[9949] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
prog-pubs resource: *Adbusters Quarterly* (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Arthur R. McGee)
Sat Jan 29 13:32:27 1994
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 10:30:38 -0800 (PST)
From: "Arthur R. McGee" <amcgee@netcom.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com, carr-l@ulkyvm.BITNET
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 12:41:29 -0500
>From: Phillip B. Zerbo <zerbo@frs.com>
Subject: prog-pubs resource: *Adbusters Quarterly*
--=<*>=-- CULTURE JAMMER'S MANIFESTO --=<*>=--
WE will take on the archetypal mind polluters
- Marlboro, Budweiser, Benetton, McDonald's, Coke, Calvin Klein, Whittle -
and beat them at their own game.
WE will uncool their billion-dollar images
with uncommercials on TV, subvertisements in magazines
and anti-ads right next to theirs in the urban landscape.
WE will take control of the role that the tobacco, alcohol,
fashion, cosmetics and fast food corporations play in our lives.
We will hold their marketing strategies up to public scrutiny and set
new agendas in their industries.
We will culture jam the pop culture marketeers
-- MTV, Time-Warner, Sony --
and bring their image factories to a sudden, shuddering
halt.
ON the rubble of the old media culture, we will build a new one
with a non-commercial heart and soul.
-- Adbusters Media Foundation --
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MEDIA FOUNDATION MEDIA FOUNDATION MEDIA FOUNDATION MEDIA FOUNDATION
MEDIA FO ON M UNDA IA FOUN EDIA FOUNDATION
MEDIA FO T N M I UNDA IA FO ATION IA FOUNDATION
MEDIA FO TI DI UNDA MEDIA F ATION A FOUNDATION
MEDIA FO TIO EDI UNDA EIA F ATION A FOUNDATION
MEDIA FO TION MEDI UNDA EIA F ATION A FOUNDATION
MEDIA FO TION MEDI UNDA MEDIA FO TION IA FOUNDATION
MEDIA FO TION MEDI U DA M DIA FOUN ED A FOUNDATION
MEDIA FOUNDATION MEDIA FOUNDATION MEDIA FOUNDATION MEDIA FOUNDATION
-=[]=--=[]=--=[]=--=[]=--=[]=--=[*]=--=[]=--=[]=--=[]=--=[]=--=[]=-
-=+[ M. F. O. ]+=-
M E D I A - F O U N D A T I O N - O N L I N E
Publishers of Adbusters Quarterly
"The Journal of the Mental Environment"
=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=
MFO-ZINE VOLUME - 1 ISSUE - 1 DECEMBER 1993
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-- ADBUSTERS MEDIA FOUNDATION --
1243 WEST 7TH AVENUE
VANCOUVER, B.C.
V6H 1B7 CANADA
ADBUSTERS@MINDLINK.BC.CA
The MEDIA FOUNDATION
is a five-year-old commercial-free zone.
We are a non-profit society bent on changing the way
North Americans live.
Through television-hijacking, petitions, letter writing campaigns,
subvertisements, uncommercials, billboard corrections, monkey-wrenching,
networking and pontification, we intend to culture jam the destructive,
consumer paradigms that rule our lives in order to save the forests,
the air we breathe and the clarity of our own minds.
The plan relies heavily on the public imagination, and on the
Foundation's creations:
ADBUSTERS, a quarterly ad-free magazine, provides a forum for
fellow culture jammers. Each issue offers intellectual shindiggery,
graphic ad parodies and launches or builds upon campaigns of the
physical and mental environments designed to inspire grassroots
activism. Adbusters Quarterly won the 1992 Utne Reader Best
Alternative Press Award for Service Journalism.
POWERSHIFT, an ad agency for the non-profit sector, is committed to
the marketing of ideas, rather than products.
Our TV uncommercials attack
Clearcutting, TV Violence, TV Addiction,
American Excess, Car Culture and Voodoo Economics.
Many of our subvertisements have been censored by the
big North American television networks.
Our efforts to raise funds for airtime and court battles are ongoing.
BIG NOISE, a magazine for high school students, together with a
media literacy kit for teachers, promotes media literacy for high
school students.
THE CULTURE JAMMER'S HEADQUARTERS (BBS) is a planetary survival
game where you can powershift the old paradigms off their
foundations and create new ones in their place.
Coming online in early December 1994.
1-604-737-8537
THE CULTURE JAMMER'S VIDEO is a 12-minute smorgasbord of
subvertisements for television. A veritable catalogue of culture
jamming opportunities. Allows you to see the kinds of things the
commercial networks will not air, for fear of offending the advertisers.
Let's you choose an uncommercial for your own campaign.
Broadcast-quality copies of individual ads provided free of charge.
THE 1994 ADBUSTERS SPOOF AD CALENDAR is a full-color 12-month
(six images) poster calendar intended to graphically expose the world's
most famous ad campaigns: Absolut, McDonald's, Calvin Klein, etc.
for their real intent -- the control of your mind.
A collection of the best ad parodies from Adbusters Quarterly
from the last three years.
Editorial Content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Adbusters #1
This magazine was born out of a desire to break the spell
that advertising has cast over our culture. We all fall under it to
some degree. In North America advertisers spend $100-billion every
year. The average TV viewer takes in 23 hours of programming each
week - 4.5 hours of that intake is commercial advertising. How can
it not affect us?
Advertising works like air pollution. We don't see the danger until
it's upon us - and upon our environment. We North Americans are only
6% of the people in the world, but we consume one-third of its
resources and produce half the non-organic wastes. Advertising
encourages this voracious consumption that has already caused
irreparable ecological damage. It persuades us not to look at what we
are doing - but at what we can buy next.
ADBUSTERS wants to expose the tricks of the ad trade and show you the
subtle ways in which advertising affects our lives; how it shapes our
children's personalities with 3 50,000 TV spots before they graduate
from high school; how it defines sexuality with a steady flow of
semi-pornographic and sexist images; and how it skews the democratic
process at election time with "pre- packaged" candidates.
Yet, the power of television has enormous potential for good.
ADBUSTERS introduces a new tool for our times: the alternative TV
spot. Alternative TV messages - honest, direct, and simple - can
profoundly influence our culture and our lives. They can bring new
ideas and issues into public consciousness and shape our social
agenda. They can be used for prodding corporations, industries and
governments into new awareness and action. In these pages we propose
several alternative ads that you can help produce and put on the air.
You will also be invited to join the MEDIA USER'S NETWORK and put your
own cause on the agenda. Our goal is to give you the tools for
creating your own ads. The "How To" section will show you how and
serve as your network for connecting with other media activists.
In our premiere issue you will find in-depth articles on
environmental, social and media issues. You'll read about the
David-and-Goliath battle with corporate advertising that helped launch
ADBUSTERS. (see story, Forests Forever? page 8)
We invite you to join us in redefining the way 12 minutes every hour
of our time is used.
--=+< ***<+>*** >+=--
A Personal History of the Powershift Ad Agency,
and the Story of the Battle for the
Ancient Rainforests
on
Vancouver Island.
by Andrea Nemtin
Campaign Manager, Adbusters Media Foundation
The Media Foundation, and subsequently Adbuster's Quarterly, was
formed in 1988 with three objectives:
-- to provide critical commentary on the mass media
-- to encourage media literacy and
-- to promote public access and involvement in media.
For the purpose of offering an alternative perspective in the media,
Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmaltz chose three avenues.
They formed Adbusters Quarterly, they began producing television
commercials, and they initiated a relationship with the press.
At that time the British Columbia Council of Forest Industries was
running a million-dollar ad campaign called,
"Forests Forever."
Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmaltz watched as this campaign, which
glorified the forestry companies as they were destroying the forests,
unfold around them, went completely unquestioned and unchallenged.
They decided to fight back.
They came up with an idea for a TV "uncommercial" to counter
the forestry industry's campaign and sent the script to the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for approval.
The idea was to neutralize the "Forests Forever" campaign.
The CBC's reaction to the proposed television commercial
created the real flash point for the Media Foundation.
It seemed that Lasn and Schmaltz's commercial was too controversial
to air on the CBC. An environmental message that challenged
the large forestry companies was considered
`advocacy advertising'
and was disallowed, even though the "informational" messages
that glorified clearcutting were OK.
Although the CBC never did approve that original script,
enough press coverage and controversy resulted to force the CBC
to pull the "Forests Forever" campaign off the air.
A sales rep from CBC actually told me,
off the record of course, that neither MacMillan Bloedel
(the biggest forestry company in the province) nor any of
the other forestry companies has advertised with the CBC since.
Later, the rejected script was made into the "Talking Rainforest"
commercial, which introduced the now familiar slogan,
"A tree farm is not a forest."
When I say that this was a flash point, it's important to
understand that this was the first alternative message the Media
Foundation produced, and it served to catalyze a series of media
campaigns that Lasn and Schmaltz would work on.
I work for a segment of the Media Foundation called:
-=* Powershift *=-
Powershift is a non-profit ad agency designed for other non-profit
groups that are interested in running social campaigns, both in the
alternative and mainstream media, specifically for television.
After the blockades began at Clayoquot sound this summer,
when people from all over the world began to fight
for the ancient rainforests on Vancouver Island,
there was a consensus that we needed
to become involved.
The Friends of Clayoquot Sound
had to speak to the mainstream population.
A television commercial was considered one of the
most efficient and effective ways of achieving this.
MacMillan Bloedel at that time was running a $600,000 ad campaign,
while we had but a fraction of this to work with.
Our first step was to put something on the air
as quickly and cheaply as possible.
The "Talking Rainforest" commercial was a perfect solution.
Powershift donated use of the commercial, adding to it
the Friends of Clayoquot Sound's plea for help,
with their name and phone number.
We made use of the limited funds in our budget, provided by the Friends,
to buy what we considered to be the most effective national air time,
and sent a copy of the ad out as a public service announcement
to the Weather Network. The response re-affirmed the power of television.
Each time the commercial aired, the phones in the Friends' Tofino office
started ringing.
The end of the summer saw a series of
popularized misconceptions and myths about the protesters,
the issues and about MacMillan Bloedel in local media.
We began working on a campaign that would set the record straight.
The result was "Real Criminals."
The 30-second spot contrasted the protesters' acts of civil disobedience
with MacMillan Bloedel's public record of environmental crimes,
posing the question, "Who are the real criminals?"
The news media jumped, MacMillan Bloedel balked
and hundreds of thousands of people were made aware that
MacMillan Bloedel is an environmentally irresponsible company
which has been convicted 23 times for crimes against nature.
The public was also shown that the media images
of long-haired protesters giving up their freedom to help save
the ancient rainforests did not accurately represent the truth.
In reality, most of the protesters were ordinary people,
some of them doctors, teachers and plumbers.
The commercial was aired on BCTV, and U-TV in Vancouver.
It was also featured on newscasts on CBC, Radio-Canada (French CBC),
and BCTV. In addition, groups and cable access stations all across
North America are using the two commercials to help shift the
current forestry paradigm.
The spring and summer will bring new challenges to the
environmental groups in the Pacific Northwest.
The time is ripe for some drastic changes in forestry practices.
Powershift has already begun work on a long-term strategy called,
-<- Mindshift ->-
a campaign that will use television,
print and radio uncommercials in conjunction with direct action,
to shift the forestry paradigm from industrial forestry to ecoforestry.
This will be one of Powershift's most important and exciting campaigns.
People who are interested in participating or just want to learn more
can read strategy updates in the winter and spring issues of
Adbusters Quarterly.
-=[]=-=-[]-=-=-[]-=-=-=-[]-=-=-[]-=-=[]=-
Adbusters Winter 1994 Contents Page
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
With the latest issue of Adbusters still being stuffed into envelopes
and packed into boxes for the trip south across the border from
Vancouver, the following info will give all those interested a brief
glimpse of what's coming.
There are two ground-breaking, paradigm-shifting themes
to watch for.
First, Adbusters is taking tentative steps into cyberspace.
The magazine is launching THE CULTURE JAMMER'S HEADQUARTERS,
a local BBS which should be up and running before Christmas.
The idea is to keep cybernauts abreast of the latest in
North American culture jamming.
And also, to become a sort of centralized forum for
planning and strategizing against the commercial forces that be.
There are two articles to this end worth reading.
CYBERENCOUNTERS OF THE FIRST KIND by Barry Shell provides
a social commentary on the present day mindset of the Internet
through online interviews with its users.
POST HUMAN by Jeffrey Deitch describes the changing
social mindset through which technology is changing our way of
seeing the world, and changing the shape of our bodies, as well.
Along with this article is a story by science fiction writer
J.G. Ballard entitled JANE FONDA'S AUGMENTATION MAMMOPLASTY.
The second theme you will discover here is an environmental one.
The Adbusters Media Foundation did battle over the summer
with the logging companies clearing some of the last remaining old-growth
forests on Vancouver Island.
FROM INDUSTRIAL FORESTRY TO ECOFORESTRY introduces a new TV campaign
that readers and friends of the foundation are asked to support
and become involved with.
Of course there are many other good pieces. A short deconstruction
of the virtual reality Honda Accord 1994 TV ad, written by cultural
critic Mark Dery. Also, there is the usual Big Noise insert intended
primarily for teens containing interviews with several of North
America's top teenage activists, a story by Commonwealth Writer's
Prize winner M.A.C. Farrant, and a piece called THE NIXED
GENERATION about the manufacturing of rebellion by commercial
forces and the death of the Grunge scene.
All in all, along with news and culture jamming profiles, a pretty
solid issue. What's more, Adbusters appears set to dabble in
cyberspace in future: to do some more exploring, growing and
advocating of its commercial-free platform there.
Features
-=-=-=-=
16TV TUNNELS
trading channels for dreams
by Colin Rowat
20POST HUMAN
Technology may spawn a freaked-out race of humans
by Jeffrey Deitch
26 JANE FONDA'S AUGMENTATION MAMMOPLASTY
by J.G. Ballard
54THE GREAT PARADIGM SHIFT
from industrial forestry to ecoforestry
by Kalle Lasn, Andrea Nemtin, Tracey Friesen, Chris DeVito
60CYBERENCOUNTERS OF THE FIRST KIND
a journey to the heart of the Internet
by Barry Shell
69 BRAVE NEW CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
a second American revolution prepares for take-off
by George Gerbner
74KISS MY ASH!
how Salem cigarettes burned the alternative press
by William Severini Kowinski
77 ADVERTISING TO SUBVERTISING
the beginnings of soulful resistance
by Kono Matsu
Big Noise Inside
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
32THE NIXED GENERATION
by Jordan Reeves
34HAND-ME-DOWN PLANET
by Chris DeVito
42SERIOUS ADS
by Hugh Rank
49THE DEPARTMENT OF HOPE
by M.A.C. Farrant
Departments
-=-=-=-=-=-
6 EDITOR'S BLAST
7LETTERS
11 NEWS FROM THE MENTAL ENVIRONMENT
69CULTURE JAMMING
Reality Checks
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
58 ECOFORESTRY CAMPAIGN
74STOP THE DIRTY DOZEN
80CULTURE JAMMER'S HEADQUARTERS
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
--<*>-- MEDIA FOUNDATION MASTHEAD --<*>--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Comments, requests, suggestions, profundities and droning
monologues can be addressed to any of the really important people
here at the Media Foundation. It's easy, cheap and good fun.
When writing simply include their name in the
subject line and whoever gets stuck on mail
duty will bin it for them.......
Editors
Kalle Lasn and Jordan Reeves
They take care of all comments and profundities in a polite,
faith-neutral way...
Art Director
Geoff Coates
(along with)
Associate Art Director
Andrew Johnstone.
Respond to suggestions regarding the look and feel of the beautiful,
oh so beautiful Adbusters...
Distribution Manager
Brenda Shaffer
Will field requests for calendars, videos and, of course,
subscriptions. Sometimes it takes her as long as a year to send
anything...
Marketing Manager
Katherine Dodds
Alert her if you have a fantastic idea for making us even more
famous...
Campaign Manager
Andrea Nemtin
For questions about the Powershift Ad Agency, and what we can do
for your non-profit organization...
Publisher
Kalle Lasn
Talk to him if you really don't trust the editors. Although, he is one
of the editors. So, you might not want to talk to him...
Omar the Cat
All questions relating to shedding, dry mouth and astrophysics.
=========================================================
A D B U S T E R S W R I T E R ' S G U I D E L I N E S
=========================================================
Adbusters Quarterly, Journal of the Mental Environment is
dedicated to dashing the outdated paradigms of economic growth and
consumption and building a brave new standard of living. We aim for
a world that is free from the wiles of commercialism, a world where
democratic principles are built right into the aqueducts of modern
communication, where ideas are ranked according to merit, not
marketing agendas. We chase all relevant stories whether they be
humorous spoofs about commercial culture, environmental forays into
the forests, sci-fi carpet rides into cyberspace or scholarly probes
into the decline of civilization. More than anything, we seek
compelling ideas that further the critical perspective and offer at
the same time an activist solution. Our language is culture
jamming: the new activism of the '90s.
Adbusters relies heavily on unsolicited submissions of writing,
artwork, cartoons, spoof ads and ideas because we believe your
mind matters.
We are neither right wing nor left wing. We are straight ahead.
Our audience is North American. Many of our readers include
serious activists on the commercial, environmental and
communications fronts.
our departments:
----------------
BATTLE OF THE MIND
relies almost entirely on freelance submissions for
first- or second-person accounts of media activism or culture jamming.
Send us short, colorful dispatches.
NEWS OF THE MENTAL ENVIRONMENT
needs well written news stories about
developments in the mental environment. Query first. Be sure to have
an Adbusters angle.
The rest of the magazine uses features (query first) 500 to 5,000
words, sidebars, reprints, poetry, short stories (usually one page).
BIG NOISE
is an insert distributed to high schools.
The target is teens. Its mission is promoting media literacy.
Big Noise needs everything.
Pieces are generally less than 1,500 words at the outside
and are written simply but with today's high school lingo in mind.
Must be relevant to teens. Go rockers.
the right stuff:
----------------
Get to know Adbusters.
Call us for subscriptions and back issues.
The magazine puts the work of George Gerbner, Stewart Ewen, Jerry
Mander, Robert Costanza, Sut Jhally and Father John Kavanaugh up
alongside invigorating campaigns designed to show readers how they can
turn the overwhelming presence of media against itself.
Current campaigns include Autosaurus for the end of the automotive age,
The Two-minute Media Revolution for public access to TV, the Dirty Dozen
for an end to print tobacco ads, Buy Nothing Day for responsible
consumerism, Absolute Craze for an end to hypocrisy in alcohol ads,
and the Grease campaign for an end to our unhealthy addiction
to fast foods.
Everything must be relevant for a North American audience. Funny is
splendid. Rants are redundant.
In the end, anything that advances our critique of today's artificial,
hypocritical, schizophrenic society is fodder for Adbusters. Anything
that promotes an activist solution is what we live for.
Send us :
---------
articles, essays, art work, spoof ads, ideas, cartoons, news items,
first- or second-person accounts of culture jamming, short fiction,
poetry, anything. If you are going to write a feature or a news item,
send us your idea or call us first.
Some guidelines :
-----------------
If you're writing for Big Noise, talk to teens, don't preach.
Computer submissions are wonderful. Payment is $50 a printed page.
We encourage you to culture jam. If you have journalistic talents,
use them. If you are an expert in your field, fascinate us. If you
are creative and insightful, go rockers. If you have ever been
rejected because you suspect your subject was too controversial,
too activist, or not conducive enough to the advertisers' schemes,
Adbusters is your kind of magazine.
Submit to no one but us - original unpublished work only please
For longer stories or major pieces of artwork, call us first or query
in writing. Payment generally hits about $50 a printed page.
Current Campaigns
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dirty Dozen
where why what & how
The press of death is upon us. The Dirty Dozen is a gang of 12
noxious magazines that relentlessly pushes a clean, exciting image of
one of the dirtiest products around: tobacco. Any other group
responsible for 300,000 deaths a year would be ruthlessly prosecuted,
as would their presidents and advertising agencies. Unfortunately,
both the magazines and the tobacco industry are immune. They continue
to spend more than $3 billion a year to make smoking cigarettes seem
like an exciting part of living, when, every day in North America,
1,000 people die of tobacco-related diseases. But now there is a way
to butt them out. The Stop the Dirty Dozen campaign is gathering
momentum and forcing the magazine industry to re-evaluate its ethics.
For the 3,000 North American children who start smoking every day, we
invite you to participate.
THE STRATEGY
1. Take the Dirty Dozen's postage-paid subscriber cards.
2. Write: No subscription until you stop advertising cigarettes on each.
3. Mail them back.
4. Get your friends to do the same.
THE RESULT
The magazines you target get the message and pay the postage to boot.
Enough protest cards and we're sure to stop the press of death.
-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-
Assemblage and transport :
Jordan Reeves, Co-Editor Adbusters [adbusters@mindlink.bc.ca]
Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged.
Donations & Membership to the Foundation
-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=--==-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-
Media Foundation,
1243 West 7th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.,
V6H 1B7,
CANADA.
JAMMER'S HOTLINE 1-800-663-1243
ADBUSTERS@MINDLINK.BC.CA
MEMBERSHIP IN THE MEDIA FOUNDATION
If you support our goals and our work, you can show that support by
becoming a member now.
Your membership/donation is fully tax deductible.
Our memberships are $.... per year for students and $.... per year for
regular members. You may, of course, donate more if you wish.
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This is the online net connection of the Media Foundation,
it is meant to be reproduced and spread far and
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there deposited in archives, file bases
and message areas to be downloaded
and printed for all those lost
souls lacking the electronic
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