Culture jamming against othering in pop music: Video remixes with cultural efficacy

Abstract

In the context of the YouTube remix culture, individuals and civil society consume and re-imagine the productions of pop culture. Some movements occupy physical public spaces, through street art, counter-advertising, and culture jamming, largely taking on the advertising industry of capitalism. The drive to be ‘woke’ or aware of systemic injustices is also a recent trend, but not applied consistently in the entertainment industry. In the intersection of these trends, there lacks a media space that considers and collects creative and critical socially conscious remixes of the pop music industry and its messages. This communicative project seeks to select and compile examples of creative and critical responses to 6 pop music songs, focusing on works with high cultural efficacy. The objective for this project is to collect a set of examples in the specific subdivision of culture jamming, namely works using cultural efficacy to re-imagine the pop music industry. We search for what has already been selfpublished to social media that references the pop music industry or specific lyrics and music videos that lack representation, reinforce stereotypes, or dehumanize others. We will understand the foundations of culture jamming, cultural efficacy, and communication theory before outlining the methodology to be used and the results produced. In the discussion, we will see emerging patterns of non-amateur parodies and identify spaces for continued engagement as well as suggested continued research on expression.