Difference between revisions of "Media and Values"

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Media & Values: Do They Match?

By Liza Roach, Justice & Peace Minister
at St. Gabriel's Parish, Midlothian.

When it comes to the media, there is no middle ground. It strikes us as either a positive tool or one of destruction. Media sources tantalize audiences through its play on the weaker aspects of human nature. Everyone experiences loneliness, desires, and love. We all want to be financially stable and yearn for acceptance. The media takes these human desires and exploits them.

Our office luncheon back in February centered around the show, “I Want to Marry a Multi-Millionaire!” The show focused on 50 young, attractive women parading around pageant style in order to impress the millionaire who sat allusively behind the screen making his selection.

The show exploited many human desires -- to find love, to have money, to be beautiful, and to find acceptance. The network romanticized the possibilities, but the show neglected to bear any real fruit!

Now you may be asking: How does this relate to Social Justice? Media appeals to most of us because it serves as a social bond which connects us with each other in a number of superficial ways. First, the media joins people to one another through the things we buy or possess as consumers. Second, people share the ideas they learn uncritically from TV and other media sources. And finally, people are driven to re-make themselves in the image & likeness of the things they see in media advertising in order to win social acceptance.

These shallow ways of connection lead to many serious problems. Young girls -- wishing to be as beautiful as an actress -- binge and purge in order to meet an ideal weight. Teenagers wear the latest trend in fashionable Nike clothing and never think about the impoverished people who make the items. Fantasy love shows lead couples toward divorce because their marriages do not seem to be up to par. Children who see violent programming think that they are immortal or act out that violence with others.

The Church must recognize the influence of media in forming values, and combat negative social norms in order to help people express authentically Catholic values.

The values that people absorb from the culture vary with the television programs they watch, the magazines they read, and the radio stations they listen to. Many of our children learn morality, not from adults or educators, but from media programs.

Is it not the time to take a deeper look at how we -- parish, children, friends, and family -- are letting our values be formed through the media? How do we as people of faith respond to this values formation by the media?

Here are some action ideas adapted from the Center for Media Literacy:

• Think critically about the impact & influence of mass media in society and in our individual lives (i.e., media literacy).

• Build a media-aware community made up of individuals who thoughtfully examine the impact of mass media in their lives.

• Organize a parish information & resource center on media literacy.

• Promote media literacy in formal and informal educational activities with parish committees, catechists, parents, and & youth.

• Our challenge as church is to critique what is negative in the media & culture without looking like “bad guys.”

• Values are taught best when they are expressed and practiced by adults and parents through a common faith experience. This is our challenge as a parish and church in society today.

Source: Office of Justice and Peace Sowers of Justice Catholic Diocese of Richmond 811 Cathedral Place Richmond, VA 23220 (804) 359-5661 FAX: (804) 358-9159 Web Site: http://www.richmonddiocese.org/ojp/jn2000-04.htm

Director Dr. Stephen Colecchi
Associate Director Dr. Kathleen Kenney