Adbusters: research and controversies

Screenshot from the censored article, as hosted on The Internet Archive 

1 - Research

Access the following websites:

http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/business/adbusters-war-against-too-much-of-everything.html

Summarise key points about the following:

• The campaigns (e.g. Occupy Wall Street and Buy Nothing Day) that the Adbusters
Foundation runs.
• The controversies and criticisms of Adbusters
• Other products that extend the Adbusters brand

2 - Controversies

Access this article. Please note it has extremely graphic content. The article compares the Gaza Strip to the Warsaw Ghetto. The article is no longer hosted on adbusters.org. Why did this article lead to the magazine becoming blacklisted, and the article censored following a cease and desist order?

3 - Criticisms

Does culture jamming make a difference to the world? Or is a a way for a predominantly middle-class audience to feel engaged in issues of social justice without actually directly engaging in these issues? What alternatives exist for people who wish to challenge capitalistic business practices?

4 - Exam practice 

Compare and contrast the ways in which viewpoints and ideologies are encoded in Woman and Adbusters. Make reference to the following:

• How ideologies are used to position audiences
• How polysemy is created
• How the ideologies reflect the cultural and economic context of the time the magazine was released 

Use your access to the case study pages of both magazines to explore and to plan this question.