Professional paper

The Purposeful Use of the Media by Annunciation of the Gospel

Ivan Šaško ; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

The challenge to the development of a society predominantly characterized by mass media and »new« media raises a serious question for the Church in how it should reconsider its relationship to the media and especially the methods used by so-called »new media«. As to the forms of the Church's presence in the media, this articles places special emphasis on the most complex aspect, i.e., performative utterance, which is dependant on the other two: informative and formative. Christian proclamation is facing many different systems of values and behaviors on the broken religious horizon, which have given birth to a new religious area in the media itself, so that it in many ways takes over the function of religion.
At this moment, that which is lacking in the field of ecclesiastical activity in the media is above all a serious consideration on the basis of an adequate communicational and theoretical model, which could explain numerous conditions and applications of the media process. This is why the point is not only the critique of programs, which has been exhausted regardless of whether a positive or negative point of view toward different titles and shows in the media has been taken. The criterion of ecclesiasticism is far deeper. Ecclesiastical legitimacy within a secular society (characterized by the media) lies in the proclaiming power of the eschatological future as a future, i.e. guidelines and orientation for people hit et nunc. Thus it is possible to discern the fundamental principle of ethos spreading itself into the social and political dimension. Nevertheless, proclaiming in the media is also an obligation in a sense that it should provide answers to the people's need for salvation, which is the fundamental reason for evangelization.
Recognizing the real needs of man and interpreting them (which the media responds to) should be at the forefront of any further activity in order to avoid »mad competition« between opposing traditional ecclesiastical speech and the challenges of the media regarding not only a new vocabulary but also a syntax. It can only result in antagonism, and in misunderstandings on the communicational, rather than on the level of the subject matter itself. Last but not least, it is also necessary to have the ability tο be self-critical as a result of the challenges of the media toward theology and especially toward the liturgy. A new gathering would be born here, which would purify and improve ecclesiasticism and the understanding of the Church within the Church itself, it would be a get-together which would be able to determine boundaries and create a recognizability to the subject matter and form.

Keywords

media (mass media); proclaiming; the religious dimension of media; »new religiousness«; ecclesiasticism; liturgical ceremony; signs and symbolical speech

Hrčak ID:

29354

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/29354

Publication date:

24.4.2001.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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