Can we begin to incorporate the best practices of decency and truth in our new media? Can we become more adept at incorporating social media into our larger plan as we hold propaganda machines accountable?
social media
Avoid the media distractions. Focus on collective responses to Trump.
A tough age for girls
Teenage girls navigate a tough landscape. There are tools the church can offer them.
In a gallery or on Instagram, a camera's lens poses ethical questions.
Time was when we had a neutral commons where those of us who wanted to say something could say it, try to earn people’s attention, and choose whether to give them our own. I’m speaking of course of the internet—a long decade ago, before social media swallowed it whole.
We seem to always want something—anything—to happen. This has implications for the life of prayer.
Vainglory, by Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung
If vainglory is about stealing glory from God, it is unintelligible outside the house of faith. This may explain why Rebecca DeYoung's book flows against the current of attempts to reclaim narcissism and pride.
In her media column for the Century last month, Kathryn Reklis, a theology professor at Fordham University, wrote about the many times a day that social media asks her to watch a video and feel something. “You too will cry after watching this . . . 90 percent of people cry,” the Facebook post tells her. She argues that, while kitschy, these videos contain the power of shared feeling, and shared feeling is a step toward empathy and a further step toward compassion—and so, in essence, a social good. I am not sure I agree.
Several times a day, my Facebook feed invites me to cry, laugh, or feel amazed. I click almost every time.