Tuning in on 1990: Assessing our Values

Recently the Sisters of the Precious Blood took a "trend census" to evaluate the future directions of society in such areas as education, health care, government, etc. When asked to submit some thoughts about communications trends toward 1990, the community sent the following reflection. We hope its appearance in Media&Values will stimulate further discussion and comment by all those interested in the future of communication.

Technological changes in the field of communications will be the most obvious in terms of impact on society. It will be a different world for those who follow after us in succeeding generations. Global satellites will be commonplace. Cable television systems will be two-way, allowing people to shop, bank, retrieve information from library data banks, all from their homes. Communications signals will be transmitted by laser beam, making wiring obsolete and vastly increasing the number of signals it will be possible to transmit at any one time. This is no Orwellian future dream. Most of these ideas are already technically possible today; it will, just be a matter of creating them in day-to-day reality in every city and town around the globe.

A few years ago, when Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase 'global village,' he initiated a kind of consciousness about the world that is now quite commonplace. The implications,' however, are just beginning to be analyzed.

We are quickly approaching a time when every spot on earth will be in instant communication with every other spot. What will that do to privacy? to the uniqueness of each culture? to the global values that will emerge? Even today, we may be technologically close to one another but how does it affect us in human terms? For example, we may watch instantaneous photographs of hungry families in the Third World, but still not be touched enough to change our lifestyle in order to significantly change theirs.

It is just these human effects of emerging technology that most probably concerns us as Christians. How will we cope with the vast a- mount of information available through computers? And who will control the access to that information? What will be the impact of commercial advertising in the Third World? (A recent example is the situation with the infant formula problem -- billboards and radios advertise in the Third World to encourage mothers to bottle feed rather than breast feed. But without adequate education -- being able to measure the formula, knowing about sterilization of bottles, etc. -- many mothers are not using bottle feeding properly. Consequently, they are malnourishing their infants as well as robbing them of the natural immunization to disease that can be transmitted through mothers milk during the early years of life.)

Will it be possible to have a free press and trial by jury--when possible jurors have been thoroughly informed of all the details of a crime (especially a sensational one) in a media barrage that sometimes lasts for weeks? What will be the effect on future generations of violence in film and television? Are we now feeding and nurturing the "monsters" of the future who will turn around and wreak even more violence than we can now imagine--or image--in media? Will rising costs and the power of multi-national corporations force out of business small printers, newspapers, book publishers and others who now can still provide "alternate" information, at least to those who want it?

Rather than be paralyzed by the seeming insolvability of such problems, we must realize that we are simply emerging into a new age, the age of communications. It has problems, yes, but opportunities also. In Gutenberg's day, many people probably lamented the loss of the illustrated manuscript! And how would they cope with so many words available to all?! Today we see that crisis in a better perspective. Would that we could see our own the same way.

We get some help from media researchers like Stephen Bamberger who reflect on the relationship between technology and values.

"Being no longer in the literary period that followed Gutenberg, we no longer receive information primarily through a single medium, i.e., the written word, but through a variety of either casually or purposely combined means which are continually bombarding us. The main new element is the picture. It enters our life millions of times through photography, in books, periodicals, movies, on TV, in posters. Add to this the omnipresence of music through broadcast, records and cassettes. In view of this situation it no longer suffices to teach children to read and to write; in some way they must learn to master the millions of signals they are receiving through all the modern means of communications. This phenomenon alone demands a profound revision of our educational system. Underlying all these phenomena is the problem of values. The waves do not simply transmit bits of information. The words, the pictures and the music depict a state of life of individuals or groups and therefore invite comparison with one's own established standards and style of life. The experience, repeated so often, cannot be without impact on one's idea of values and life style." (Stephen Bamberger, S.J Multimedia International Yearbook, 1976. p. 11-12)

There are no easy answers to these concerns. But perhaps a basic question for Christians to ask first is: will we see the future of communications only as a tool for proselytizing, or will we see these issues in the larger context of the quality of human life on this planet? Right now, there are so few people attending to these ideas-bishops, priests, sisters or laity. Communications is simply a low priority in most congregations, dioceses, schools and parishes. As long as it stays a low priority, we will not accomplish much that will really affect society.

We need the women of the church-particularly sisters-to bring fresh insights, new approaches and a creative vision and energy to even a few of the questions that now face us regarding communications. Classroom education was the survival of the Church at the turn of the century; communications is the crucial issue today. If only as many congregations of women mobilized to deal with the future of communications as mobilized to deal with the educational needs of an Immigrant Church, we would see more hope for a creative and human world by 1990.