The critics had raised plenty of legitimate questions about the use of the Net by SOME, and there is plenty of ammunition in the cases of people who develop addictions and pro-longed attachments to online life. And yet here, there is work being done in doing psychology on the way people have adopted the virtual life as a way of working with themselves. Sherry Turkle, in her latest book, Life on the Screen, opened my eyes to the way many have taken to online relationships as a way of experimenting with finding acceptance, or "trying on" a social self and see if there is "connection" from another self who may well be experimenting themselves.
It occurred to me that this could help many of us to "try on other roles" (the one that occurs to me is the professional minister who rarely feels freedom to be themselves; or the spouse of a minister who wishes that fact could be ignored, so that they and others around them could "be real".
There are also important questions of who will have access to this "democratizing medium"; and so implied is a question of whether it is so democratic and equalizing medium after all. Bolter points out in "Writing Space" that the participants in this revolution in communication who are mostly educated and wealthy are merely mirroring the case with the literacy of writing itself.
Every flavor of technological futurist, from Alvin Toffler and John Naisbitt to Peter Drucker and George Gilder, base utopian hopes on "the information age" as a techno-fix for social problems. Yet little is known about the impact these newest media might have on our daily lives, our minds, our families, even the future of democracy. (TVC.p.12)
The odds are always good that big power and big money will find a way to control access to virtual communities; big power and big money always found ways to control new communications media when they emerged in the past. The Net is still out of control in fundamental ways, but it might not stay that way for long. What we know and do now is important because it is still possible for people around the world to make sure this new sphere of vital human discourse remains open to the citizens of the planet before the political and economic big boys seize it, censor it, meter it, and sell it back to us. (TVC p. 5)
Although I am enthusiastic about the liberating potentials of computer-mediated communications, I try to keep my eyes open for the pitfalls of mixing technology and human relationships. I hope my reports from the outposts and headquarters of this new kind of social habitation, and the stories of the people I've met in cyberspace, will bring to life the cultural, political, and ethical implications of virtual communities both for my fellow explorers of cyberspace and for those who never heard of it before. (TVC. ,p.4)
As written material on the possibilities for online commuications grows, so too has the "neo-luddite" response: harking back to the "days gone by", a response as old as humanity itself whenever new media rise to prominence. Writers such as Cliff Stoll (Silicon Snake Oil) lead a backlash of protest against popular acceptance of the virtues of the online world, and warn that we are becoming less community-conscious, more addicted to technology, and contributing to social decay.
Others ask probing questions that are less computer phobic, nonetheless probing, socially sensitive questions on the implications for a more "electronic-oriented" society.
Alvin Toffler has written three volumes (one in 1970: Future Shock, one in 1980: Third Wave, and one in 1990: Powershift) which study the impact of shifts in the focus of the economy of societies. In Toffler's scenario, the first wave shift was from hunting socities to an "Agricultural" economy. The next was from Agricultural to "Industrial" , and the third is from an Industrial economy to an "Information Economy".
Elizabeth Eisenstein has written an in-depth study ( The Printing Press As An Agent of Social Change) of the main communication shift during the beginnings of the industrial revolution: the printing press. The reactions of the church to the new technological means of communicating via the written word was reactionary, using many of the same kinds of "warnings" about "heretical ideas" and accusations of "unorthodoxy" against the influx of new ideas as the laity began to utilize communication previously available only to the elite of the power structures in that era.
James Brook has edited a work entitled "Resisting the Virtual Life" that is full of the kinds of overstatements of the posoitions of the pro-CMC writers which they quote. "Whatever is missing from our lives will be rectified by greater access to the stores of data and new forms of entertainment that companies big and small are eager to sell." (p.viii of the Preface). Brook immediately strikes me as an ivory tower critic of capitalism, waxing eloquent about "undermining the solidaity of workers", and yet living in Silicon Valley himself, and writing these accusations from the comfort of his word processor. The fact is, I know little about James Brook, and he may well be active in the cause of industrial workers suffering under the weight of shift toward an information economy. I too, see serious problems in capitalism as it is practiced in our society. It is problematic that there are disenfranchised people. But to suggest that this is unique to the information age is ludicrous.
The key issue for theological reflection on the online world is how
this medium enables and/or inhibits communication, and thus human understanding.
Somewhere between the hype of the promise of equal access for all to all
information, and the warnings sounded by some who see dehumanizing trends
in this new technology, lies some territory largely unexplored by theological
thinking.
Another work from Daniel Burstein and David Kline , "Road Warriors", also asks questions about "Information Highway" hype, and the implications for society at large, but their questions are set in the context of an approach to technology that is less "grudging" at the outset.
I was sufficiently impressed with the article in WIRED Jan.1996 ("Is Government Obsolete"?) by David Kline and Daniel Burnstein to go out and buy "Road Warriors: Dreams and Nightmares Along The Information Highway", and thus far in my reading, it is proving to be an excellent middle ground book between the "Snubbites" and the "Cyber-utopians/Info-Superhighway hypsters.
They pose some excellent questions which are all too far and few-between in much of the articles and books about Cyberculture
As for the church and it's approaches to online communications: there is the tendency to use the "dissemination evangelism" approach; that is, the number of bits of dogma and "spiritual laws" tracts that are distributed equals evangelism. The experience of the listener or reader is expected to remain constant. So much of the "Christians on the Internet" material is geared toward "being careful" about coming across "indecent" material, and on lists of lists. Very little attention is given to the value of online communication to supplemement local fellowship (or even to help provide some interaction in the absence of , or in the wake of the failures of the local groups to provide a home where one's journey can be supported and enabled).
Even more rare is the exploration of the meaning of this new textuality to the world of interpretation and notions of "orthodoxy". As it seems apparent from studies such as Eisenstein's, the emergence of hypertext as a worldwide phenomenon will have a similar "radicaizing" effect upon the way the Bible is read and experienced.
The typical response of the churches in the wake of the popularity of the Web has been far to the perepheries of what I consider the key effects and benefits of the Internet for us. On the one side , we have the response to the "wide open" culture of the Net. Although this culture simply reflects the world already out there, the immediacy of being "out there" (or rather, having all of "that out there" right in your home on the screen) is to come to a more intimate (and thus more immediate) experience of it. Just as I experienced a more immediate sense of ecumenical cooperation in my experience with Ecunet, the diverse elements of the Net bring some of the world's amany and alternative voices a little "too close" for some.
On the other side, there is the bestowmnet onto Internet communication as a "means to communicate the Gospel". Bring Jesus to the Web, they say, and this usually means providing links to other sites who give their site an evangelistic thrust. I expect that we are not far from seeing more selectivity in who is listed, since at the outset it is fun to find as many links as possible, and link to any site expressing a theological interest.