Life's big questions

In a few days time Scott Stephens will host the first of an exciting new Compass series called Life's Big Questions. Each episode features Scott talking about the meaning of life with high profile Australians including Matt Preston (from Master Chef Australia), Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, Julian Morrow, Clare Bowditch, Philip Nitschke and Rolf De Heer.

Scott is the Religion and Ethics editor for ABC Online. Before joining the ABC he taught theology for many years, and even did a stint as a parish minister with the Uniting Church in Australia. He has written extensively on the intersections among philosophy, theology, ethics and politics, as well as on modern atheism's dependence on the Christian legacy. Scott is also a regular contributor to The Drum, Eureka Street and the Times Literary Supplement. He has edited and translated (with Rex Butler) two volumes of the Selected Works of the highly influential philosopher and cultural critic, Slavoj Zizek - including The Universal Exception, which was named by The Guardian newspaper one of its "Books of the Year" in 2007.

Sadly the repeat videos of these programmes won't be available to New Zealand viewers, though there may be transcripts of them at a later point.

Television Out-Influences the Internet in Asia

The following is a summary from the Leadership Network of an article entitled: This Just In: The Boob-Tube, Not YouTube, Is Transforming the World

Television has become a revolutionary force for good in the majority of the world -- not just a couch potato-maker. Using a robust sample of data over many years and countries, Charles Kenny, a development economist with the World Bank, found a high correlation between areas that receive and consume TV and positive trends in literacy, school enrollment, health outcomes, birth control, lower levels of drug use and corruption, and even increased prosperity.

His conclusion is that we live and consume media in two worlds: The Internet-ascendant minority world (US & Europe) and the TV-ascendant majority World (the Developing World). "Television has had important development impacts," says Ethan Zuckerman, a global social entrepreneur with Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "So have radio, especially community radio, and mobile phones. Because we're going through an Internet revolution in the U.S., we tend to look for a parallel revolution in the developing world."

According to Internet World Stats, world Internet penetration rates are highest in North America at 74%, followed by Oceania/Australia at 60%, Europe at 52%, Latin America/Caribbean at 31%, Middle East at 29%, Asia at 19% and Africa at 7%. The world average is 26%.

In SuperFreakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, the authors point out how the attitudes of Indian women are changing because of greater access to TV. Note, of course, that the TV they're seeing isn't necessarily the kind of third rate filler that's appearing on most NZ television channels these days!

We'd hate to call you reactionary, but...

In a recent post, Seth Godin lists twelve things that are typical of almost all news programmes on television - and aren't they familiar. (Which is why I don't watch much television news.)

Regrettably, almost all of the same twelve points can be typical of any group that's stuck in a certain mindset....some church organisations, for example, where emotional reaction is more important than careful thought.

I was going to list those of the twelve that most obviously relate to this, but on further reading of the list saw that pretty much all of them relate...!

1. Focus on the urgent instead of the important.
2. Vivid emotions and the visuals that go with them as a selector for what's important.
3. Emphasis on noise over thoughtful analysis.
4. Unwillingness to reverse course and change one's mind.
5. Xenophobic and jingoistic reactions (fear of outsiders).
6. Defense of the status quo encouraged by an audience self-selected to be uniform.
7. Things become important merely because others have decided they are important.
8. Top down messaging encourages an echo chamber (agree with this edict or change the channel).
9. Ill-informed about history and this particular issue.
10. Confusing opinion with the truth.
11. Revising facts to fit a point of view.
12. Unwillingness to review past mistakes in light of history and use those to do better next time.

And lest you think that I'm never guilty of any of these: I confess that I've hit every point on the list at some time.

Moving on

Television watching is on the decline, newspapers are folding (if you'll excuse the pun) around the world, and magazines come and go at the drop of a hat (not helped by the fact that many magazine owners think the reading public merely wants wads of glossy advertising when they buy a magazine).
The culprit (but not the only culprit) is the Internet. News is free and much more widespread; opinion is available from one extreme to the other; television programmes are watchable when you want to see them, and so are movies.
The Christian News website notes:
What does all this mean for the Christian community here in NZ and around the world? Rather than the gloom of failing newspapers, the internet has been a boon for Christian ministries. Finally we can get our content into the marketplace of ideas and compete fairly in cyberspace, something that has not been possible in newspapers or TV previously. Christians now have access to everything from written articles to MP3 seminary lecture courses to full video sermons, lectures, debates, and numerous fascinating other cutting edge materials, and all by the finest scholars in the world. We now have a playing field with the secular world that is more level than anything for a long time.
The times are certainly changing (and not just The Times of London). But is the Internet still basically the toy of wealthier nations? How many third world countries have real access to it?

Apropos of the above, I've just come across the Alltop site again. It was something that popped up sometime ago (I've written about it on one of my blogs at some time in history) but I'd forgotten about it. There are innumerable versions of it, but for those on this blog the interesting ones might be the All the Top Christianity News, or the News for pastors, ministers and church staff (which goes under the basic heading of 'Church').
Alltop provides a work-in-progress type list of blogs, sites and other sundry Internet paraphenalia that are 'hot' at the moment. The aforesaid blogs etc may well drop off in time, depending on their level of interest. While they're on Alltop, they show up as separate sections within the page, and, by running your mouse over the top of a line, you can see what the post is about.
It's totally time-consuming, but informative. Don't do it when you're supposed to be doing something more important.

Safer Children in a Digital World

The report of the Byron review on Children and the Internet came out just last month. This is a UK report initiated by the British government, and is extensive in its findings (it runs to 226 pages in the FTP version) on the risks to children of potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the internet and in video games. You can download it off the Net (along with several related documents) at the Department for Children, Schools and Families. (Is it just me, or does that department's title seem to have the names out of order of importance - I'd be putting Families second or even first!)

Dr Byron' press release includes a summary of the groundbreaking recommendations in her report. She concludes that while new technologies bring incredible opportunities to children and young people, parents' general lack of confidence and awareness is leaving children vulnerable to risks within their digital worlds. Many parents seem to believe that when their child is online it is similar to watching television. Dr Byron is keen to emphasise that in fact it is more like opening the front door and letting a child go outside to play, unsupervised. Digital world risks are similar to real world risks but can be enhanced by the anonymity and ubiquity that the online space brings.