Editing Adbusters (section)

==History==
[[File:adbusters talkingrainforest.jpg|thumb|Adbusters' first uncommercial]]

Adbusters was founded in 1989 by [[Kalle Lasn]] and Bill Schmalz, a duo of award-winning documentary filmmakers living in Vancouver. Since the early 1980s, Lasn had been making films that explored the spiritual and cultural lessons the West could learn from the Japanese experience with capitalism.

In 1988, the ''British Columbia Council of Forest Industries,'' the "voice" of the logging industry, was facing tremendous public pressure from a growing environmentalist movement. The logging industry fought back with a [[television ad]] campaign called "Forests Forever."<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/DAzlAu3sK3A Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20121220024356/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAzlAu3sK3A&gl=US&hl=en Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAzlAu3sK3A |title=Forests Forever Ad (1988) |publisher=[[YouTube]] |date=19 June 2009 |access-date=3 January 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref> It was an early example of [[greenwashing]]: shots of happy children, workers and animals with a kindly, trustworthy sounding narrator who assured the public that the logging industry was protecting the forest.

Lasn and Shmalz, outraged by the use of the public airwaves to deliver what they felt was deceptive anti-environmentalist propaganda, responded by producing the "Talking Rainforest"<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/49mUeTWGWBE Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20151122235940/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49mUeTWGWBE Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49mUeTWGWBE |title=Adbusters - Talking Forest |publisher=[[YouTube]] |date=7 November 2012 |access-date=3 January 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref> anti-ad in which an old-growth tree explains to a sapling that "a tree farm is not a forest." But the duo proved to be unable to buy airtime on the same stations that had aired the forest-industry ad.{{Citation needed|date=October 2011}} According to a former Adbusters employee, "The [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]]'s reaction to the proposed television commercial created the real flash point for the Media Foundation. It seemed that Lasn and Schmaltz's commercial was too controversial to air on the CBC. An environmental message that challenged the large forestry companies was considered 'advocacy advertising' and was disallowed, even though the 'informational' messages that glorified clearcutting were OK."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.evolutionzone.com/kulturezone/futurec/culture.jammers.manifesto |title=Archived copy |website=www.evolutionzone.com |access-date=13 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010222222933/http://www.evolutionzone.com/kulturezone/futurec/culture.jammers.manifesto |archive-date=22 February 2001 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

The foundation was born out of their belief that citizens do not have the same access to the information flows as corporations. One of the foundation's key campaigns continues to be the Media Carta,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/ |title=Adbusters: Media Carta |website=adbusters.org |access-date=13 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000817064152/http://adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/ |archive-date=17 August 2000 |url-status=dead}}</ref> a "movement to enshrine The Right to Communicate in the constitutions of all free nations, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

The foundation notes that concern over the flow of information goes beyond the desire to protect democratic transparency, freedom of speech or the public's access to the airwaves. Although it supports these causes, the foundation instead situates the battle of the mind at the center of its political agenda. Fighting to counter pro-consumerist advertising is done not as a means to an end, but as the end in itself. This shift in emphasis is a crucial element of mental environmentalism.