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Portrait of the Activist As a Yes Man: Examining Culture Jamming and Its Actors Through the Circuit of Culture Derrick Shannon

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Portrait of the Activist As a Yes Man: Examining Culture Jamming and Its Actors Through the Circuit of Culture Derrick Shannon Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2011 A Portrait of the Activist as a Yes Man: Examining Culture Jamming and Its Actors Through the Circuit of Culture Derrick Shannon Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION A PORTRAIT OF THE ACTIVIST AS A YES MAN: EXAMINING CULTURE JAMMING AND ITS ACTORS THROUGH THE CIRCUIT OF CULTURE By DERRICK SHANNON A Thesis submitted to the School of Communication and Information in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2011 The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Derrick Shannon on April 01, 2011. ______________________________ Andrew Opel Professor Directing Thesis ______________________________ Donna Marie Nudd Committee Member ______________________________ Jennifer Proffitt Committee Member Approved: _______________________________________ Steve McDowell, Chair, Department of Communication _______________________________________ Larry Dennis, Dean, College of Communication The Graduate School has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii For Dad iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to primarily thank Dr. Andy Opel, Dr. Bill Lawson, and my father Sam Shannon for supporting me through this project, and for pushing me to finish. Without their encouragement and generosity I would not have been able to see this to an end. I would also like to thank Dr. Nudd and Dr. Proffitt for taking part in this and lending their time. Finally, I would like to thank my mother, Ginger Shannon, who is the kindest most inspiring person I know. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSRACT…………………………………………………………………………….………….vi 1. CHAPTER ONE: INRODUCTION…………………………………………………...……...1 2. CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………..….…….....7 THE THOERY BEHIND JAMMING THE SPECTACLE 2.0…………………...………7 THE SPECTACLE 2.1……………………………………………………………..……..8 CULTURE JAMMING AGAINST THE SPECTACLE 2.20 …………………….….....11 BILLY & JOEY 2.21 ………………………………..……………………………….….14 THE YES MEN 2.22………………………………………………….………………....15 MOVING ON……………………………………………………………………...….…18 3. CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY………………………………...……………….….19 4. CHAPTER FOUR: REPRESENTATION………………………………………...…….…...24 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………....….24 A BRIEF ADDENDUM TO METHODOLOGY…………………………………....…..27 THE YES MEN GET FRAMED…………………………………………………...…....28 WHO FRAMED THE YES MEN?....…………………………………………..…….....30 5. CHAPTER FIVE: IDENTITY………………………………………………………...….….34 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………...….….34 CRYSTALLIZING THE METHOD……………………………………………..…..….36 ‗WHAT‘S HE BUILDING IN THERE?‘………………………………………...….…..37 ‗I AM HE AS YOU ARE HE‘…………………………………………………………...40 6. CHAPTER SIX: PRODUCTION……………………………………………………………48 THE PROJECT……………………………………………………………….………….48 GLOBALIZATION…………………………………………………………..…….……50 THE YES MEN AS ARTICULATING ANTAGONISTS…………..………..………...53 IMAGE EVENTS………………………………………………………………………..55 COUNTER-CULTURAL INTERMEDIARIES………………………………………...58 7. CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….....61 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………......65 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH…………………………………………………………………….69 v ABSTRACT The focus of this thesis is to provide a critical examination of the movement of culture jamming through a primary reading of activist group The Yes Men. The Yes Men as the primary focus, and the movement of culture jamming as the theoretical backdrop will be examined through the ‗Circuit of Culture‘ in a paradigm of cultural studies. The goal is not to judge success or failure of a group or a movement, but rather to place these particular entities in the context of the culture in which they exist. vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell as western liberal democracy triumphed over communism. To some this signified the end of the great ideological struggle of the age, and thus ―the end of history‖ (Fukuyama, 1992). Those who accepted this view signed on to Francis Fukuyama‘s declaration, in The End of History and the Last Man, that ―liberal democracy may constitute the end point of mankind‘s ideological evolution,‖ and the ―final form of human government, and as such constituted the end of history‖ (ibid, xi). Fukuyama, a former U.S. State Department official, was not saying that democracies were perfect, they had flaws and social injustices, but the flaws existed because the twin principles of liberty and equality, on which modern democracy is founded, had yet to be implemented successfully. A school of thought was cultivated that felt that ―while some present-day countries might fail to achieve stable liberal democracy, and others might lapse back into other, more primitive forms of rule like theocracy or military dictatorship, the ideal of liberal democracy could not be improved on‖ (ibid.). These arguments have become a cornerstone of logic for organizations, corporations, and groups that hold enormous power and resources and are satisfied with a worldview dominated by neoliberal and corporate principles. This view, mainly held by the political right, that there was only one way of progress, assumed that democracy and capitalism were not only a destination but also a goal. Yet, they ignored the dangers of ideological myopia. Alternatively, not everyone believed in the ―end of history‖ conclusion. Also in 1989, Kalle Lasn, a former advertising executive, experienced the restrictions inherent in the system when he tried to buy airtime for a thirty-second television spot countering British Columbia‘s forest industry by condemning the destruction of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. Lasn felt that the ―industry was blatantly lying‖ (p.30), and abusing the forests to excess, accusing it of holding the view that ―a tree is just an unemployed log‖ (ibid.). His message was refused by every station he approached because it strayed outside the mainstream agenda and threatened corporate sponsorship along with the good nature of a market-based system. Running head-long into this twenty-first century info-wall (which had openings for ads and money from the forest industry), Lasn retaliated by founding the Adbusters Media Foundation, ―a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs,‖ who aim to ―topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century‖ (Adbusters website, www.adbusters.org). These are rather extreme goals and ideals, and as such a point of debate concerning our social structure that this thesis will attempt to codify. Adbusters is one very visible element of a growing movement in activist circles called culture jamming. Culture Jamming is a creative form of communication that seeks to dispel particular ―myths‖ espoused by multinational corporations and supportive governments concerning the promises of globalization (e.g. ―big is better,‖ ―more is better,‖ or globalization will serve to benefit all corners of the world). Take for example December 3, 2004, and the actions of a group of activists called the Yes Men. The date was the twentieth anniversary of the Union Carbide (UC) chemical disaster in Bhopal, India. More specifically, it was a day of memorial for 3,800 people who were killed and upwards of 100,000 left seriously ill because of gas leaking from a tank at UC Bhopal's chemical plant, one of the largest industrial disasters in world history. The week before the anniversary, a web page, dowethics.com, received an email from the British Broadcasting Company. The BBC was looking for a representative from Dow Chemical (who now owns the Union Carbide division) to appear on an interview show to discuss the disaster‘s twentieth anniversary. Dowethics.com, however, is not the official domain of Dow Chemical; the site belongs to the Yes Men. Dow.com is the domain for Dow Chemical, but the producers at the BBC were too hastened to notice their error because the Yes Men had mirrored the appearance of Dow website in such a way that to a non-discerning viewer, the site appeared quite official (compare them for yourself1). The Yes Men responded and accepted the invitation to appear on the program as a Dow representative. They sent, Mr. Jude (patron saint of the impossible) Finisterra (earth’s end), who explained, during the interview, that Dow felt it was time to completely address the issues of Bhopal by extending a $12 billion plan to compensate the victims. Mr. Finisterra also pushed for the extradition of former Union Carbide C.E.O. Warren Anderson to India to face homicide charges, relating to the event, that he had fled twenty years prior. Of course, none of this was Dow policy; rather it referred to a larger and more humane vision of what its policy could be. This action was a political maneuver committed by the Yes Men in order to confuse the way the public identifies with the corporate Dow Chemical. The result of this elaborate hoax was a momentary three percent drop in the value of Dow Chemical‘s stock price ($2 billion total, according to CNN), and top ranking on Google News (news.google.com, an index of major news stories) for the remainder of the day. The hoax obviously gained the attention of millions of people. Attention, however, is one thing, while change is another, and Dow did not change. They simply came out and exposed the Yes Men as imposters and liars, retracted anything and everything said by the character
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