Post on 11-Nov-2014
description
Who am I? Media, Identity & Worldviews
Margunn Serigstad Dahle, Tony Watkinsand Lars Dahle
Who am I?
Who am I?
context for identity formation
media and popular culture
Youth . . . need the media for guidance and nurture in a society where other social institutions, such as the family and the school, do not shape the youth culture as powerfully as they once did.
Mueller
popular media
mirror mould
plurality of worldview perspectives
Key question:What is the view of humanity?
Personal identity/identities?
constructed / given?
content for identity formation
media and popular culture
Marshall McCluhan
Human beings don’t have any core identity any longer. Their only identity is what can be found as image in the eyes of others.
Erling Rimehaug
Clothe me by seeing me
You are what you present yourself as
and what others see
Madonnaicon of postmodernity
Do I have to change my name?Will it get me far?Should I lose some weight?Am I gonna be a star?I tried to be a boyI tried to be a girl I tried to be a mess I tried to be the best I guess I did it wrong That’s why I wrote this songThis type of modern lifeIs it for me?This type of modern lifeIs it for free?
You are whom you are with
Are we who our friends make us?
I’m an assured, receptive, responsive woman of substance. My sense of self comes not from other people, but from . . . from myself!? Can that be right?
Bridget Jones’s Diary
You are what you live out
You are what you possess
You are what you achieve
Antz
?What do you think the media does to you?
How does it shape a sense of identity?
Douglas Rushkoff
© Johannes Kroemer. Used by permission
mediascape
The media shape ourreality
It is just the literature that we read for ‘amusement’, or ‘purely for pleasure’ that may have the greatest and least suspected influence upon us. It is the literature that we read with the least effort that can have the easiest and most insidious influence upon us.
T.S. EliotSelected Essays (Faber and Faber, 1932)
518 million active users
35 million users update status daily
100 million photos uploaded daily
55
youtube
40%
Percentage of US teens aged 12–17 who:
use social networks
share content
blog
use Twitter
0 20 40 60 80
techno-nomads
omnivorous freedom
freedom to behold
freedom to seek distraction
distraction from distraction
enjoy rootlessness
enjoy fleeting experiences
fun
stimulation
feelings
The most important thing about the communications we live among is that . . . they saturate our way of life with a promise of feeling.
Todd GitlinMedia Unlimited (2002)
‘the frantic desire for the almost real’
(Umberto Eco)
self
Who am I?
individual/community
All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame.
Isaiah 44:9
59
good things
ultimate things
We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.
Tim Keller
We love idols. We trust idols. We obey idols. We look to idols to love us and provide value, beauty, sense of significance and worth.
Tim Keller
Hell is just a freely chosen identity, based on something else besides God, going on for ever.
Tim Keller
Do not conform to the pattern of this world. (Romans 12:1)
?What do we mean by personal identity? How does the holistic biblical view of humanity shape our identity?
How do the media affect the formation of identity in young people in our own cultural contexts?
How should we approach personal identity and the media in relation to our preaching, Christian communities and pastoral care?
www.damaris.org / www.damaris.no
www.engagingmedia.info
www.culturewatch.org
www.tonywatkins.org
twitter.com/tonywatkins_
facebook.com/tonywatkinspage