Defence Department on the retreat after advertisement parody by UTS student news
submitted by Vertigo, UTS student newspaper
contact: vertigo@uts.edu.au
phone: 9514 2479
The Department of Defence has withdrawn advertising from all student media around Australia because of an 'adbust' done by Vertigo, the student newspaper of UTS.
Sydney, Wednesday 5 March 2003:
UTS student newspaper, Vertigo, welcomes the decision of the Department of Defence to withdraw all advertising from student publications across Australia.
The move comes in response to a controversial full-page parody of Defence recruitment advertising, which features in the latest edition of Vertigo (see attached document).
Vertigo s adbust satirically portrays the Department of Defence as a political tool of an Australian government intent on participating in an unsanctioned invasion of Iraq.
Vertigo had earlier rejected Defence Department requests for advertising space, a move that instigated a boycott of Defence advertising by a number of student publications at major Australian universities.
As an act of solidarity the parody will also be reprinted by Rabelais, the student paper of La Trobe University, and Lot s Wife, the student publication of Monash University, with more possibly to follow.
The adbust subtly highlights the hypocritical nature of a possible invasion of another country being undertaken by the Department of "Defence".
We see it as a great victory that students are no longer being inundated with inaccurate representations of the Defence Force, said Vertigo spokesperson, Jano Gibson.
"Despite their noblest intentions, many recruits are ultimately going to be used as pawns in a gutless power play of politics. We want would-be recruits to critically evaluate the political reality of the Defence Force and to understand that by joining they may be forced to undertake deplorable, and internationally illegal actions on behalf of the Australian government.
"The 'exciting', 'inspiring' and 'feel good' Army ads that appear in uni diaries, on billboards and television differs extremely from the reality of participating in a war. Our parody simply corrects the omissions of the Department of Defence.
Recruits may be the target audience of our parody but they are certainly not the targets of our animosity. The adbust seeks to provoke thought about the true nature of the military and more specifically its political exploitation.
For all media enquiries please contact Jano Gibson on 9514 2479 or 0407 260 306
- 726 reads
can't read the PDF
Hey, i'm using the latest version of adobe acrobat on my win-ME pc and i can't read the attached PDF. Something about missing fonts. Can you possibly scan in the page and upload it as gif/jpeg ? Cheers.
ps - Fucking good work on behalf of vertigo! Keep it Up!
GIF
The text
Parody of US military propaganda site
www.armyofnone.com
Outstanding Good Work!
Hi there,
As an ex-pat Australian business man running a head-hunting firm in London it has been sickening to watch the pathetic eagerness of John Howard to commit Australia to a US / UK imperialistic war on Iraq, a country who poses no credible threat to the US or its neighbours but whose oil reserves are the obvious prize.
It was thus very gratifying to see the student body in Australia sticking it up to the Dept. of Defence, who as you rightly point out are planning an illegal attack on an independent state in outright violation of Article 2(4) and Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Keep up the good work!
Billy Kennedy
Good thinking
Hey folks,
It's great to know that students are still able to think for themselves even after years of the government attacking the education system and the education system faculties kneeling before the god of funding.
Well done on raising the misnamed "department of defence" profile....what's next....'democracy'?
Mike
Brilliant
Nicely done. As a millitary man, I might not agree with the idea but as a guy you likes good witty satire I really like the ad. Dad that so few American students have this kind of talent
they just don't get it
sweet college students!, way to encourage your possible soldiers away from harm. i'm sure this will do wonders for your own national security. nothing says "we support our military" like detouring people from the army. i guess people have to put some kind of blame somewhere, and now it's on the ones defending your freedoms, your land, and your home. way to go aussie's, way to go!
it's not a question of supporting your troops.
to nathan: defending freedoms from what? from the evil taliban? from the evil al-queda? the only real threat to any country seems to be the u.s. and it's supporters.
you're ignorance and arogance in how countries defend themselves is not only disgusting, but pitiful.
i, myself, support the military, it's kind of hard to give piggybacks, however, when they are out capturing oil fields for oil administrations. your undaunting patriotism to a illegal business venture run government is appauling.
from an aspiring journalist...
it's so wonderful to know that student publications can really accomplish something. I am on the staff of a high school paper in texas, and we try to push the limits as much as we can in order to write about things that actually matter. i only wish we could retaliate in such a manner, although the point of it might go over the heads of half the people in our school. but hey, if they didn't understand, they'd just assume the worst and come yell at us. interaction is our goal...
anyway, congrats on a job very well done.
i would like to see the original
i commend the editor's of the vertigo. being a former student publication editor myself, and having taking heat for running controversial material, i understand that it takes a great deal of cajones to stand up and speak your mind.
however, one criticism, being a student of philosophy, i believe that the best way to present an argument is to put forward the strongest version of your opponents position, then refute it with your own reasoning. having said that, i don't believe an effort has been made in this forum, or through the adbusters.org site, to make available the original dept of "defence" ad. personally i would like to see it, and if you really have faith in your position, which i'm sure you do, and rightly so, you should be more than willing to point people in the direction of the opposing arguments. afterall i think the point of intelligent discourse is not to censor the "wrong" side, but rather to make sure that a variety of opinion, both yea and nay, informed and ignorant, are available for people to observe.
Waaahooo
Sock it to em, gov!
You guys down under got it right!
Check this out...
http://home.attbi.com/~vc50er3/
Think
To kill or be killed is the question. What do we really know. Are they truly a friend or foe?
Moronic
Only morons would believe that the advertisements for the ADF are a misrepresentation. Having served myself, I know exactly what the job is about, and I believe the ads are extremely accurate.
I would like to point out that personnel know what they are signing up for when they join the ADF. They are not pawns and would not appreciate being named so.
The political reality of the defence force is that every man and woman serves his/her country. They do as they are asked without question and put their lives on the line every day for ingrates such as yourself and for the freedoms (such as freedom of speech, which you use liberally) that we all enjoy in this country.
They also protect people who cannot protect themselves.
I believe it was wrong for the Coalition to go into Iraq, but who else was going to stand up to Saddam Hussein? Certainly not the terrified Iraqi people. They alone were not powerful enough to bring about the collapse of the regime.
Our (Australian) defence forces are not killing innocent civilians. In fact, most of our deployment has already returned home.
I do not believe that the terrorist attacks of recent years should be used to justify this "invasion". I do believe, however, that the liberation of the Iraqis was an extremely important step toward ridding the world of murderers the likes of Amin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Hussein and Bin Laden.
And what of the medical, mechanical and structural work they do for other nations? This is no fallacy. The ADF has a proud tradition of helping those in need. These ads are there to recruit new personnel, not get them to war, because many personnel will never have to see conflict in their career.
So, before you go deciding what is the true nature of the military and how it is politically exploited, why don't you interview some people who live and breathe it and get their views?
Post new comment