self-referential world of stimuli with near-narcotic effects" It can be used to break down the isolation of individuals and groups or to deepen it (7).
It also looks at some areas of concern in the ethical domain and then finally lists a number of recommendations and offers a conclusion. It attempts to measure the internet by its virtue of solidarity and service of the common good. It looks at issues like regulation, responsibility and protection and acknowledges that, because of its global character, this will take on the form of global co-operation and consensus.
There is an appreciation for the internet and its power:
The Internet can make an enormously valuable contribution to human life. It can foster prosperity and peace, intellectual and aesthetic growth, mutual understanding among peoples and nations on a global scale (18).
There is acknowledgement that there are a number of concerns surrounding the usage of the internet and its impact on the vulnerable which needs to be reflected on and addressed. Hence, it seems clear, that the Church does acknowledge the internet as a powerful and influential tool. It also seems that the Church is positive about the role the internet can play and highlights legitimate concerns which require further reflection and analysis.
power that the internet has brought about because of this. The Church, a hierarchical structure, which has had power and influence over the lives of believers for centuries faces a new challenge. The internet now shifts power away from centralised authorities and puts power in the hands of those who use the internet - millions of people all over the world. Furthermore, power is in the hands of those who design, build and maintain these systems. There is no more 'gate-keeping' on the internet, previously the Church could control what the faithful had access to; the internet has made this almost impossible.
There is a need for devising a new system of guiding people and helping them discern the information before them. Although the documents do give a few guidelines there is no real sense that they are of help to those who are already on the internet. Bard &
Soderqvist (2002: 82) say:
What we lack today is not information, but overview and context. The unrelenting and ecstatic flow of information is unsorted and unstructured: it must be sifted, organised and interpreted against the background of a coherent world view if it is to be a source of knowledge and not confusion.
Another pressing issue which the Church will need to face and address is that of 'keeping people'. By this I mean the ability to 'hook' the user on the site so that their attention is 'grabbed' and a certain curiosity is aroused. Design and style, as two essential components, do not feature at all in these documents. The Vatican's website itself, for example, is rather boring and un-engaging. People dislike lengthy texts and tend not to read long text, only pages.13 Ivereigh (2003: 31) describes the Vatican's site (which has not changed to the present!):
Dan Chiasson, a young poet writing in a recent issue of the online magazine Slate (slate.msn.com), describes going into the Vatican site in search of the Pope's
13 This can also be as a result of the television culture we live in, where visual stimuli and images have become very important.
Roman Triptych. He came up against "a handsome, oatmeal-coloured, faux- parchment affair, presided over by sad-eyed Byzantines staring out of the mosaics" which failed to deliver what he was looking for. The lesson is clear: the credibility of a website rests not on traditional authority but on its own integrity;
if it fails to offer a reason to dwell there, the searcher simply bounces off.
Besides the ability to create curiosity by having an attractive home page it is harder to lead the user to explore the site further. Less and less people 'page through' the internet systematically. They click on links, open multiple pages and jump around from website to website making it more difficult to keep them on any one site for any length of time.
The documents show little understanding of the 'choice culture' that the internet has ushered in or further exaggerated.
As I alluded to earlier: there also seems to be a need for a deepening of understanding.
The internet is not merely a data network but has evolved into a communications network. Although the documents do mention communications, a reader cannot but help think that the Church still sees technological media, specifically the internet, as a 'big data bank'. I also cannot but help wonder if the Church, from the texts on the internet, really sees the internet as a malleable technology which those who participate in it shape by their participation. Castells says:
... [The] Internet is a particularly malleable technology, susceptible of being deeply modified by its social practice, and leading to a whole range of potential social outcomes - to be discovered by experience, not proclaimed beforehand (2001:5).
The power to shape things is in the hands of those who use the internet - through experience. By participating, being present on the internet the Church contributes to giving it shape, directing it. By not being present and participating very little direction can be offered. This also impacts on the Church's ability to use this technology, not only
for evangelisation, but also to help bring about social change. People's minds and hearts can be engaged on the internet, their perceptions about social reality can be shaped and transformed, and meaning can be given to behaviour, and in so doing change can be affected. Not to be present and not to understand what absence means leaving both the Church and the world wide web poorer.
Hence, there is much work that still needs to be done by the Church in order to utilise the internet for the purpose of evangelisation. The documents lay a foundation for an understanding of the relationship between the Church and mass media. The documents on the internet discuss pertinent and important issues which those who run, use and control the world wide web should be paying attention to. However, it is now to the praxis to which attention needs to be given. How can the Church use the internet so as to have a formidable presence in cyberspace which would aid evangelisation?
There are a number of sites which have made an impact on the world wide web. Ivereigh says that these sites are a counter balance and foretastes of the power of the internet and what the Church can do with it:
The Ignatian prayer site, sacredspace.ie ... is a model of its kind, and has been used by millions. Many find daiIygospel.org, which delivers a gospel reflection each day by email, a valuable way of clearing their desks for God. Or try newmediabible.org, where users "experience" Scriptures through mesmerising 12-minute videos with musical settings and voiceover (2003: 31).
4.11 Analysing the Response of the Catholic Church guided by Niebuhr's Christ and Culture Approach
It might be helpful to return to Niebuhr (1951). It is simply impossible to select one of Niebuhr's five ways to give an analytical framework to evaluate how the Church has
responded to the media. The response more accurately represents all five approaches. There seems to be a real ambivalence in the Church's response to the mass media and this is perhaps evident in the fact that strands of all five of the Niebuhr ways are evident.
Niebuhr's first four approaches seem to reoccur over and over in the documents. The mass media are seen as something good, to be used, effectively and yet also something to be weary of. There is a strong sense of the Christ against culture and Christ above culture approach in all the documents.
Inter Mirifica acknowledges the ability of the media to be used for the benefit of humanity but also strongly warns against the damaging effects media can unleash - clearly underpinning the Christ against culture approach. It also encourages the use of media to propagate and defend the faith and to secure Christian values in society, indicating the Christ and culture in paradox approach.
The same themes and approaches seem to be evident throughout Communio et Progressio:
the media have great potential but also damaging effects. In Communio et Progressio a further approach becomes evident. The document acknowledges the role of media in education, culture and leisure, saying that humanity can be served by this product of genius. The document here seems to advocate a Christ above culture approach, in which the cultural trends are simply copied and used for Christian ends. Communio et Progressio demonstrates a great knowledge of media - from its various forms to training of people for the role of communicators but lacks, like most of these documents, the ability to convert the theory to praxis. There is great difficulty in being able to use the approach of Christ transforming culture in which the Church is able to use the media to bring about conversion.
In Aetatis Novae, which came out just before easy access to the internet in 1992, surprisingly little is said about the emergence of the internet and email -. The document
seems to advocate the first four approaches that Niebuhr suggests, but does not go any further to seek a Christ transforming culture approach.
The two other documents which follow (the only two on the internet specifically!) follow very much the same pattern as their predecessors. There seems to be no deep-seated sense that the internet can be used as a tool for Christ transforming culture. Although the foundations are laid for reflection on the means of communication, little seems to have been done to ensure that theory in these documents have been put into praxis.
Where the Church should be in rejection or acceptance of the media culture has to be continually discerned. The answer to this will also change and will have to be renegotiated as technologies develop and contexts change. It does seem, unfortunately, from examining the documents of the Roman Catholic Church, that although much has been written on media (surprisingly little on the internet) the Church significantly lacks the ability to use the means of social communication effectively. There still seems to be an attitude of suspicion and ambivalence towards technologically-driven communication tools.
... we have a marked tendency to cling to old beliefs despite the fact that they are at odds with known facts. The reason for this is simply that the old beliefs are just that, old and familiar, and we are therefore fond of them; they are part of what makes us mentally comfortable. This leads to intellectual sluggishness: we are prepared to make greater efforts to preserve the status quo in our heads than to learn new things. At the moment when we learn anything new we have to change our lives, albeit only very slightly. For this reason our capacity to move across the historical map is in practice minimal (Bard & Soderqvist 2002: 35).
Could the Church, still coming to terms with modernity perhaps, find it even more difficult to cross over into post-modernity and the networked world?