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There has been an increasing concern, both in Congress and in the home, over the content and quality of television programming as witnessed by the following Web links; (Remember to use the 'BACK' function on your web browser to return.)
Be sure to also check out 'hyperlinks' at the end of this section!
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Sounding more the journalist and less the ordained minister, Bill Moyers said he's always wanted to write a book that was "an earthy, violent saga with sex and murder, greed and lust, envy and betrayal and snakes in the grass."
A guaranteed million-seller, but Moyers won't write it.
"God did it first," he said. "All I can do is a television series based on the book."
And so he has. "Genesis: A Living Conversation" comes to PBS channels next week....
Moyers, 62, who has won more than 30 Emmys and two Peabody Awards for political reporting and international coverage has traveled to a number of cities to promote the 10-part "Genesis" series. Sitting in a Seattle hotel room recently in one of the less "churched" areas of the country. Moyers said he didn't expect to fill the Paramount Theatre for his lecture. No matter. As one who was there for the birth of the Public Broadcasting System, Moyers is accustomed to small crowds.
"Our sense was that we'd try to reach different consituencies, and that our success could never be measured by Nielson ratings, but by the quality of the attention paid by people who were watching," he said of PBS's "Genesis."
[taken from article by John Levesque (N.Y. Times News Service) reprinted in The Patriot Ledger Sat./Sun., Oct. 12/13, 1996 p. 50]
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[taken from The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine 8/31/96 p. 14.]
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Joan Osborne and Dog's Eye View sing about him. Della Reese and Roma Downey do his work on TV's Touched by an Angel. Greg Kinnear answers his mail in a new movie. Pick up books and the comic page, join in online chats about him -- God is everywhere.
Why does God seem more ubiquitous in today's cultural scene than the World Wide Web?
"God is in popular culture because God is present in people's experience and consciousness," says Paul Schervish, a Boston College sociologist. The question isn't 'Why is he there now? -- God's been in popular culture since ancient times -- but "How rich is the protrayal?' Popular culture is potentially either the richest or the most watered-down version of God."
Osborne's hit song One of Us asks: "What if God was one of us?" dog's Eye View meets God on the subway in Everything Falls Apart. Me'Shell Ndege-Ocello realizes in God Shiva "we are in truth, the truth we seek: God." And Tha Crossroads finds rappers Bone Thugs-N-Harmony "prayin', prayin', prayin'."
The God of pop culture is not necessarily a Judeo-Christian God. He (or she) can be any form of pure love and power. "Because God is for everyone, we'll never run out of stories," says Martha Williamson, executive producer of CBS's Touched by an Angel. "I think the show's success lies in the fact that God is an inclusive God. God exists and wants to be part of all our lives -- if we let him."
Seek and ye shall find:
Just why boomers, the most influential cultural decisionmakers, pop God into culture is clear to some of them.
"We're getting closer to our millennium," jokes cartoonist Wiley, 45, whose comic strip "Non Sequitor" often features Homer, "a reluctant soul" who is reborn into different lives when a God-like being clicks a computer mouse. The idea of eternal existence, says Wiley, "offers comfort."
The fine line between praising and commercializing the Creator lies in the sincerity of the creators of pop culture, say today's artists and social observers.
When popular culture does succeed in "permeating the everyday with mystery," says Schervish, it infuses life with more profound meaning. And it doesn't matter whether insight, meaning and a new relationship with God come through your CD player, TV or online service: "If you were God, would you complain about the attention?"
[article by Pam Janis in USA WEEKEND for Oct. 11-13, 1996 on p. 6]
[article by David Bauder for Associated Press reprinted to Boston Globe on Weds. (3/12/97) p. F8]
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Videos from Vision Video on media literacy;
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"Un-Plug Your Kids: Media Literacy Training for Parents, Teachers, and Ministers (15 min.--Adult/Guide--$34.99)
"Raising a Faith-Filled Child in a Consumer Society (25 min.--Adult/Disc.--$29.99)
"Spiritual Homepage: Odyssey Cable Network (24 min.--Adult/High School--$24.99 ea)
(3 segments on Forgiveness, Miracles, and Guilt)
"Beyond the News: TV Violence & Your Child" (30 min.-- High School to Adult--$29.99)
"Beyond the News: TV Violence & You" (30 min.--High School to Adult--$19.99)
(both videos may be purchased together for $39.99!)
"MTV Examined" (30 min.--Adult)
"Visions of Gregorian Chants" (45 min.--All Audiences)
"Kateri Tekakwitha: Native American Saint" (30 min.--High School to Adult--$24.99)
For more details, please contact;
Videos with Values 1944 Innerbelt Business Center Drive St. Louis, MO. 63114-5718 1-800-233-4629
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Battling objectionable television programming and other problems with the media requires educated consumers as well as high standards of responsibility from the people working in the media, Archbishop John Foley told two Rockford, ILL., audiences earlier this month."Do our young people know how a newspaper or a news program are put together -- the norms for selection and presentation?" asked the archbishop, who is president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in Rome.
"How are religious and moral questions covered, if at all?" he asked.
He encouraged the audience to not only pay attention to what the media offers but to "teach our children and encourage schools to teach your children to be responsible and intelligent consumers of the media, ready to express their opinions and to consider participating in the media as responsible professionals."
Archbishop Foley praised several people he called "excellent religion reporters," but added that when it come to such coverage, "I am convinced that some assignment editors confuse ignorance with objectivity."
If editors assigned sports writers the way some select religion writers -- assuming ignorance of a subject translates to objectivity -- readers and viewers would rebel, he suggested.
Media literacy also must include the ability to analyze film and television programming the way students are taught to analyze literature, Archbishop Foley said (CNS)
[taken from National Catholic Register August 25, 1996 p. 3]
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Corporate communication is hardly a subject one would expect to find in the catalogue of a pontifical university. And yet, this year, Rome's Pontificio Anteneo della Santa Croce is offering a degree program in corporate communication for the Church.The expression "corporate communication" refers to the professional activities which allow an institution to make itself known to the public. Organizations both large and small rely on press offices to communicate their identities and activities to the outside world.
Communicating the message of the Church differs greatly from describing the activities of a business or cultural organization. For this reason, the Pontifical Athenaeum, which is run by the prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, decided to create a program which would provide the theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to correctly communicate the identity and mission of the Church. Last February, the program received the imprimatur of the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education.
"Because the Church is an institution characterized by a dimension of mystery, it is necessary to have a profound theological, philosophical and canonical formation in order to adequately convey its message," explained Mariano Fazio, head of the new faculty of corporate communication and a professor of the history of political doctrines. He said "a thorough knowledge of today's media is also necessary, because it is above all through the media that the image of the Church is made known."
Students enrolled in the four-year program in corporate communication will begin with the traditional subjects of an ecclesiastical university like theology and canon law, the doctrincal foundations required to understand the reality of the Church. These courses are integrated with courses in the humanities and social sciences. Courses in bioethics and human sexuality are also part of the curriculum.
Students will also take communications-related courses ranging from rhetoric to semiotics, from broadcast journalism to marketing. Special seminars will familiarize students with the latest information technology such as the internet. Finally, courses such as "Fundamentals of Corporate Communication" and "Corporate Communication and the Church" will give students the specialized knowledge necessary to become effective spokespersons for religious institutions.
Graduates are expected to be prepared for working in press offices and information centers of dioceses and other ecclesiastical entities, editing publications, producing and participating in radio and television programs and teaching subjects related to social communication in seminaries.
....For over 10 years now, the Pontifical Athenaeum of the Holy Cross has been an important center for university studies and research in the ecclesiastical sciences. It consists of four schools: theology, canon law, philosophy, as well as corporate communications for the Church. All of the schools have full canonical power to confer bachelor, licentiate, and doctoral degrees. There are over 600 students who come from about 60 different countries.
[taken from article by Berenice Cocciolillo in National Catholic Register for 8/8/96 p. 3]
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....The program is the second of the four-part "Vision and Values" series offered annually to ABC-TV stations by the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission. The commission is a consortium of Christian and Jewish faith organizations that produces religious documentaries for distribution to TV stations.
Ellen McCloskey of the Catholic Communications Campaign, which funds media projects to promote Gospel and family values, is the show's executive producer, and Paulist Father John Geany is its producer. (CNS)
Video Copies of "John Paul II: A Light to the Nations" and an accompanying study guide are available for purchase by calling (800)-235-8722 after Oct. 13.
[taken from a report in the National Catholic Register for 10/6/96 p. 3]
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The communications media, including the press, the cinema, radio and television, the music industry and computer networks, respresent the modern forum where information is received and transmitted rapidly to a global audience, where ideas are exchanged, where attitudes are formed and, indeed, where a new culture is being shaped.
[taken from Papal Message for World Communications Day -- May 19, 1996]
A computer search of the literature can sometimes turn up some very interesting and valuable information. For instance, just during the month of July in 1993, the following articles appeared in USA TODAY:
"If the TV networks do label all violent shows, they'll need to broadcast a "parental warning" through more than half of prime time. That's what USA TODAY found in reviewing a week's worth of programming on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox."TV vs. Reality: Prime Time Tuning Out Varied Culture. (7/6/93 p.1A)
"USA TODAY watched all prime time shows airing on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox the week of April 24-30 [1993]. We profiled all characters with two or more speaking lines and counted how often various activities occurred onscreen."
TV'S Reflection of Life. (7/6/93 p. 3D)
"Nearly half the U.S. population consider religion an important part of their lives. But according to a USA TODAY survey of a week of prime-time network TV, spirituality is but a blip in the lives of TV characters."
In Search of Prime-Time Faith. (7/12/93 p. 3D)
"Over the years, TV has tackled faith in many forms."
Shows with a Spiritual Side. (7/12/93 p.3D)
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