80CHAPTER 3 Culture of the United States, where religious conservatives have been a signifi cant political and cultural force. ANTICORPORATE ACTIVISM The role corporations play in shaping culture is a source of contention in many countries. Critics of corporate power in the United States and elsewhere, especially on the political left, engage in yet another form of cultural activism, protesting concentrated media ownership and an unregulated global economy. In the United States, anticorporate cultural activists have established small but vibrant independent media outlets for music, art, news, and other cultural products outside of the mainstream commercial corporate system. Groups such as the Media Foundation, with its signature magazine Adbusters, promote a form of activism called “culture jamming,” which refashions popular brand images to express a critical message about commercial culture, as in the example shown below. In the past several decades, Christian conservatives played a significant role in U.S. politics, often applying their interpretation of biblical teaching to contemporary social issues, such as abortion, and insisting that the United States should be considered a Christian nation. What are some of the potentially positive and negative consequences of intermingling religious faith with political activity? angered by what they see as anti-Islamic media content. Pakistan, for example, ordered Internet providers to block Facebook in 2010 because one of its pages promoted “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”—an action that violates Islamic beliefs. The ban was lifted once the page was removed. Islamic fundamentalists have turned to strict religious schooling and mass media, especially the Internet, to promote more traditional values and defend them against the onslaught of Western media. Similarly, in the United States, Christian fundamentalists have fought—unsuccessfully—to eliminate from the mainstream media sexual imagery, violence, positive portrayals of homosexuality, and other content they fi nd objectionable and contrary to their religious teachings. At the same time, these activists promote their religious beliefs through home-schooling, religiously based private schools, religious radio and television broadcasting, and religious books, movies, pop music, and other media content. These efforts have had a signifi cant impact on the political culture Culture jamming is a form of activism that attaches new and subversive meanings to well-known corporate brands, often rewriting popular advertising campaigns. This example was produced by Adbusters. Complete with the Nike swoosh, it associates the Nike brand with slave labor—a powerful critique of Nike’s labor practices.
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