I was invited five years ago (almost to the day) to speak to the "Women of Spirit" symposium sponsored by Molloy College's Siena Women's Center on the post-9/11 theme: In the Name of God: Venom, Violence, and Virtue. What resulted was the following presentation, videotaped at the college on April 22, 2002, a mere seven months after the attacks. This presentation sets the theme for the final chapter in a book I'm hoping to finish soon, and is also the them of my blog, IN THE DARK.
It is presented in five parts. This is part one of the five.
Dr. Fallon
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Do you think that the media has played any part in raising general awareness for the propensity of kindness and tolerance?
In the dark ages witches were burned, but they no longer are? Why is that? Somehow the message got out, and people the world over generally decided it was a bad idea.
I wonder did 'media' have anything to do with prorogation of those 'good' moral ideals.
I guess what I am saying is... media (tv, whatever), even though it may seem trite - it does have the power to educate people - and I suspect that it has played a part in western society's transition from being witch dunking Luddites into the 'slightly' less barbaric bunch that we are today.
So is the media all bad? Does entertainment subliminally educate us? After all, a lot of fiction has very strong moral messages.
So it is not the artificial dichotomy of "are media good or bad?" (The trite answer to that one is, "it depends on how you use them," and that one is oversimplified to the point of being dangerous, for all media are NOT equal)
Neither is it a choice between entertainment and "higher" forms of information. Entertainment is as old as humanity itself and satisfies a crucial social need for release and, in many cases, enlightenment.
Rather, it really may be a matter of taking one particular medium (television?) or a set of structurally similar media (moving image-based visual media?) to an extreme. When an entire culture's worldview is framed around the concept of amusement and entertainment (as Neil Postman pointed out) the essential seriousness of the culture may indeed begin to diminish and suffer.
I thank you for plodding through at least the first part of this presentation. If you are at all intrigued (or if you have nothing more amusing to do), please fell free to slog through the next four parts (total running time about 45 minutes).
Hey you know AdGuy always gets the last word! ;)