As I read through my classmate's fourth blog entries it became more and more apparent how the public sphere benefits from 'culture jamming'. The satirical news programs that have become cultural phenomenons around the globe are immensely popular among my age demographic, it seems, and are, as I said for myself, important and relevant sources for obtaining world news. As my colleagues and I suggested, the element of humour and entertainment breathes life and livelihood into what would otherwise be mostly dull and dismal news stories. This, of course, is what brings in my demographic of viewers.
A perfect example of the jubilant effect 'culture jamming' has on society is, as Kirby (http://kirbychan88.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/) noted, how the world has now awoken itself to the existence of Rob Ford during his scandalous mayoral tenure and how so much fun has been poked at him (at his expense). This news story has reached the minds of virtually every first world television and internet user and has benefited the public sphere by, without a doubt, building a greater awareness to the subject of political responsibility and power.
Madison (http://mb12qe.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/) made a very important point on these programs, however, when she said that "If the public is able to look past the completely false information and just laugh about it, then it is a good form of media." I completely agree with her on this. It is important to remember that in order for these programs to be of any relevance in real life you must be able to filter through the dramatized humour and take from it the reality it is shallowly buried underneath. With that said, I found most of the people who wrote their blogs on these types of programs were able to accordingly separate these elements from one another and obtain the facts as they were presented.
To close I will quote a line from Tosin's entry (http://tosinscpcfblog.blogspot.ca/2013/11/1f25-post-7-is-fake-news-real-news.html) when he mentioned how 'culture jammers' "...help us to better understand the truth that the real mainstream media would prefer that we do not know...". I find it crucial that these programs give us additional ideas and angles of stories that would never be seen on regular news programs. The importance of this is that without multiple angles and perspectives nothing could be believable. It takes two to tango and you'll never understand the dance until you have the two different dance partners to present their take on it.
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