Rapid Development

New communication technologies have the ability to transform means and methods of human interaction, and may ultimately also influence the content of the message itself. Tools that themselves are neither “good” nor “bad” need to be evaluated and judged on the basis of a fundamental criteria, “How effective is this tool in communicating the gospel and help people come to faith in Lord Jesus Christ, without letting the tool disturb the message?” There are sadly more than enough examples of how unconscious use of technically advanced tools has come to severely disturb the message one tried to communicate.
The use of television in evangelism may serve as an example of how the medium can transform a message and even create needs and a whole culture on its own. William F. Fore accuses the Electronic Churches today primarily of being driven by considerations of economics and power.
Expecting to use the enormous power of television for their own purposes the televangelists have instead been used by it. They had to conform their messages to meet the demands of TV-demands to get larger audiences to get more money to get more stations to get even larger audiences. In order to get larger audiences, their messages had to please the audience, and never offend them, a requirement that becomes fatal to any authentic proclamation of the Christian faith.
This possibility of disturbing or perverting a message lies implicit in any communications tool because every tool simplifies and amplifies the “signals” or messages. Selecting the right tool to communicate various messages is a basic skill, also for the Christian communicator.
The Internet has developed into a forceful tool for establishing community and communicating not only knowledge but also emotions. A new virtual society can provide several opportunities for Christian outreach, education, and interaction. Several challenges can be listed and many more will surely be added in the future.
First, establishing ministries for friendship evangelism to penetrate the more than 20,000 discussion groups on the Internet.
Second, providing opportunities for pastoral counseling through virtual churches, forums, etc.
Third, providing resources for education also on topics relating to missions. Fourth, real time interaction through Internet Relay Chat.
Fifth, providing multimedia communication among partners in missions.
Sixth, effective prayer ministries via e-mail, IRC, etc.
Telephone, slides, radio and video can all be integrated as tools to amplify the effect of the message communicated on the Internet. Special training courses for people located almost everywhere in the world will greatly benefit from the same tools. Effective teamwork among partners living in different parts of the world will no longer be practically and economically impossible. These are only a few examples of all the new possibilities emerging.

The Internet and Church

New information technologies are rapidly changing the shape of worldwide interaction among people. The world is becoming a smaller world, unified in the use of common tools for communication and interaction and yet still diverse in language, culture, religious beliefs, and ideological values. Emerging new technologies will have a tremendous impact on every society in the world, although in various degrees and shapes. Some countries are spearheading the shaping of this new information-based society while others, due to economical and political as well as other reasons, are slowly following in their footsteps. Vice President of the United States, Albert Gore, has named the new technological reality the “Information Superhighway.”
Every period of history and every new generation need to receive the gospel as their own. Jesus Christ must be communicated as Savior and Lord for every human being on earth. Understanding God’s ultimate role as communicator throughout history is essential for the process of building a bridge of understanding between the story of the Bible and the story of our time.
As Christians the Lord Jesus has commissioned us to be his communicators. Our task is to communicate the good news about Jesus Christ in any way possible to every human being. (Matt 28:18-20, John 20:21) This task was given both to the Church as a whole and to every Christian. Dr. Viggo Søgaard points out that,
“As Christian communicators we are entering into the ministry which has been God’s concern through the ages: revealing himself to humanity. This commission to communicate permeates all aspect of Christian ministry, and it is the motivational force for commitment and dedication. This “communication for a purpose” is always present in Scripture.”

Ethics in Advertising

    Advertising. The attempt to send information to people to convince them to spend their money with a certain company. This concept is the foundation of much of the modern financial world. The ads can attack any of the senses. Sight, hearing, touch even smell or taste. Advertising is big business. Billions of dollars are spent each MONTH on advertising. Many industries exist solely due to the influx of money advertising brings in. The cable TV industry, magazines, newspapers and many other media and non-media industries would be drastically changed if they couldn’t sell advertising space.
So what the heck is in advertising? Let me give what is the most fundamental – truth. Telling the truth seems like a pretty basic ethical standard. However, this seems to be the most trampled upon in the world of advertising. Naturally, advertisers need to create advertisements that would immediately capture or trigger both men’s consciousness and sub consciousness. Thus, they create mind ticklers that are often shaded with very subtle truth. Yes advertisers tell the truth — but not always the Whole Truth. Like lawyers, their job is to put our clients in the best light. When you go on a job interview or a first date, you don’t assume a false identity – but you probably don’t make a full disclosure either. For a company trying to sell something, an ad is like getting a job interview with millions of people all at once. The ad wants to make a good first impression and really, really doesn’t want to make people mad. But different people react differently. A lot of people question the ethics of selling consumers things they don’t need – which presupposes that we shouldn’t have the things we don’t need but want anyway. Advertising, like human beings, lives where Reason meets Desire. They sell us dreams, entice us into confusing dreams with reality. They pander to our desires for things that are bad for us. They manipulate us into wanting things we don’t really need. All this can be summed up in the popular sentiment that advertisers cynically use a world of fantasy and illusion in an attempt to control us.

100 years of Cinema

Money, Money, Money and Entertainment – these are the primary reasons why there is cinema. However, it can be regarded that money is the primary purpose for its existence. Entertainment is the mean. After more than a hundred years of cinema, what has it reached? How far has it gone to gain its intended result, i.e., money? In order to gain as much money as they can, they need to present some very capturing images or clips, e.g., sexy scenes, violence, etc. Sad to say, producers and other persons involved in movie making doesn’t anymore regard who might be the viewers.
The Pontifical Council for Social Communications has produced a decree regarding the different means of social communication. They took serious efforts to educate men of different age and culture in the correct understanding of the mass media, and in this particular case, of the cinema. This is in response to the inestimable effect of cinema both the young and old. Nonetheless, it is even more apparent that children are more easily affected by what cinema presents. Why? Simply because children lack the necessary critical consciousness to filter and analyze the factuality and practicality of what is being presented. I am not saying that only children can be ‘victimized’ by the harmful side cinema. One of the harmful side of cinema and TV is violence. This does not need any more elaboration or elucidation. It is a matter of fact.
In general, the effects of cinema on viewers can be divided into two different types: 1) direct effects due to the content of what is seen (in the main features or commercials); and 2) indirect effects due to the activity of watching it, regardless of what is being watched. This second type of effect is very important, because it usually means that the more time children spend watching TV, the less time they are spending doing other important activities (like reading, talking with others, getting exercise, playing games, being outdoors, etc.). A lot of the negative effects of cinema like lower reading scores, obesity, and poor physical fitness, seem to be due to these indirect effects.
Moreover, it is oftentimes more apparent that parents are more concerned about violence on the programs shown on the television of cinema and its effects on their children. Television does include a lot of violence, not only on adult crime dramas, but also on cartoons, on slapstick comedies, and on the nightly news. There are at least three certain evident effects of violence 1) children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, both on the programs being watched and in real life; 2) children may be more fearful of the world around them; and 3) children may be more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others. The impact of TV or cinema violence on aggression seems to be partly due to imitation of the aggressive actions that children see (particularly if they are done by the “good guys”) and partly due to the messages that aggression works to get what you want and it’s OK to use aggression if you are justified in doing so (a message we get a lot in adult crime movies).
However, while children can learn aggressive behavior from television, it is good to know that parents and other adults have tremendous power in moderating television and cinema’s effect. Adults have the power to prevent innocent minds from corruption. If only they would care enough.

Aetatis Novae – The Dawn of the New Era

“The media can be used to proclaim the Gospel or to reduce it to silence in human hearts. As media become ever more intertwined with people’s daily lives, they influence how people understand the meaning of life.”

                The eternal question… What is the meaning of life? I believe that we must first understand what life is, before we understand what the meaning of life is. I am reminded. Aetatis Novae. The Dawn of the New Era. What does this era present to us? Is this the zenith of our civilization or the dusk of what was good? I have pondered this question many times, what the meaning of my life is, and invariably, I always come up with a different answer, depending on where I am currently at in this lifetime. When most people ask themselves what the meaning of life is, they expect that the answer will come from something outside. They expect that something outside themselves will give them meaning and purpose. The truth is, though, that’s not where meaning comes from. The only meaning life has is the one which you give it. I personally believe, that we are all here in this physical form as humans, to achieve something of great value, not only for ourselves, but those with whom we decided to have a part of our lives. This would include our family members, spouses, children, friends, co-workers, people we may meet online, and even those that we may encounter for a brief moment.

Throughout my life I have met various people, some who are simple minded and enjoy the little things in life, and others who are always searching for more, a new understanding about oneself and life. When I come in contact with these individuals I tend to ask myself “What have I learned from them? What piece of information are they about to share, that I can take with me in this journey of life?” I believe that every one we come in contact with has something to offer, and with their ideas or opinions, can help you gain insight into your own life and purpose.

As for the rest of my life, I am still searching and trying to make sense of it all. I recently read a book that states, we are non-physical beings, and that we come here to earth in physical form for the experience. That each time we come here, our image has changed so that we can see what it is like to experience things from different perspectives. If this is true, I can understand why some or childless, poor, rich, criminals etc. This concept offered me a new way to think about things and the meaning it may hold, even though it left me asking a lot of questions to.

I have always reflected upon media as the most influential source. Why? Simply because it is almost everywhere – in our homes, in the malls, in the churches, in the schools, etc. In fact, media has been so accessible to anyone, anywhere. It is even in our own hands – our cellphones.

                What bothers me most is the knowledge that media may not just simply just be abused by people by using it to promote violence, pornography, lies, etc. What is more terrifying is how it directly and indirectly affects our understanding and view of life. We must understand that in the phenomenon of using media, we are not 100% critically aware of the factuality of what is being presented to us. We often neglect the possibility of media deceiving us. Oftentimes we say that we are using media. But we should know that media for all this time has been using us.

 

 

Violence and Pornography

And it was good…
I would never be able to forget that instance when while searching for the keyword “happy children’s videos” I was taken to a site that would forever affect me. In the video was a little girl of about seven years with his father. The father was recording his daughter swimming in a pool. I really thought that it was a good video. However, moments later the father called the child and started to talk to her and play with her. The father’s playful hands tickled the daughter. It became very disturbing when the father started to touch the child private parts. Then, I realized that the film would certainly lead to something very bad. I would not anymore continue with the details since I believe that you could already picture what had happened next.
The child was so innocent. So pure. I can not fathom the cruelty of the minds that are behind those kind of diabolic matters. Is this really the apogee of human civilization? I can remember what a priest had said upon watching the movie Irreversible which was a very violent film. He said, “even the devil could not do it.” I understood that he was exaggerating but perhaps it gives us an image of how far we have strayed.
How long are we going to take these fatal blows? How long are we going to stay numb as if we are not affected with what is being presented to us even by Hollywood movies? And yes..
It was good…

Communio et Progressio

The media are everywhere in our society. They are there in our homes, on the streets (hoardings, posters etc.), in our cars and through our mobile phones media walk with us and talk to us. They are no longer constrained by geographical boundaries or technological limitations. Though it has not created the “global village”, we can speak of global markets and global, dominant cultures. And today with the Internet, we have entered into another new, exciting world.

Today the media are making increasing demands on our time, they help define our patterns of leisure and entertainment, and they play a role in our social life. They present us with overwhelming amounts of information and images, about ourselves, others, society, culture etc. They serve to define what is of political concern, of economic importance and cultural interest to us. The media select for us. They tell us what to eat, where to go, what to buy, what to wear, how to look attractive and how to live our lives. They set our agenda and tell us what is important and what is trivial by what they take note of what they ignore. The powerful images that we experience in the mass media shape not only our perception of reality and events, but also the events themselves. We are controlled by the media. We are controlled by the entertainment they offer.

Images of violence, rape, infidelity in marriage and explicit sex are beamed directly into our homes. Flickering images of music videos (MTV), glamorous life styles and the new models and gurus of Fashion TV take people away from greater values. According to many authors the greatest single catalyst of this mind-shift has been the satellite television explosion, which has made an entirely alien lifestyle a part of urban India’s daily life. Satellite television has not only glamorised the lifestyle, but also validated it. MTV and Channel V (and other imitations) have not only changed young people’s musical tastes but also their entire way of looking at life.

Reflection on the ‘Guidelines’

In this era characterized by the modern phenomenon of the instruments of social communication, wherein the Word of Salvation is propagated in the same pace as of the devil’s charm, it was deemed by the Infallible Church to release guidelines concerning the formation of seminarians regarding the use of mass media. This is to admit that seminarians, who will later become Alter Christus, are also humans and are capable of falling into the devil’s trap.

How much we are realizing about the effects of mass media today? It is quite obvious and certain that the means for mass communication, just like any other things, are open to all possibilities of utilization. And these utilizations would ultimately affect, control and alter human life. These instruments, which are amoral in themselves, can benefit the entire cultural, social and spiritual universe of the human person if used conscientiously. However, we could also expect adverse effects if these tools are employed by indifferent or malign people.  Yes, the Church recognizes mass media as a providential development if and only if it does its task of transmitting the truths of divine revelation. These instruments are providential means for the accomplishment of the Church’s mission to “preach from the house tops” (Luke 12:3), “to all nations” (Mark 16:15), “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

          One of the explicit abuses lurking the mass media is commercialization. Television, Radios, Internet, cell phones, cinema, etc. are basically used to generate money.  Money. Truth is a secondary matter. We often times catch ourselves deciphering whether what is presented to us by the media is the whole truth or a half truth. This is a real danger. Why? Because most of us lack the necessary critical thinking to ensure that we get the essential truth of the state of affairs. Another thing that we need to consider is censorship. One reason children are so vulnerable to the messages of television and other easily accessible media is that they take what they see or hear as a reality. Very young children equate all of television with reality. The values that they would acquire would be more or less the value that they have received from the media. Their sense of beautiful and of the sublime would be that which was presented by the media. The excessive commercialization of beauty products unavoidably makes you feel “not so beautiful”. The standard of the people is now the standard dictated by the media.

To be continued. . .

Inter Mirifica – Among the Wonderful

 It is very evident that the world is very much saturated with information and its media. It seemingly has almost an unchallengeable authority on information. The media by which these information are distributed ranges from press, movies, radio, television, internet, and the like.

 The Church dutifully acknowledges the profit that we could gain by properly utilizing different medias, i.e., in consonance with the ethical norms and teachings of the Church. At the same time, the Holy Mother Church also recognizes the danger that these media present if abused. For, indeed, what these medias present would have a certain effect on a person soul in one way or the other.

For not all knowledge is helpful, but “it is charity that edifies.”

We may truly have all the means to gather and process information but as experience tells us, not all knowledge is helpful. The value of our definite knowledge of things is measured by their ability to form our human and Christian spirit. Our knowledge can only be of moral use if it is employed for the propagation and promotion of human. The challenges of the inter mirifica on the social communications of the Church have not diminished but are greater today.