California in Flannel

Final Post

2005-12-04T22:35:00.000-08:00

Mass media is probably the most globalizing force of this generation. Pietreses defines the globalization of economics is accelerated movements across national and regional barriers of economic goods. (p. 17) Commercials, billboards, catalogs etc. communicate the message of materialism and popular culture from Los Angles to London to Nairobi to Beijing. One can only speculate as to the success of the globalization of economy without the vehicle of mass media. A few years ago I visited the Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the main exhibits was of all the different types of products that they sell from the around the world. From the Italian version to the Chinese one, one can see the amazing power of mass marketing.

He defines the globalization of sociology is both the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole. (p. 17) People outside of the United States yearn for the technology and comforts that we have, and in turn, we too love to export our technology almost as much as they want it. Interestingly, as we discussed in the past blogs and classes, we desire to export this technology to the rest of the world, but we do not readjust our lives and resources to make that possible. Our desire to share would seem to be more of a desire to show off our ingenuity and fancy gadgets. Perhaps, it is more of a desire to make everyone else more like us than it is a desire upgrade the world for its own good. Pietreses also defines it as the social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people are increasingly aware that they are receding. (p. 17) Over the last century, the world has been “shrinking” at rapid rate. With the rapid development of radio technology, telephones, cellphones, internet etc. communication has become exceedingly easy and accessible. On a mission trip in the remote parts of Brazil, we were able to carry a satellite phone that had the capabilities of reaching around the world.

Pietreses describes the globalization of the history and anthropology is a long term historical process of growing worldwide interconnectedness. (p. 17) As I stated earlier, the advancement of technology and mass media has progressed rapidly over the last century. Globalization goes as far back as the system of roads that were built in Europe and Asia during the Pax Romana.

Mass media is merely a vehicle. It is not a value or an ideology in itself, but it is used as a means of communicating values and ideologies. As Jesus followers, it does not make sense to fight technology and mass media as the church has often done in the past. We need to learn how to use mass media to combat evil and immoral ideologies in this world. As we near the end of our class, I thin kit is important for us to ponder the implications of how we use mass media in our ministries and how we can equip believers to respond more thoughtfully and effectively to these important globalizing forces.

Weight of the World

2005-11-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

The End of a World p. 317

This article by Bourdieu discusses the end of the age of metallurgy plants. He grew up in on of the many towns that was built around a plant or mill that would employ thousands of residents. These mass-employment business are now being shutdown by smaller businesses which only employ fifty to a hundred people. This evolution in society is having many effects. I often think about the life of a mill worker. I attended a small college in a small town in South Carolina. The majority of the county was employed by a number of textile mills in the area. It was one of the poorest areas in one of the poorest states in the nation. Life was not easy, nor was it good to many of these people. There was a high number of high schools drop outs, and many of locals had never traveled further than fifty miles away. Life was not easy, but at least they had a job. Right? Well, I’m not sure about that. Is it ok that thousands of families have been locked into dead-end jobs from generation to generation? The best someone could do would be a promotion to manager, but even that would be a poor quality position relatively from our perspective. Say a man working in a mill has a family, how does he support them? How does he put them through school? I don’t mean to exclude working mothers here, but in that region, working moms were rare. Still, working moms generally had poor paying jobs too. The mill was back-breaking, often monotonous labor, usually in unhealthy conditions, but it was all there was. There was not time or resources for considering life outside the mill town. Children did not think about leaving town, nor were they aware of the possibility to do something more with their lives and careers. So is it a bad thing that the age of the mass-employment plants and mill-towns is coming to and end? However, there is a problem to which I wonder how we will respond as a society. I was watching the movie I Robot last week. I was amazed at the special effects and technological improvements and ideas that these types of movies impose on our realities. But as I sat there and watched this society in which everyone owned a robot, I wondered how everyone was able to afford and robot, and if robots were doing all the work, then what was everyone doing for work? Even at the end of the movie, robots were going to replace the military. What I would venture to guess is that even though there was not a poor person showed in the entire movie, there was another part of the city where the unemployed and impoverished masses lie in social darkness and obscurity. The scene outside of the city would probably be more reminiscent of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Millions of people unemployed and permanently locked out of the elite, locked out of social and economic growth, not to mention equality.

As we move into the future, we need to look at how our wealth is made and used because the easier we make our lives, the harder it gets for other people. Every little bit of good we take comes from a resource, and more often than not, that resource is directly, if not indirectly, linked to human beings. We save money on goods and services because our goods are made in other countries where there are no labor laws. In our quest for social utopia and a care-free, pain-free, effotless world, we need to look at for everyone else besides our selves. This, after all, is our goal to enjoy life without having to work, but to be served and to be able to enjoy our time and resources. But in this quest, we must not overlook the plight of the child in bonded slavery in India who makes our goods or the fourth generation mill worker in South Carolina who is paid pennies for hard labor. At some point we must face this difficult paradox… or we can just live in ignorance.

Inventing Pop Culture...

2005-11-20T22:23:00.000-08:00

In reading about the development of popculture and global culture, I am struck by the credibility so many of us give pop culture without really addressing it deeper. Too often we find ourselves swimming downstream on the river fo culture faster than the rest of society. We don't really think about where the river is goign or how clean the river is, but hey, everybody esle is doing it... right? I think the church really needs to reasess the way we interact and integrate pop culture. Don't misunderstand me... iIt's one thing to incorporate a guitar and rock music into worship on Sundays, but what about the rest of the week. How are we setting ourselves apart from the rest of society? How do we live by a different set of standards while living in the same culture?

As we approach mass media with discretion, it is important that we also acknowledge the shadows of truth that we find in them. For instance, one might watch the Godfather and only see organized crime, but it portrays the pain and horrors of living that lifestyle. Or, in a sex-saturated culture, one could draw attention to how it shows the desire for intimacy, love, and emotional security. In many of these areas, particularly film and music, there is a high level of artistic quality that is appealing and uplifting. We can use these “footprints” of God as bridges as we reach out to non Jesus followers. One exception to this is the area of advertising. It is difficult to find a redeeming quality in it. One could say that beer commercials show the desire for community and relationships with the opposite sex, however seductive they may be. Or, these days tobacco commercials tell us that tobacco products kill us. Perhaps, we could say that in endorsing and selling consumerism and materialism they are encouraging us to support the economy, giving jobs to thousands of people across the world. Too bad those jobs are going to third world nations, so corporations don’t have to pay people sufficiently. Ok, that last one may cross the line. Nevertheless, it is important for us as Jesus followers to search for and acknowledge the important background issues and positive values in mass media. But we also need to take moral stands and not except everything as “shadows of the truth.” For instance, form a positive perspective, the movie The Wedding Crashers shows the importance of true love, but it also is had nudity, sex scenes and was bursting with sexual innuendo. As funny as it was (…and it was very funny), I couldn’t help but feel “dirty” when I left the theatre. I don’t want to see the movie again, nor would I encourage anyone else to see it because of those aspects of it. In situations like these, I think we still need to be shrewd about what we allow ourselves and our families to watch and listen to because even though we can extract positive ideas from media, it is not a green-light to do whatever we want. I Corinthians 10:23: “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up.”

resources, resources, resources...

2005-11-13T21:18:00.000-08:00

“Cross–border trade from the earliest times has required some form of accepted currency.” (190)

“…in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the values of makor currencies were fixed to the price of gold, providing a basis for a system of fixed exchange rates: the classical Gold Standard.” (195)

The gold standard was originally introduced in order to provide some sort of global economic currency. Since most countries use different cuurency (the United States uses the dollar; Mexico uses the peso, Brazil uses the real…) a unifying one was needed. Gold was seen as a resource available to all the countries. however, since its inception, the Godl Standard was somewhat of a joke. First, it was not internationally available, nor was there equal distribution of it. Gold was only located in certain locations, and the major gold deposits were few and far between. Therefore, under the Gold Standard, the countires with more numerous, larger deposits had more value. Second, the system was based on a Western concept. The system works for peoepl who know it and understand it, but for those who are not educated as to how the system works, it means nothing. Third, it was controlled by the stronger nations. Because the system was developed by Western nations, they naturally had an advantage over other nations, but also stronger nations had an advantage. As gold became more and more important and valuable, stronger countries would take gold from weaker ones. Finally, international currency is constantly changing and based on a situation by situation evaluation. For instance, the United States entered the Gulf Wars with the extra motive of gaining oil., not gold. I worked at a school in Brazil where students could pay in rice or meat, not gold or even the national currency. How often has the United States gained extra goods and services from other countires in exchange for protection or diplomacy.

“…this does not presume that all countries trade with all countries, rather it assumes the existence of a trading system in which trade activity between any two countries may affect trade relations between the rest.” (150)

The world is so tightly connected that what happens between neighbors affects “the whole naeighborhood.” In Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein probably thought he could roll into Kuwait and no one would notice, but the whole world noticed. Tradeing systems have becoem a way for nations to make political statements. For instance, the United States trade embargo of Cuba and strained traded relations with China. Or, how many countries have made statement disagreeing with the U.S. by increasing trade with countries like these?

“Hyperglobalists or sceptical accounts either simply assume that trade leads to global convergeance in income levels or that it simply perpetuates or increases international inequality.” (152)

Some people bring up the quesiton of whether capitalism or communism is more biblical or ethical. (for example, the young man who asked it last Thursday.) Though capitalism has the great weakness of the powerful exploiting the weak, it encourages competition, creativity, and the potential to succeed and grow. Ideally, Socialism has the main strength of equally distributed wealth, but creativity and potential for success has diminished in socialist countries. Generally, socialist countries have also suffered from the most powerful exploiting the rest of the population. If you look at Cuba, there is a wealthy, powerful class, but there is also a massive, impoverished class. Perhaps if a socialist system was founded in the ethics and ideas of Jesus Christ than it would work. However, the system is generally based on fallen ethics of humans and run by them as well.

“…in this early modern period, the kept centers of financial activity were located generally in areas where commerce, and hence demand for financial services, were concentrated. (191)

“In Eurasia, the domestication of animals and improving technologies for harnessing their power, road-building, imperial security, and improvements in shipping, cartography, and navigation techniques made intercontinental and interregional trade more feasible. (152)

“Foreign investment and the acquisition of technology ensure countries beyond England industrialized and so competed in international markets.” (155)

Technology has been an important contributor to the globalization of marketting and financing. Transportation itself has advanced from walking to using domesticted animals to steam to electricty to nuclear to flight etc. This along with the export of this technology helped international trade develop and disperse across the world. However how much did this really balance the economic forces? Technology remained either monopolized by specific countries or dominated by them. Though all the countires have automobiles and airplanes now, there are more in Los Angles alone than there are in most countries.

All of these factors bear the same foundation and motivating factor that guides and propels mass media: the love of money/greed. Technology is just a vehicle by which people make more money. Techonology propelled globalization in every respect, especially the financial one. It has made the world a smaller place. All around us, the world fincancial powers are advertising themesleves and their products: they buy commercial air time, they make movies, the buy sports stadiums, the advertise on billboards etc. You can go anywhere in the world and find Coca Cola, McDonalds, Volkswagon etc. The global information system exists to make money. In class, we talked about how global lnews sources have compromised objectivivty for the sake of ratings and popularity, and the higher the ratings are, the more money they make. As wemove into the future, we need to assess the true value of media and technology and seek to redeem it for Christian values.

Reflections on Transforming Cultures

2005-11-07T01:46:00.000-08:00

“New forms of communication enable people to overcome geographical boundaries which once might have prevented contact; and they create access to a range of social and political experiences which the individual or group may never have had an opportunity to engage with directly.”

One of the biggest issues facing society as a whole is that we are constantly charting “new waters.” Every day the world “grows smaller.” People and places that were never accessible by us are now becoming accessible, and our culture is one which seeks to expand and assimilate. Hence, when a new tribe is discovered in the Amazon or in Pacific Ocean, people desire to either a) globalize them with technology and “sophistication” or b) preserve them, so that wealthy adventurers have a “petting zoo” to visit when they want to “go native.”

“International law is a law between states only and exclusively.”

Another major obstacle in globalization is the growing independence of ideologies from governments and secular structures. In the Untied States, we have Pat Robertson wanting to assassinate Hugo Chavez, and he goes unpunished for saying this on national television. A much greater threat is that of terrorism, most of which is guided by fundamentalist Muslims. This is an ideology that has already begun the next world war, but it is not as simple as taking out Hitler in order to take out Germany or dropping a bomb on Japan to make them stop. This enemy lives everywhere, and they will do anything to get what they want done.

“We live in overlapping communities of fate, where the trajectories of each and every country are more tightly intertwined than ever before.”

It is no longer the case that we in the Untied States can live isolated from the rest of the world. We learned this in World War 2 when we tried to stay out of the war that was rocking Europe, Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. What happens in China, Israel, Venezuela etc. affects us. If not directly, indirectly through the modern monster of globalized media.

“To refer to the world as a complex, contested, interconnected order is to acknowledge the messy appearances which define global politics at the turn of the new century. “

Have politics ever been messier? I read an article recently that included a comparison between George W. Bush and John F. Kennedy, and the comparison was difficult, if not impossible, to make. The stresses on the president today far outnumber and outweigh those of JFK or any president before that. In a given week, Bush has to deal with natural disasters, gas prices, Iran, North Korea, China, Iraq, CIA leaks, terrorism, Hugo Chavez, Osama B. Laden, the “religious right,” which is probably the scariest of them all, etc.

“While the concept of sovereignty has by no means been rendered redundant, state sovereignty today jostles for recognition alongside novel forms of political power and sites authority. “

Democracy is a great idea and usually works well, but as long as there are humans on the earth, true democracy and respect for all living things will not be known. In a class on the history of Latin American politics, I was astonished at the terrible, messy history that many, if not all, of those countries have had to endure. With hope on the horizon, another dictator and military leader rears their ugly head.

“Since 1914, humankind has lived and thought in terms of world war, even when the guns were silent and the bombs were not exploding.”

It is amazing to think about how key World War One was in globalization. The first global conflict. Millions of casualties. Entire countries decimated. After 1914, war became a much more important and rapidly developing science.

“The industrialization of war combined with huge and increasingly well organized and disciplined armed forces, facilitated the most extensive phase of western imperialism since the initial voyages of discovery.”

Talk about a sharp learning curve?!?! It’s amazing how effective rapid fire guns are against spears and bow & arrows. Military technology in the hands of humans is a recipe for imperialism which leads to invasion which leads to destruction and oppression.

“Such developments represent a significant transnationalization of the western defense industrial base, a process which is being driven by a commercial logic, as opposed to primarily domestic or nation a security requirements.”

This is the scariest part of globalization for me. Those who build weapons and sell them are no longer bound by nationalistic pride or patriotism to ensure that dangerous technology does not fall into the evil hands. Instead they are governed by the “almighty dollar.” People do not build weapons to help their country any more, but they build them to make money. Everyone knows it is only a matter of time until a nuclear weapon is sold into the wrong hands. Well, actually, we all know that has probably already happened; we just have to wait and see what they do with it.

“One of the earliest recorded arms control initiatives is the decision of the Lateran Council in 1139 to prohibit the use of crossbows between Christian armies.”

This is so wrong on many levels. The fact that they dealt with what weapons were used instead of why to Christian armies were fighting is sad. “Let’s not kill each other with crossbows. That’s not nearly as sporting as using a sword or spear or morning star!”

“We live in a post-military society, and the structural balance between welfare and warfare has shifted decisively towards the former over the latter.”

With the Iraq War, it has been interesting to see this one played out. However, I fear that most Americans who focus on welfare are ignorant to the fact that the rest of the world focuses on warfare. Oh yeah, and they also hate us. So as we criticize and try to subvert the militaristic focus of our government and economy, those who are bent on destroying us sneak through the “doors” that we leave cracked open on our borders, and they plot and prepare for our demise while we bicker amongst each other. Am I fed up with war protesters and polarized politics? Absolutely. Should we have gone to war? Maybe not. But as long as no one is willing to trust the other side or even agree with them, than our government will not be able to do the things that need to be done—like protect our country.

Week #___: 10 More Resources

2005-10-30T20:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.aap.org/family/tv1.htm
American Academy of Pediatrics lists specific areas in which parents need to beware of the effects on children: time, nutrition, sex, alcohol, tobacco, commerciasl etc.

http://www.aap.org/family/mediaimpact.htm
This article gives an overview of some of the messages media send young people that could be negative or harmful to their health and shows how parents can help their children understand these things.

http://www.aap.org/policy/re0038.html
This article shows how media affects sexual understanding in adolescents and how that affects health and well being in families.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec01/fastfood.html
There is an abundance of unhealthy, heavily advertised food in media that is bringing down the health and physical activity of millions of Americans.

http://www.media-awareness.ca/
This group provides resources and support for those interested in media and information literacy for youth.

http://www.moralityinmedia.org/
Morality in Media fights immorality and indecency in media through the legal system.

http://www.technos.net/tq_11/2emmans.htm
This article looks at the connection between media literacy and character education.

http://interact.uoregon.edu/mediaLit/mlr/readings/articles/Divide.html
hippies form the sixties turned into yuppies, driving European cars, and influencing generations through advertising and media.

http://interact.uoregon.edu/mediaLit/mlr/readings/articles/hardlessons.html
Media doesn’t work unless it makes money!!!

http://interact.uoregon.edu/mediaLit/mlr/readings/articles/superbowl.html
I hate people who only watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. I hate the NFL and the networks for turning into a media circus. What can I say… I’m a purist. I like football because it’s football. …Anyways, this article’s interesting.

Consequences
I find it darkly amusing how television portrays a world without consequences. Someone can do whatever they feel like, and suffer few, if any, negative repercussions. This goes completely contrary to the reality that the Bible speaks of. YHWH is a god of moral standards and integrity, and as responsible, independent beings, he holds human beings to these standards. It is the law. When the law is broken, punishment is carried out. It is a natural order of action and consequence. However, media portrays a lifestyle, which is untethered and free. In regards to violence, we see random acts of violence and mayhem that just seem to happen with no ramifications. Characters in television shows and movies have sex freely with whomever they want, and it is ok.

In advertising, companies push us to make decisions based on feelings and popularity. “If it feels right, it must be right.” Or “If you try our product, people will like you.” That’s the basis for the advertising industry. It has removed from the realm of moral reality. As the church we need to reconnect ourselves with true reality where there are standards and law. After all, “sin is lawlessnes.”

Evangelism and Israel

2005-10-30T13:40:00.000-08:00

I found the luncheon very interesting, especially Rabbi Dauermann's ideas. Having spent some time with him, I have great respect for him and his ideas, and I think some of his concepts are great. I didn't wuite understand everything he had to say. My NT2 professor asked us, "Was Paul tryign to elimate, replace, or reform Judaism?" After thinking about that question for the last year and a half, I think that it is true that Jesus cam to reform/fulfill Judaism, which would make us Jews, ...reformed Jews, I guess. No, how about "fulfilled Jews." I am interested ot hear more about his thoughts on Jewish evangelism and the need to change the way we view Jews in contrast to the way we view and deal with Gentiles.

Ten More Resources

2005-10-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article79.html
Television and media promote a worldview hat newer and more developed is always better.

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/ethnics_and_minorities/index.cfm
Media does not keep up with the ethnic and cultural diversity of contemporary society.

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article568.html
This article fights the most common negative perceptions of the media.

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article637.html
There’s a downloadable PowerPoint presentation about how children learn to associate letters with brands before knowing the ABC’s.

http://gpn.unl.edu/cml/cml_product.asp?catalog%5Fname=GPN&category%5Fname=The+Merchants+of+Cool&product%5Fid=1441
Teens are being marketed more than ever. They are exposed to over 3,000 ads per day, and companies spent nearly $200 billion per year on advertising alone.

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article81.html
“Dependence on television is training for adaptation to consumer society. On the one side, television watching, like the rest of the high-consumption way of life, is motivated by a search for pleasure, escape, and anesthesia; on the other, dependence on television is dependence on the prepackaged forms through which pleasure, escape, and anesthesia can be comfortably and conveniently procured.”

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article124.html
“What are the values that mass media communicate to us on behalf of or culture? Power heads the list: power over others; power over nature. As Hannah Arendt points out, in today's media world it is not so much that power corrupts as that the aura of power, its glamorous trappings, attracts. Close to power are the values of wealth and property, the idea that everything can be purchased and that consumption is an intrinsic good. The value of narcissism, of immediate gratification of wants, and of creature comforts follow close behind.”

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article80.html
Communication by image is displacing that which is oral or written.

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article64.html
This article is entitled “Deadly Persuasion: 7 Myths Alcohol Advertisers Want You to Believe.” It uses concrete examples of how these advertisements lie and manipulate.

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article274.html
This article claims that the reason we watch what we do is because what is watch is just like us.

Week Two resources

2005-10-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

http://pbskids.org/dontbuyit/
Lots of funny info on how TV ads glam food products, models etc.

http://www.pbs.org/30secondcandidate/text/tricks_of_the_trade/
Shows tricks on how to emotionally manipulate an audience through music, lighting, makeup etc.

http://it.stlawu.edu/%7Eadvertiz/children/
The title is “The Rape of Our Children.” And the opening quote is, “The advertising man is the modern missionary: "Give me your children before they are five and they are mine forever!!!"

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/kamimura/130/thesis/
This essay looks at the way gender roles are portayed in commercials.

http://www.adcritic.com/
This site looks at commercials and ads from the beginning of television. If y become a member, you can view from library of historic commercials.

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MAinTV/analad.html
This gives good questions to take into consideration when you are assessing the effects of commercials and the intentions of the producers.

http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/slater/
This site looks at consumer culture, market society, sociology of the internet, and a specific look at the effects on Trinidad by the internet.

http://www.uiowa.edu/~commstud/adclass/teen/
This site looks at the effects on teens by advertising and how producers use advertising to manipulate them.

http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/
A Christian web site that wants to reform the way churches market themselves because, as the URL says, “Church marketing sucks!”

http://www.aiias.edu/ict/vol_03/03cc_021-039.htm
A Christians educator’s critique of television advertising looking at violence and sex in advertising.

Week One Reflection--Heroes

2005-10-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

For me, one of the most important aspects of life is who your heroes are. These are the people that you look up to and seek to mimic. You hope to be like them right now and for the rest of your life. Heroes can be parents, siblings, friends, athletes, Hollywood stars, musicians etc. Ideally, the greatest heroes in a person's life should be their parents. They should be the ones who deserve to be followed and who live lives worthy enough to be followed, but in a world characterized by broken families and media addictions, heroes no longer live at home with you. Allen Iverson may say, "I'm not a hero," but what he should say is, "I shouldn't be your hero; your mom or dad should," because kids do look up to him as a hero figure. I’m sure plenty of kids wear socks on the arms now and skip practice because of his wonderful example. Or a child may be a big Harry Potter fan, and Harry's his hero. With the exception of England itself, it's completely make-believe, and the stories are far fetched and implausible. Nevertheless, little kids dress up like him and try to turn their brothers into toads. Television is a terrible source for family values, in general. In the majority of sit-coms about families and many prime time cartoons, the behavior of children is horrible. Using "swear words" is common and consumerism is out of control. I love the Cosby Show, but it was the beginning of using kid for cheap laughs and cute humor. The original show's ratings were dropping so badly, that they even added a second kid played by Disney actress, Raven. I guess Rudy lost here edge around ten years old! Now, on the Cosby show at least the kids were pretty appropriate and humor was modest, but on current shows, humor that uses children tends to be adult humor. After all, what's funnier than a ten year old making fun of his dad's sex life???

In my opinion, there are two main problems: who our heroes are and how they behave. Our heroes should not be people in the media. Our heroes should be our parents or close friends and family. However, the nuclear family has been shredded to pieces in contemporary society, and in many cases now, it would be dreadfully unhealthy for a child to look up to their parents as heroes. Absent fathers and overworked moms are a norm, not to mention many parents who see their kids as either an obstacle to doing the things they enjoy or their last hope to what they wished they would have done (i.e. become a child actor. Values like "giving your kids everything you had when you were their age and more" may be noble but do not work strictly in a moral sense because one's identity becomes wrapped up in what they have, not to mention that "reality" is defined by what you can see and feel and not by a spiritual world at work around us.) As media: television, movies, internet etc. become stand-in parents we need to look at our children and youth's favorite shows and movies and see who the heroes are in these. I imagine we will find that the characters are a trainwreck in a moral sense, although a smoke screen is thrown up at the end of each episode in the form of a moral, and that our children's heroes are multiple and diverse, gleaning characteristics from numerous genres and communication mediums. I am interested in seeing how this plays out in our project this quarter.

10 Resources on Media & Family Values

2005-10-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.mediafamily.org/
National Institute on Media and the Family exists to educate families about the effects of mass media on children. There give reviews on video games and movies, and they provide many articles on topics ranging from effects of TV on literacy to usefulness of cell phones.

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/media_and_values_6.html
Media & Values is published by the Center for Media Literacy. Articles address everything from violence in the media to sexual issues. I found the article “New Heroes for a New Age” particularly interesting in looking at how TV and movies portray a certain type of hero that is not functional in the “real world.”

http://www.aap.org/family/mediaimpact.htm
The American Academy of Pediatrics published this article on how media affects children and families. They pay extra attention to how children mimic what they see on TV and in movies and give good ideas on how to talk about it with your children.

http://home.earthlink.net/~ankfamily/media.html
This article provides practical ways that a family can discuss and think through the messages that media is sending their youth and children regarding “what it means to be young, how to handle interactions with others, how to have fun, and how to gain status as an adult.”

http://www.afa.net/journal/may/2002/harris.asp
This article put out by the American Family Association discusses how media is reshaping reality for everyone, even Christians. They note how Bible and Christian truth is treated by the media. A poignant quote from Josh Harris reads, “The mind set of many believers is “trying to figure out how much sinful content from media they can handle and still be okay.” He likens that attitude to taking half a poison pill. “When it comes to what we watch or read or listen to, we shouldn’t ask how many halves of poison pills we can take without dying. We need to examine the cumulative effect of our media habits on our attitude toward God and sin and the world.”

http://www.pluggedinonline.com/
This ministry of Focus on the Family provides reviews for movies, television shows, and music albums. I was glad to see that they were able to glean minutely positive things even out of movies as morally predictable as 40 Year Old virgin and Wedding Crasher, which it would be tempting to just focus on their negative aspects.

http://www.kff.org/entmedia/1535-index.cfm
This project entitled “Kids and the Media @the New Millennium” was backed by the Kaiser Family Foundation. It provides a great deal of comprehensive statistics on media use by children.

http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/discernment/mediawisefamilyguide.html
This articles talks about developing “media wisdom.” “…parents need to teach their children and teenagers how to be media-wise, intelligent consumers rather than just passive couch potatoes.” They give some good concrete advice. However, I wish they would differentiate between the “magic and witchcraft” used in Harry Potter and that used in Lord of the Rings, and why one is more Christian than the other.

http://familysafemedia.com/
Ok, so this organization is producing family friendly movies. This begs the question: What’s worse, well done, multimillion dollar movies with some redeeming qualities or low budget movies built around redeeming qualities?

http://www.aacap.org/publications/factsfam/violence.htm
This article was published by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. It discusses the effects on children of violence in the media. It also provides links to articles on the effects of music, rock videos and the internet.

Reflection to follow.

Who am I?

2005-09-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

That's a good question...

I am a third year student at Fuller Seminary from West Palm Beach, Fl. in the process of being ordained by the PCUSA. After graduating from college in a small Southern town, I moved to Berkeley, CA where I worked with the mission outreach department of a Presbyterian church. Before I moved west of the Mississippi, one of my professors told my brothers that I would come home with long hair and tie dye pants, to which one of them responded, "Yeah, either that, or California will be wearing flannel!" Hence the name "California in Flannel."

My goal in life is to help the global church identify its role as a missional community and equp them to understand the culture around them and engage it with the good news of Jesus Christ. Going into MP520:Transforming Contemporary Cultures, my biggest questions are: How does the church need to change structurally in order to become more relevant to local culture? How do we spiritually lead the church to a point where people are able to let go of structural and methodological traditions and embrace new ones?

If I weren't going into the ministry I would be: a football coach, a master BBQ chef, a Nascar driver, or a dental hygenist. If I had free time: I would like to learn how to play golf and the banjo.

...aside from that, I'm' still trying to figure out who I am.