The Influence of the Mass Media
Its correct use and the use of other means of
communication in the
Ongoing formation of the Priest.
The
world of communication in relationship to the permanent formation of the
priests has different aspects, advantages, and problems which may be positive
or negative. Following on this I will expose some aspects of the modern world
of communication in relationship to the permanent formation of the priest. It
is evident that these reflections cannot exhaust such a large and difficult
reflection about the communication of the mass media, but it intends to invite
the most correct approach, to stimulate interest in all of us.
The Mass media produces a new language and culture
Paul
VI in the pastoral instruction Communio et Progretio (no. 1) affirms: “The unity and advancement of men living in society:
these are the chief aims of social communication and of all the means it uses.
These means include the press, the cinema, radio and television. The constant
improvement in the media puts them at the disposal of more and more people who
in their daily lives make increasing use of them. More than ever before, the
way men live and think is profoundly affected by the means of communication.” This
instruction shows how the mass media is not just a simple useful instrument to
relay a message with different gradations in the most distant places, but
rather it plays and important and determinate role in how people think and
behave.
Never
before like today are we conscious of the importance that the mass media has
and how it influences the lives of human beings.
Even
facts beyond common knowledge are now part of our lives. In a direct way we now
participate in events which we never before had the possibility to do unless we
were physically present there. Even when we are distant from the facts we
frequently have more details about the event than those who are present where
it has occurred.
Distance
is becoming nearness and this is something that strikes us deeply and provokes
changes in our lives.
In
the last century the introduction of new technologies - beginning with
telematics and following with the World Wide Web, more commonly known as
internet - have changed the lives of human beings even more. Martin Heidegger
used to speak of technology that influenced the Dasein (Being) in its
interaction with itself and the world. He used to say that this is made to
satisfy the desires of subjects that are autonomous and stable. Technology is
not seen as a simple set of instruments, but more like a way to reveal “The
everything.” The positive answer of Heidegger to technology comes from the
consideration that one is able to program himself in the face of technological
flexibility, so one feels lucky because he is open to the multiple
possibilities of becoming. With its help, human beings are able to exalt
themselves and to put themselves in the position of “lords” of the earth.
The
German philosopher reveals on the other hand that technology may become a threat
to the same being, if these instruments become or assume a substitutive role
for the person. Ontologically it is a threat to the objectivity and
subjectivity of the human being.
The
technology of today promotes a dynamic of information and knowledge that is
always bigger and this reduces the space of action of human beings to a space
that is always more restricted. It is a process that determines an always
greater dependence on technological instruments and the one who does not adapt
to this is cut off from local and world contacts. In many societies for
example, a person today is seen as important if he appears in the mass media.
The
concepts of time and space are changing concepts. In some ways it may be
understood as simultaneity and participation. In some ways it promotes a sense
of localization but cuts off certain possibilities of knowledge.
All
technology uses light waves to mediate its messages. This produces certain
conditioning in the human body, the most evident consequence is in the
psychosomatic and the cardiovascular level. The images that are decoded into
quadrants have meaning at the same time according to the focus which is given
them.
For
example how are we habituated to see during any given day? At certain times it
is difficult to concentrate our vision more on a particular or on a detail,
just as it is difficult to focus our attention in the first and second angles.
Normally we opt for the vision of totality, unless we really want to focus our
attention in some important moments of our daily actions.
What
happens when we put ourselves in front of audio-visuals (TV, Computers and
images in general)? We remain for a long time focused on a particular,
forgetting the totality of our vision and its context. We multiply this
situation in every day of every month of every year of our lives. We reduce our
vision to a single interpretation that is the one which is related to emotions
and feelings.
In
a certain sense we work forcing nature to reduce it to an angle that is merely
feelings, completely forgetting the context, how it is normally supposed to be
seen. And we end negating how reality is proposed in itself, which finally is
the objective of the mass media. It is true that feelings are an important part
of human beings, but we are more than that. Reason is as well very important;
there is the danger of creating a puppet human being. We want to remember
the famous author Collodi who writes about a marionette, Pinocchio a true “kind
of human being.” Today we act oppositely, making human persons into robots that
receive orders and impulses in order to act. In this way we can be redirected
to a will that is not our own. And all this in the illusion of acting with the
highest freedom.
c.) The new culture
This
new technology has reduced time and space in such a way that has created a
human being that is overwhelmed by so much news and knowledge that was not
possible to imagine until recently.
The
tendency not to pay attention, which is generally associated with individual
education, has been increased by reactions such as: “Right now we are no longer
ignorant because thanks to the television we now know everything.”
What
people normally don’t know is that today knowledge is strongly mediated by a
select, small group of people, the ones known as “powerful” or gatekeepers.
(The Custodians of the informational locks) They are the ones who decide what
according to their interest they want to let others know. The same
globalization confirms for us that we can share different ways of thinking and
acting with people from different languages, cultures and ethnicities. It is
not the case that the same product can be bought in the most remote point of
the Amazon rainforest, Rome, Peking or any city of Africa.
The
product is a sign, a way with which it is possible to transmit meaning and
because of this it is never lacking of ideology. But what is the influence that
this ideology has over human beings?
The
new way of thinking and acting normally tends to change the thinking of the
past, on the other hand the capacity of knowing how to discern between one
culture and another is determined to guarantee a pacific connivance.
The intensification of “apparent” news (because it happens that some make news
while others do not); with a lot of means (there are evident distortions
between the media and society) that are available to everyone, feed the idea of
a human being who is more open and insecure. A being that makes
everything relative a little bit (open) and makes absolute the “I”
(insecurity). In consequence the only thing that matters is their own
experience and there is no respect for common structures, institutions and
rules.
Their
way of communicating is a non linear logic that is full of slogans and catch
phrases. We can define this as audio visual language. The logic of the internet
is completely mathematical and is disseminated among young people and even
children. The imaginative capacity of these new awakenings is so strong
that it is able to create a break with preceding generations. In this way it
creates something that is called illiteracy of regression. It is only possible
to solve it by acquiring and making proper codes and new instruments of
communication.
Concerning
information in these last years, I have been able to analyze with my students
the more representative television news from Italy and Brazil and we have
verified the provincialism of the news – which are always more scarce - with
the use of almost no arguments and with personalities connected to politics,
sports and music. The world of poverty makes news only in dramatic aspects, but
the Church is almost completely absent from the news, with the exception of the
figure of the Pope.
How it relates in our personal and pastoral lives.
Keeping
in mind my personal missionary experience in Brazil where I was responsible for
the office of communications for the region no. 2 of the Episcopal conference
of Brazil, I want to present a pastoral model that is able to communicate even
today.
The
Church in Brazil is always more aware of the importance of the value of
communication in evangelization and in the apostolate of communication (PACOM).
It is in itself one of the priorities for an appropriate pastoral strategy. In
this sense it is important to acknowledge that all the initiatives in
development are the product of the urgency of developing an effective
communication in the local Churches. Starting with the Fraternity Campaign
(C.F.) in 1989, the communication has had a very important role in the life of
the Church in Brazil. Even when in the beginnings there was a certain tendency
to believe that the mass media was in fact that communication. Using this
analysis, the specific pastoral action has been translated into investments
into the large communications media and in the pursuit of financial resources.
This perspective has created certain regions with more advantages and others
with more risks. The meridian region of Brazil which is the wealthiest region has
the ability to develop qualitative initiatives in the technology of
communication in comparation with the North and the Northeast region which have
a more difficult situation. But what is the impact that this phenomenon has in
the apostolate?
The
Church in the southern region of the country, which is the wealthiest, should
be more favorable to evangelization because it has more means at its disposal
and it has a large acquisitional power. In this way it should show a more
powerful dynamic of evangelization having as a consequence, a bigger impact in
the apostolate, with a bigger response from the faithful in the sense of
quantity and quality. Rather it is completely the opposite, the bigger the
means, the bigger the challenge to combat the absenteeism and this is a
phenomenon which is happening in the Churches of the more wealthy regions on
earth.
It
is a repetition of the phenomena of the wealthy and poor countries, the first
which have the biggest advantages should be communicating more, but rather the
complete opposite happens.
The
people become disobedient and follow different ways. It is in this way that
preaching in the pulpit is used to stop this process of abandonment of the
Church by the faithful. The absence of results is lying in wait when the
efforts are concentrated in the instruments, without keeping in mind the whole
process of communication, in this way PASCOM seems like just “another”
apostolate, independent of all the others and which has the possibility of
subsisting by itself with an autonomous end. The one that takes this direction
will be disappointed by the lack of success in the evangelical act.
Even
more, this approach does not keep in mind or put into practice the teachings of
the Second Vatican Council, not only in what is written in the documents but
even more in respect to the spirit of communion that characterizes the event.
Knowing how to share with others who we are and what we do is a typical sign of
the one who does not think only of himself, but who being together with others
enjoys the experience of gratitude and happiness. According to me the one who
invests in communications, keeping in mind the aspects of instrumentation has
in himself a very strong individualistic tendency and many aspects of a
restrictive tendency. These initiatives that do not have the Gospel as
inspiration, but the big business of the mass media, makes communication and
unity very difficult and produces a lot of damages in the ecclesiastical
process.
The
structure of the organization of communication that is concentrated only with
the mass media has the tendency to close in on itself, in respect to the
possible participation on the ecclesiastical basis and in some ways can make it
difficult to keep in mind the global action that is always able to promote new
discoveries that are animated and encouraged by the holy spirit. On the other
hand it may make it difficult to have a true experience of the Church, wherein
everyone shares what new things each have understood and realized, this is a
system that brings dynamism to the evangelical action.
If
on the one hand there is certain optimism in the fact of experimenting with new
technological discoveries, on the other hand we have to discuss the same
knowledge that is acquired in these experiences. Normally there is a
separation between what we make and what we profess.
I
believe that this incoherence renders more serious the eventual insecurities in
the theme of identity. It is in this way that it is possible to explain even
certain dissatisfactions in our choices of life and in our own vocations. The
human being is in a certain way confronted and destabilized by the possibility
of having always more space for experimentation in strong sensations and it is
in this way that everything is rethought in terms of the same emotionality.
Happiness consists in the fact of doing whatever I feel I have to do.
This
is the image that has the most important role and it is in this
way that one is habituated to communicate just with the word and even more
formation is concentrated in the logic of writing and it is in this way that
one faces the difficulty of using new languages. But there is even a bigger
difficulty in the relationship of the interlocutor, which is the lack of understanding
in confrontation with others.
From
this frustration arise certain dissatisfactions in our evangelical actions that
in some ways even puts into discussion vocation itself. I can say that the lack
of communication may be fatal for the vocation because it produces the
sensation of being deprived of breath and being without life.
Our
addressees, particularly the younger ones, have adapted themselves in a perfect
way to the new languages or at least they have no problem living with them.
This provokes an increase in the separation between the ones who evangelize and
the ones who are the addressees of evangelization. It is possible to note that
the problem is not in the content, but almost always in the way in which this
message is transmitted.
The
reactions of pessimism many priests may have because of these new languages
should not make them feel excluded, because this is an attitude that does not
favor dialogue with new realities, but rather produces a bigger barrier with
the interlocutors. On the other hand to welcome these new languages without
questioning them is a benevolent but forced attitude. I really believe that
both approaches can conduct people to an incorrect understanding of reality and
in this way it does not help to produce a healthy and animated
evangelization.
That which is our knowledge
“We affirm once again that the Church ‘sees
these media as gifts of God' which, in accordance with his providential design,
unite men in brotherhood and so help them to cooperate with his plan for their
salvation.”As the Spirit helped the prophets of old to see the divine plan
in the signs of their times, so today the Spirit helps the Church interpret the
signs of our times and carry out its prophetic tasks, among which the study,
evaluation, and right use of communications technology and the media of social
communications are now fundamental.”1
There
exist different magisterial documents about the mass media and more in general
about social communications, it is possible to see in these documents a
progressive acknowledgement of the importance of the means of communication in
the evolution of the world and the ecclesiastical sphere. It starts an
acknowledgement of an always more evident presence of the means of
communication in the world. It goes through the analysis of how to face this
reality, arriving to the point of suggesting initiatives about how to prepare
the receivers about the correct use of these means. As the years go by the
awareness grows that the act of communication is not only reduced to
instruments, but it is configured in a more complex process. (These facts arise
as well in the chronological progression of these documents, it is in this way
for example that the importance of a liturgy arises that must always be more
communicative, in the same way that the preaching must be, so also the need of
knowing how to use the language of gestures in connection with the verbal
language is noted. In these magisterial documents there is a continual appeal
to bishops, priests, religious and lay people that they may help in the world
of communication and so that they help to train people, who are able to work in
the mass media with a permanent serious formation. It is not possible to remain
indifferent or neutral in the face of a reality like this.
In formation of candidates to the priesthood an adequate formation to face the
phenomenon of communication is requested.2 The need is specifically
stressed that a specific class about social communication become part of
the formational philosophical-theological curriculum. The new priests must be
ready to become good receptors, so that in future pastoral exercise or service
they will be able to educate the people in a correct use of means of
communication and at the same time, they can make a correct use of these means
in an apostolate. The preparation must be theoretical practical. Moreover there
must be an explicit invitation to priests and religious who are already working
in the world of communication, so that they may specialize further so that they
can be helpful not only in their direct work that they do but also in the
teaching of this discipline and in the cooperation and direction of national
and diocesan offices.
A
permanent formation has to help us understand and see with the correct approach
the reality in which we are involved, without falling into naiveté or
ingenuity. A possible paragon may be the person whose vision is diminishing and
must use glasses and with their use they begin to see more normally and in this
way the person may continue their normal life. The study of social
communication can be compared to the use of glasses, because it helps us to
understand reality and various points of view that this reality represents, to
be able to do a better evangelization. In this way the person is able to always
deepen things and to understand human beings better and the total complexity of
humanity. It is from this communicative process that the human being has
to be able to interrogate himself about how his own communicative action is
developed. It is important to learn that the message does not depend only on
us, we have to know who our receptors are and what are the situations in which
they find themselves, including the context and how we are preparing to
transmit the message. Are the means that we are using the most adequate for a
certain message? How are we formulating the objectives and which perspectives
are we using?
Without
this kind of pre-analysis the risk is to be unprepared to communicate, according
to the needs of the time. We have the need to deepen our understanding of
the new linguistic codes, the fact is that the priest has to be an excellent
communicator. A priest who knows how to communicate is able to understand his
mission better and becomes a more professional member inside the Church. I
affirm that it is possible to be happy in the measure with which we are able to
attain the objectives of the vocation and of the mission. A very old missionary
who is 88 years old, who still lives in the Amazonian rainforest missions says:
“We talk too much without really knowing our receptors, their context, their
conditions of life and our message goes over their heads. We talk and preach
too much, actually more or less in the measure that we are ignorant of the
persons that we are addressing.
Our response as a testimony for an efficacious
evangelization with the mass media
The
priest has to be a man of action and contemplation. One of the characteristics
of the bad use of technological communication today is emptying a person, so to
speak. This is to make the person incapable of having an encounter with
oneself; it is to create around the person a kind of barrier that makes
interiorization and deep self knowledge difficult and at the same it makes the
capacity of dialogue with others weak. It is clear that the relativization of
anything produces in a person the tendency to replace the substance with the
appearance and to make of this the true sense of one’s life.
Therefore
today the human being tries to oppose himself to the exteriority that brings
him always further away from himself and how is it possible to rediscover one’s
own identity and to become a person from one’s own interiority?
I
think that it is necessary to create certain moments and actions that render
contemplation possible. As long as the person does not try to discover this
interiority, he will not be able to find himself. In the measure in which the
person finds himself, he is able to have a pure experience of God. It is only
possible to have an encounter with others in this way, to confront himself and
to face at the same time, the new technological realities which bring a real
meaning to everything. One Bishop from the Amazon asked me one day: “Which are
the criteria for choosing priests who are in charge of the apostolate of social
communications?” Without doubt I answered, what is most important is to have an
active spirit; being at the same time contemplative, so a person who has
initiative and is agile, but at the same time is able to have a life of prayer
with multiple or many moments of personal dryness.
It
is clear that this applies to everyone in the sense that everyone is immersed
in this world of communication. This world of communication can weaken a person
if that one does not take the necessary precautions. I really believe that we
have need of prayer never before like today. I can say that the person himself
has to be prayer, becoming the one who has the possibility of acting and
choosing in such a way as to be called a free person.
This
spirit of the media makes it possible to combat the fragmentation that is a
typical consequence of the actual technological explosion that we are
experiencing. If on the one hand, it compromises the unity of the being, on the
other hand, it makes the being more compact. It is from here that is born the
capacity of true communication. Today even when there are so many different
means of communication, it is not possible to communicate or at least it is
very difficult. A testimony of this situation is the dissatisfaction of many
young people, adults and even children that many times even in an extreme
gesture take away their own lives or simply become very violent. It is in
this way that this world that is so full of so much media technology encourages
us to rethink our own lives. Our existence cannot be based in the interest of
novelties of the means of communications, but in the research of the ones who
have developed it. It is in this way that we can make of the means of
communication a reality that is seen from the perspective of the interior
experience, which is prayer and it is only in this way that it is possible in
turn to send an authentic message.
Pope
John Paul II is an example of a true and real communicator. I have not met him
personally, but I have the certainty that he lived a very deep contemplative
dimension, because his whole being was communication. From the verbal language
to gestures, everything becomes communication and moreover his own person was a
constant message for everyone, he is a sign of courage for all of us and
he allowed us to believe that communication is possible and that this has to
start always in the person and not in the means themselves. To conclude, I want
to share the prayer of the communicator that I have composed:
Lord
You are the one who knows the heart of the human being, You see the magnitude
of the waves of our mass media which arrive always further, in the meantime as
we try to understand ourselves and the universe that You have put at our disposition.
It is really hard for us to recognize Your work in our surroundings. We are
blessed in the intelligence that You have given us to create means of
communication which are always more modern and effective that help us to
recognize ourselves as Your children but we find ourselves impotent when these
works of human beings become more important than Your own creation. We become
lost in the normal problems of our lives which is not Your life. We look to the
horizon but we only see obstacles that make us afraid even when we try to face
them. In the measure in which we put all our trust in the fruits of human
intelligence we lose the capacity to perceive Your presence among us.
O Father of everyone and everything help us to not confuse the real
source of all knowledge and intelligence which is You. Help us to be united to
You so that in this way any modern and sophisticated communication will be able
to respect and communicate Your project that is Your Kingdom. We believe with
all our heart in Your first creation that is the human being and in all the
efforts that the human being has made to improve his own communication, so that
he will be always close to You the real source of life.
Claudio Pighin