Hoaxes and Pranks and Fake news OH MY!

Are hoaxes and pranks effective forms of political engagement in a society where so much of our political and social interaction takes place through the media? What opportunities for political expression does “culture jamming”allow for, that might not otherwise occur?

I think that all depends on what our definition of effective is in this context for whether or not hoaxes and pranks are effective forms of political engagement. I mean they do engage an audience about the subject of politics dont they? It gets people talking about whatever the political story is being highlighted. BUT the issue arises when people take things at face value and take these outlandish stories and run with them without doing the due diligence required to vet a story that you might come across. Given how much of our news and information that us the citizens consume through the media, ideally that content should come without bias and we SHOULD be able to take their reporting at face value. But that is not the reality that we live in. Case in point we talk about “news networks” but in a lot of cases its not news reporting but rather commentary by pundits ON the news of the day. Thus creating this illusion that they are simply passing along the information but it still goes through a pundit’s filter. The fact that there is no accountability for the pundits is the biggest issue. It reminds me of sports pundits. When NFL draft “guru” Mel Kiper Jr says that Jimmy Peanuts Clausen is going to be a star QB in the NFL but in reality he is out of the league in 3 years there is no one to say “Hey Mel you really told a lie to these people and you should rectify that”. No one from these news networks have taken a step back and (I guess this is the word I’m looking for?) apologized for spreading a terribly false rumor about the Clinton’s having a child sex ring in a Pizza parlor. That rumor caused a lone vigilante to take guns and shoot up the alleged restaurant where of course there were only employees and patrons in the building. It is a dangerous tight rope to walk I think, that we allow these hoaxes and fake stories to slip into the real news content because examples like Pizzagate are the endgame for some people. Luckily no one died, but ultimately I think that there needs to be some level of accountability IF these networks and news sources that we so much depend on lead their viewers astray.

I view the idea of “culture jamming” as simply satire. I think that there is clear difference between satire and something that is completely fabricated. Political satire has been around as long as Politics have been so I dont really see to much of a difference there.