{"id":1053,"date":"2012-11-08T13:31:44","date_gmt":"2012-11-08T13:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/control-and-influence\/"},"modified":"2012-11-08T13:31:44","modified_gmt":"2012-11-08T13:31:44","slug":"control-and-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/control-and-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"Control and Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weeks reading assignment was A Social History of The Media<\/em> by Asa Briggs and Peter Burk.<\/p>\n

A major theme woven through the book connects media, control and influence. I think media\u2019s purpose is to convey a message, therefore whoever controls the media controls the message. Briggs and Burke write that Queen Elizabeth \u201cSpoke of the need to tune the pulpits\u201d (24). The writers go on to write about how the government of France kept a secret eye on the coffee houses in Paris to ensure that messages which ran counter to the French government\u2019s narrative were kept under wraps (26). Churches issued edicts banning certain books so (41) the faithful wouldn\u2019t be corrupted and the teachings of the church countered. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0In today\u2019s society, media is very much about control and influence. Abercrombie and Fitch send e-mails to entice you to purchase their latest clothing. The news media sells you a certain narrative. If you want a conservative slant on the news you watch Fox News and for a liberal slant you watch MSNBC. The recent presidential ads tell us that one guy is a saint and the other is going to ruin America. Think Christians aren\u2019t involved? Lifeway stores recently decided not to sell Rachel Held-Evans new book \u2018A Year of Biblical Womanhood.\u2019 Media isn\u2019t just about disseminating information; it\u2019s about control of our minds and actions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For a Christian, what does resisting that control and influence mean? How do we do it? \u00a0What are the necessary boundaries? How do we use media appropriately?\u00a0 After all, the Gospel must be shared. Sure, being Amish and choosing to step out of mainstream society is a way forward, but I\u2019m not sure everyone is called to that form of witness.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The second point that really stood out to me was a story from English journalist G.R Sims. He writes that during a trip to the top of a Swiss mountain, \u201cwe arrived at the summit, everybody made a rush for the hotel and fought for the postcards. Five minutes afterwards everybody was writing for dear life. I believe that the entire party had come up, not for the sake of the experience or the scenery, but to write postcards and to write them on the summit\u201d(140). As much as things change, they stay the same! Instead of postcards, it\u2019s Twitter, Facebook and Instragram that everyone is rushing for. \u00a0So many people are caught up in being connected to technology, the media and sharing one\u2019s own experience, that they can be disconnected from real life. There\u2019s a chasm between them and the world created by that excessive use of media. When they\u2019re physically at a certain place they\u2019re not really there. It’s as if they given up the joy, experience and adventure of a given moment for a mere image or idea plastered on a postcard.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ll admit I\u2019m probably as guilty as anyone with regards to this second point. I want to have my phone with me at all times so I can share my thoughts and pictures and, I guess, in some sense influence others. But I also don\u2019t want to live my life through the Internet or through the lens of a camera. I want to be present in body and mind with the people I\u2019m with, and I want that from them. I want to embrace life to it’s fullest.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t feel like have a choice about whether to engage in the different forms of media. My current station in life requires it. But I do have a choice in how much control and influence I allow it my life, and that’s a moment-to-moment battle.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weeks reading assignment was A Social History of The Media by Asa Briggs and Peter Burk. A major theme woven through the book connects media, control and influence. I think media\u2019s purpose is to convey a message, therefore whoever controls the media controls the message. Briggs and Burke write that Queen Elizabeth \u201cSpoke of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[389,2],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-briggs","tag-dminlgp","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}