic of jamminf, i think that it is a senstive part of culture jamming product. It is very difficult to ignore or neglext the existance of ethnic issue. In large extent, there is a high correlation between ethnic and success. Besides, touching the ethnic boundary also easily recieve amount of feedbacks. But in my point of veiw, i still don't support those jammings contain racism or discrimination.

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