FRANCIS
ARACKAL
St.
Joseph’s College, Bangalore
Paper
Title. “Media - the all pervasive being/entity
of our times.”
Abstract
Abstract
What better way is there than to begin this
paper by reflecting on the words of Theologian William Fore: “Media
today appeal more than the traditional institutions like family, religion and school.
Politics, business, and media hold more sway than any other areas of interest
today. Power, money, fame and glory are shared mostly by these. A new culture, religion, sanctuary idols and
priesthood are emerging.” And the words of Marshall McLuhan, one of the
pioneers and prophets of the media age: “All media work us over completely.
They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic,
psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part
of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.”
The omnipotence of mass media was already felt
in the beginning of the twentieth century even though the main media present
were newspapers, magazines and radio. Of course, media attained the status of a
religion only with the arrival of television – family altars were replaced by
the “idiot box”; television,“the big medium”, by the end of the twentieth
century became the surrogate parent, teacher and god. And then the omnipresence
of the media was felt with the launching ofthe internet enabling instant social
networking. The world moved beyond the “global village” ending up as a “global
living room”. No wonder Alexander Bard,
the prophet who calls for triumph of the ‘netocracy’ in his latest book
‘Syntheism – Creating God in the Internet Age’, speaks of the internet as the
new Holy Spirit.
It
should be noted here that in the age of media convergence information
technology has to be considered integral to media operations. FB, Twitter,
Whatsapp would be rendered ineffective without the internet. FB has captured
the imagination of more than 1.5 billion people, one hundred million and
growing in India alone. Twitter and
Whatsapp are catching up.
Francis Arackal has a Master’s Degree in
Philosophy from Nagpur University. Licence in Philosophy from St. Thomas
University, Rome. Did his PG Diploma in Media studies from Griffith College,
Dublin, Ireland, and Licence and Doctorate in Social Sciences, specializing in
media, from Gregorian and St. Thomas Universities in Rome. Taught Media and
Philosophy for 18 years at many Institutes and colleges. He has four books to
his credit, and numerous scientific papers, articles, press reports in newspapers
and periodicals both in India and abroad.