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see the recent “image is nothing. Thirst is everything”
campaign by Sprite, or MTV’s continual adoption
of ‘underground’ imagery to reinforce its own brand
identity. Even anti-corporatism has become a marketable
commodity, as the success of major studio picture
Fight Club demonstrates.
Klein is more enamoured with activists such as
the defendants in the McLibel trial, who successfully
raised awareness of many of McDonalds’ activities,
and the semi-political Reclaim the Streets movement.
Rather than the outlandish hippies the media portrays
them to be, Klein discovers that the people involved
in the movement are attempting to make people think
about the way in which every available part of civic
space is saturated with advertising.
It’s in this section of the book that No Logo falters.
While Klein clearly believes that Reclaim The Streets
is one of a number of groups that will define the politics
of the future, the fact that most of the population believe
the group’s members are all drug-crazed anti-car crusties
shows the difficulties inherent in swimming against
BUY Naomi Klein books online from and
the tide of globalisation and media concentration. The
book rightly highlights the role of the internet in helping
activists to organise and disseminate information,
and the outcry over genetically modified foods demonstrates
the effect that a well-organised, single-issue
campaign can have. By comparison, the demonstrations
against the World Trade Organisation in Seattle seemed
to have no clear agenda and, by degenerating into riots,
made it easy for the media to dismiss any legitimate
protest as the work of subversives and ‘terrorists’. As
Klein points out, Adbusters magazine is starting to
resemble the very media companies it urges its readers
to fight against, while she cheerfully admits the irony of
massive global corporations publishing anti-corporate
polemics such as No Logo, which are marketed just like
any other product.
No Logo is a powerful read – Chomsky without the
paranoia – and, if you have even the slightest interest
in popular culture, it’s an essential one. Unfortunately,
while it’s easy to share Klein’s concerns, it’s much
harder to share her optimism about the future. �
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