What are the ramifications of living in a wired and mediated world? What, exactly, is this information age that we speak of so glibly? What do theologians have to do with the so called information superhighway and a five-hundred-channel world? A gospel response to new technologies is to safeguard access for all God's children rather than reserve most of the goods for a favored few. This requires media education within the churches.
Only by providing alternative environments to the mass media, using the media for messages about human values, and helping viewers overcome their growing dependence upon the media environment and its values can the church hope to liberate people from control by "The Technique" and to set them free from the potential tyranny of the technological era.
Promoting understanding of how media work, how media affect our lives and how to use media wisely includes differentiating among the values, messages and meaning of life as espoused by faith groups and as interpreted by the media. Media education becomes the key.
From soap operas to news to sports, commercial telecasting performs a fundamentally sacramental function: it mediates and legitimates a belief in the American way of life.