Christian Ethics and the New Media – Media Defined

Introduction

The New Media presents the Christian with many interesting ethical questions.  The prevalence of social networks, blogs, micro-blogs, web videos, emails and video chats attest to the fact that the present world is a thoroughly technological one.  Information and the gathering of information rule the land.  Communication in many mediums is key.

In living through such a world, the Christian is faced with many ethical dilemmas.  The sharing and communication of so much information presents ethical quandaries in the realms of narcissism, privacy, predation, slander, libel and idolatry.  These problems are not easy.  Media, in its pure form, is amoral.  It can be used for good and it can be used for ill.

Media Defined

This essay is not intended to deal with ethics involved with the journalism and television industry, the so-called “Mainstream Media”[1].  It is not even directly involved with the New Journalism[2] that has emerged as a force within the New Media.  It is rather concerned with media as the plurality of mediums, a medium being “An agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred”[3].  Specifically, this understanding of media is concerned with the communication (the transference) of ideas.  In the realm of the New Media, this communication occurs with a heretofore unparalleled ease and economy.  While mass communication has been around for millennia through audible or written means, and though the world has seen great advances in humanity’s ability to mass communicate through newspapers, radio and television, what is currently happening through the New Media is astonishing.  The emergence of the Internet and other networking technologies, specifically the recent emergence of Internet social networking has given anybody and everybody the means to communicate to the masses.

While books, newspapers, radio and television allowed those with the means to communicate to the world with relative ease, the conversation has always been one-dimensional.  With the advent of social networking and blogging, the conversation has become multi-directional.  Everybody can communicate information relatively simply and fairly cheaply.

This then brings up a rather vexing question: How are Christians to rightly and ethically communicate?  Thankfully, while the Bible does not provide the Christian with detailed instructions regarding the proper use of Facebook, it does provide God-given commands and encouragements regarding how Christians speak and communicate with one another and with the world.

[1] Noam Chomsky, Z Magazine, October, 1997, http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710–.htm. (accessed 28 April, 2010).

[2] Jeff Bercovici, “Op-ed: The New Journalism,” The New York Observer, February 23, 2010, http://www.observer.com/2010/media/new-journalism/ (accessed April 28, 2010).

[3] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., s.v. “medium.”, Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/medium/ (accessed 26 Apr., 2010).