Blog 11 - The Yes Men

The Yes Men’s primary focus of their criticism is targeted at large corporations and other entities who tend to cover the negative details of their operations in order to maximize their profit. The primary method that the Yes Men utilize to criticize the media is satire through hoaxes that involve posing as representatives from the organizations that they are focusing on, effectively spoofing the organizations to draw attention to a problem.

The concept from the class that they are addressing the most is the idea of false consciousness. This idea states that “in capitalism, there is a disconnect between appearances and reality.” This is true of many of the organizations that the Yes Men target. Many of them hide the realities of the unpleasant and damaging facts about the way they make money. They do this throught the manipulation of the media and controlling what information goes out to the public about them. In this way, they can better control their public image. The Yes Men seek to expose the negative aspects of these organizations, so that they may be held accountable for their action and be pressured to improve. However, one interesting problem that they encounter is the fact that these organizations often see no wrong in what they are doing. This demonstrates the fact that the media is often self-serving, and believes that profiting off of its methods causes no harm, and if they are aware that it is negative, they are apathetic to it. The Yes Men seek to change this thinking, and force the conscience to play a bigger role in the actions of these large organizations.