Alvin Toffler makes a good case for seeing the paradigm shift in the economy, and to do so in order to ease the transition. He describes a sociological history in which all of the great social struggles during times of economic shifts were brought about as agricultural socities gave way to industrial, which has been giving way to information based economies.
Where Wizards Stay Up Late traces the developments that resulted in the Internet, and it all started at what Toffler would identify as the early years of the Information Age. In 1956, for the first time in US History, there were more workers in the service industry than in manufacturing. this marks the beginnings of the shift to an information economy.
The ball started rolling when the Eisenhower administration was awakened by the spectre of Soviet prominnece in the aerospace industry by the launch of the first satellite. The ARPA team arose out of the plans, and networking technology experiments began which resulted in the building of several networks in various projects, and eventually several agencies of government, education, and commerce got involved and produced the initial infrastructures which form our "Internet" today; a "network of networks".
The vast reach of this network is what has most "Netopians" singing the praises of the Net. This wide expanse and character of open , free expression has resulted in several battles in the relatively young public life of this new medium. The conversations in many "theological" circles often focus on the fears that arise as people come face to face with the diversity and often "perverse" character of the Net. But it is a channel for the world, so to speak, and so we should expect to hear the sounds of all the sub-cultures which comprise a world of cultures.
With all the attention being given to the rise of Computer Communications Networks, and the rush of nearly every organization and company to "get on the Net", in the early going there was very little attention given to this phenomenon in the religious/theological world. Once again it seems that the churches were very slow to adopt a new media.
One may propose that there is too much identification of the Internet
and online communications with the wide coverage of "Cyberporn"
, and so the churches are hesitant to align themselves with the use of
such media.
Still others may suggest that it is because of the "impersonal", "machine" , coldly technological feel of the medium is what causes religious people to shy away from its widespread use.
The key questions, I believe, are found in looking beyond these initial questions that seem to warn us away from the medium, or cause us to wholeheartedly accept the medium in a utopian-like stupor.
In response to the first "porn" concern, there are many examples of earlier media that made it easier to distribute questionable material. Books themselves became a breeding ground for all types of material. The telephone plays host to literally any kind of content. And television/video media only continued the "spreading" of such material from one form of media to another.
The second concern regarding the "cold"
and impersonal nature of computer communications is based , I feel , on
images derived from our media over years. These images include HAL the
computer in 2001, and the huge mainframe computers seen in techno-thrillers,
depicting some "inhuman" character of the machine. It is becoming
increasingly apparent that people are coming to the online world not because
they wish to gain some "cold, hard facts", but because of the
range of interaction that is possible with people from all over the country
and the world. The "Bulletin Board areas of the online services experience
tremendous growth, as have the Usenet
News Groups on the Internet. Usenet groups are generally available
from most Internet service providers and comprise some thousands of different
subjects from religion to sports.
I also see the need to watch carefully what becomes of the capacity the Web and the Internet gives to express ourselves. Commercial interests have all but shut out the use of prior media to promote any non-standard type of view, but they are also, by and large, expensive media in terms of production/publishing costs.
The Web and the Internet, on the other hand, seem more accessible in terms of cost (still, it is not so for many, and yet it is to a much larger extent than the previous media). So I see the need for us to work with that and seek to extend the boundaries as opposed to letting commercial interests make this more difficult. As of yet, the commercial interests seem to be opening up a bigger market and thus cheaper pricing for access and Web space. I will be watching developments and be on the lookout for tendencies to take this in less desirable directions.