Culture Jamming Assignment

In this assignment, I ask students to work in groups and try their hands at subverting dominant meanings through practicing culture jamming. The assignment specifies two ways in which students can jam culture. In option A, I ask students to identify dominant cultural meanings they find problematic. An example would be the meanings associated with "masculinity" or "the nation." The students then find video clips online that seem to reinforce these problematic meanings, and they remix those clips or add content of their own in order to subvert the original message. Option B is very similar but allows students to use still images and subtitles instead of video editing software. In part II of the assignment, I ask students to deconstruct what they did by specifying the dominant meanings they sought to subvert, explaining why those meanings were problematic, and why their culture jam is political.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist, University of Maryland