I'm Back
Just got back from Abilene Christian University where, for the seventh year, I taught a short course (for a full semester's credit) entitled The Arts and Culture: A Christian Aesthetic. This year's class were engaged throughout, and we had a great experience, though as usual, I picked up a cold near the end of the course. That aside, it was a good week.
When I first began to teach this class around 1999 or 2000, I read a lot of media criticism that was depairing of any real way to make the onslaught of mass media constructive. Neil Postman and others were calling into question the notion that mass electronic media could be used to better the mind, to sharpen the ability to focus or hold attention, and that in the end, mass media entertainment was reshaping our ways of processing information that was detrimental. Reading was the way to go, they all said, and short of that, get ready for the fall of the empire.
Reading vs. consumption of mass electronic media. It seems hard to argue that they are not two vastly different ways of ordering information and images, and that the brain, as it encounters these two domains, must adjust it's processes accordingly. In other words, watching TV is different than reading a book. Nothing new here.
There's a whole new thing going on, though, among Christians trying to be "discerning" in their consumption of media. What's being said now is that the more detrimental effects of constant TV, advertising, and film intake can be overcome through "active engagement" and "reflection." And I have seen that this is true as I've worked with students over the past several years. There is no question that when a student is asked to reflect very specifically on what they are taking in, then their thought processes change, and they become more able to effectively make us of and respond to the images in front of them.
My new thought this past week was this: in the long history of human media and thought, electronic media are pretty new. Truth is, we don't know what the long term effect is going to be. There is no question that the proliferation of mass media images is affecting how we view the world. There are postiives and there are negatives. I'm glad that we get to see up close the various world calamaties that need our attention. To see the glory of the earth around the world is a deep blessing. But it is also true that there are many notions of moral reality competing for our devotion and alliegance in the mass media, and whether that will be a good or bad thing in the long term is hard to say.
But I did come out of the class with a new hope concerning the possibilities of these new forms. If we can be thoughtful and engage these films, the television series and programs, and yes, these books, then perhaps the changes we want to see in our society, and in us, can be made.
Let's try...
8:11:06 AM
