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Religion and the Information SocietyReligion and the Information Society
Jorge Reina Schement and Hester C. Stephenson
School of Communication, Information and Library Studies
Rutgers University
A version of this paper was published as:
Schement, Jorge Reina, and Hester C. Stephenson (1996) Religion and the information society. In Religion and mass media: Audiences and adaptations. D.A. Stout and J.M. Buddenbaum, eds. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
The fact of the matter is that dialogue between the fields of theology and communication is already taking place simply because it is unavoidable. In public policy decisions regarding the evolving `Information Society' the debate involves questions of the future of national cultures, and public figures seek to base their arguments on philosophical or theological principles. Within the churches, too, major questions such as the appropriateness of the `electronic church' almost immediately become theological issues -- Robert A. White, S.J., Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture. (Soukup, 1991, p. 7)
We have to use this technology so it won't further isolate children and families within their own little world. ... We have to show that individuals have a responsibility to a group larger than themselves, that we have an interdependence. We have a real lack of that. We need something to enrich the soul, human spirit or community. -- Governor Gaston Caperton of West Virginia. (Bollier, 1995, p. 6)
In the late twentieth century, Americans increasingly worship in electronic churches, participate in megacongregations, and seek solace in charismatic Evangelicalism.[1] That Americans are increasingly comfortable with these emerging church forms reflects the importance of new information technologies within the American culture of worship. Yet, just as any technology arises out of the values of its creators, so too do new mediated forms of worship arise out of understandings of Church, rite, and spirituality. In this chapter we weave together the connections between the information society and religion, particularly Protestantism, by exploring the historic and contemporary threads that link the information society to Judeo-Christian institutions and beliefs.[2] We first review the tendencies and tensions of the information society, and then discuss emerging forms of religious practice. At essay's end, we speculate on the consequences of what may result. The Information Society
Most Americans call up the phrase "information society" to explain the changing technological terrain of their homes and offices. Even journalists and social observers tally up long lists of devices that include automatic teller machines, satellites, and personal computers as characteristic symbols of the new age. However, though we might fixate on information technologies, the domain of the information society extends far beyond the sphere of the technological, and its depth plumbs down to the very roots of culture. The following attributes briefly summarize the far-reaching transformation that unites the abstractions "information" and "society" into a cohesive whole.[3]
Underlying Forces: the Driving Catalysts and the Defining Contexts
Capitalism and industrialization. The primary forces that converged and caused a transformation in the production and distribution of information -- in technology, in the economy, and in the work force.
Evolution and continuity. The information society is one evolutionary development of industrial capitalism. Changes that we observe in information work, in media environments, and in technological innovation took place over a long period of time, characterized by continuity.
Dominant Tendencies: the Trends That Shape Awareness
The idea of information. The fundamental condition which makes the information age seem understandable is the ease with which people think of information as a thing. This conceptualization of information facilitates the exploitation of information as a commodity -- the basis of the information economy -- and provides the language with which we make sense of the information society.
The information economy. Information holds a leading role in American economic life as an item of production and consumption. America's status within the world's economic system now depends on its ability to compete in markets for information and information technologies.
Information work. The majority of adults now work in occupations whose primary tasks involve manipulating information in some form.
Interconnectedness. People continue to maintain a small number of primary intimate relationships, but the number of secondary public relationships has vastly increased as individuals seek to accomplish personal and work related tasks by relying on impersonal relationships -- mostly mediated through some form of communication technology.
Media environments. Throughout the 20th century, Americans have contrived habitats capable of receiving huge quantities of messages. Today, these media environments constitute an indispensable part of life in the information society -- so much so that they now typify American households.
Information technologies. They are to the flesh of the information society as capitalism and industrialism are to the spirit. So pervasive are they that numerous observers view the development of the information society as a study in technological growth.[4]
Major Tensions: the Fault Lines That Precipitate Dispute and Debate
The social value of information. Whether to rely on the forces of the market or to depend on government for the proper allocation of information is the most basic question of information policy. Institutionalized at the very inception of the republic, this tension persists because of conflicting traditions.
Privacy. As more institutions take on the functions of gathering information about individuals, the construction of privacy has expanded to include a concern for loss of control over personal information.
Political discourse. Electoral campaigns are now controlled by big media organizations, and a nucleus of politicians and consultants. In response, citizens either: abstain and become apathetic; narrow their focus to single issues and simplified images; or, in some cases, gravitate to virtual communities by opting to exploit small media for local political purposes.
Literacy. Recent declines in literacy rates confer an unexpected urgency to the central concerns of the information age. At a time when reading and writing have re-emerged as fundamental skills, lower literacy levels threaten the knowledge base and our competitiveness as a global economy.
The logic of images. Constrained by the vast scale of American society, individuals increasingly experience important realities through images they receive from the media. Americans depend on mediated images to learn about the people, institutions, and events which affect their lives -- even within their own communities. Yet, increasingly, institutions and public figures address the improvement of their images as the solution to problems of substance.
Information poverty. To lack information often means to lack power. Those at the margins of society often lack access to sources of information that might provide new opportunities, or a greater voice in the channels of public discourse.
Marginalized voices. Voices in the information age remain marginalized by gender and ethnicity. Predictions that the growth of information occupations would diminish the gender gap by raising the status of jobs traditionally held by women have not been realized. Expectations of equality failed to anticipate that women and minority professionals would face difficulty finding work in central institutions, like universities and banks. Nor did these expectations predict the existence or establishment of glass or stained-glass ceilings.
African-Americans and Latinos make up 20% of the population of the United States.[5] In a nation marked by rich ethnic diversity, African-Americans and Latinos will have significant impact on the information society, by virtue of their changing numbers in media markets. Minorities, particularly African-Americans, are increasing their numbers within the mainstream media. While these advances in visibility convey the impression that minorities are entering communication industries in large numbers an imbalance persists; for, though they are readily identifiable as media consumers, African-Americans and Latinos have yet to convert their new found visibility into success as media producers. Questions of equality and justice challenge the information society.
Keys to Understanding
The information society depends on recognizing elements of both change and continuity. American industry is no longer hog butcher to the world, because it has changed, or more properly, evolved away from its earlier form. Instead, it is now educator, banker, entertainer, and data processor to the world, for reasons of continuity -- because of the persistence of the profit motive and the industrial character of these activities. And, because the information society extends across the entire fabric of social interaction, it touches the entire culture. This information society has been taking shape throughout the twentieth century, in interaction with social forces such as religious institutions and the specific belief systems of individuals.
Roots
The roots that intertwine modern Christian religions and the information society can be traced to the invention of the printing press and the subsequent rise of the idea of information. Elizabeth Eisenstein (1979, 1986) recognized the shift from script to print as one of the few true communications revolutions which enabled three major movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation and the scientific revolution. The growing availability of texts and the new interactions of occupations such as printers and scholars to create such texts led to changed perceptions of learning; a heightened sense of individualism; a popular appreciation for the Bible; and a marketplace of ideas.
Those connections of Protestantism and capitalism, undergird the modern era and its progeny, the information society. When Max Weber (1958) first explored the relationship, he located the impetus for contemporary capitalism within the religious beliefs of Protestantism, particularly Calvinist values. The Calvinist idea of work as a calling and as an expression of faith gave capitalism a "spirit." Calvinists and their like minded brethren elevated the spirit to the level of a cardinal virtue by redefining wealth as the product of diligent work and thrift pursued for God's greater glory, instead of the medieval association of wealth with the contemptible accumulation of worldly goods.[6]
Even so, the success of ideas from such sources as Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli was dependent on the availability of printed texts; but, whereas, the newly available content catalyzed the religions of the book, the invention of printing itself set in motion forces like the book trade and popular literacy whose consequences for reshaping European society extended beyond Protestantism and capitalism.[7] Indeed, Weber himself only hinted at the influence of literacy and printing, though he searched for the spirit of capitalism among the writings of a famous printer -- Benjamin Franklin. The popularization of reading the Bible encouraged the base of literacy necessary for the later expansion of the white collar workforce.[8] Long narrative poems such as Paradise Lost (Milton, 1667), evolved into the modern novel creating the basic unit of exchange in the world's literary marketplaces. Religious collections of universal knowledge, such as Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, gave way to itemized secular compendia, such as Diderot's Encyclopédie; and, in turn, the modern idea of bits of information.[9] Thus, today, we should experience no surprise at finding information technology in the service of religious entrepreneurs, nor at finding the exploitation of religious symbols for purposes of secular entertainment. Since Gutenberg first printed his edition of the 42-line Mazarin Bible for profit, the two sides have intertwined intensely with persistently unanticipated repercussions.[10]
Some Associated Tendencies
The Idea of Information and the Idea of Religion
Medieval Christian Europe imagined the cosmology of the universe as an organic unity, a great chain of being, whose purpose was to glorify God (Lovejoy, 1936). To lead an integrated life, submission to the knowledge and time of the religious community was necessary.
In turn, the goal of preparing for salvation reinforced an attitude of sacredness towards manuscripts and books (McArthur, 1986). For example, under the Rule of Saint Benedict, monks aimed at forming a prayerful atmosphere within their communities. In order to do so, they created a special place for reading within the life of the monastery and generated a demand for books to be copied and stored (Benedictus, 547/1975). While individuals pursuing knowledge for the greater glory of God might seek a book from a monastery library, Benedictines and other orders of monks established an attitude towards books, reading, and information, that stressed community and authority (and by doing so, founded many of Europe's great libraries) (Putnam, 1896/1962). Thus, along with the book came the monastery's assumptions. An indication of this attitude is reflected in the common word for library in the monasteries of the middle ages -- books were kept in the armarium, literally the bookchest, while the armarius held the keys, preventing unauthorized use (Johnson, 1970).
The Rule also demanded strict attention to time so as to satisfactorily discharge the work of God and the prayers due to God. In order for members of the monastic community to divide their days between prayer, reading, copying books, and manual labor, they needed a means to divide up their day, that is, they needed information about time. Consequently, the first mechanical clocks in Europe were invented by monks and communicated the passing of the canonical hours to all of the surrounding peasantry by manual ringing of the monastery bell.[11] (Consequently, we still associate church services with bells ringing out time.) And, as with the labor of copying books, monks measured time for one purpose only, "To love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, and strength" (Benedictus, 547/1975, p52).
The information contained in books and the information contained in clocks served one great purpose, subsuming all other possibilities. Within such a paradigm, monks and other literate Christians could not easily venture beyond the limits of the religious community, much less consider the value of reading a book for one's individual pleasure (Hampson, 1968). Custom and law dictated that the application of information from books and clocks must not detract from the greater glory of God, making the distinction between secular and religious meaningless.
By contrast, modern social organization stresses the individual, emphasizes distinct spheres of life, elevates the secular, and exploits the idea of information to maintain the partitions. The ingrained division between public and private life, within which modern individuals perceive daily life, is reinforced by the idea of information with its emphasis on discrete units and sources. The notion that we should go to school for information about history, turn to political advertising for information about elections, enroll in management courses for information about organizational dynamics, and attend church services for information about morality, illustrates the compartmentalization with which we regard knowledge. That we read self-help books to learn how to keep our marriages together, listen to talk-radio to bolster our political beliefs, view behavioral videotapes to help us maximize our productivity, and read the Bible to help us achieve salvation, also points to the segmentation within which we lead our lives. Thus, the idea of information has enabled an idea of religion that is restrictive -- indeed, the adage, "religion and politics don't mix," captures the sentiment. In this climate, religious ideas struggle to be heard amid the torrents of secular information.
Beliefs in opposition to this tendency do exist; and, they may, perhaps, be gaining ground. Nevertheless, it is important to appreciate the role of the idea of information in constricting the perceived relevance of religious knowledge and in encouraging the modern idea of religion as a partitioned sphere of daily life. When individuals shop around for a religion as if it were a product to be consumed, they further this perception. Similarly, the development of new religious products -- radio and television programming, internet and satellite religious connections -- places religion on the same plane with commercial products. In 1994, "Chant", a CD featuring the voices of Benedictine Monks in musical prayer sold six million copies world wide, reaching number three on the pop charts in the United States (Thigpen, 1995).
Because religion has come to be viewed as a distinct body of ideas jostling for attention among other equally compelling idea sources, it is not surprising to find an unconscious melding of the modern idea of religion and the idea of information. After all, each reinforces the other. What is surprising is the power of the mixture. That mixture, transparent and pervasive, will set the context for other tendencies and tensions as they progressively define the information age.[12]
Institutionalized Religion and Information Economy
Capitalism stands at the root of the drive to produce and market information. At all levels, from industries to individual consumers, demand rises for information to coordinate complex activities, and as a consumption good in its own right. The tendency has been for the growth and elaboration of information markets, so much so that the information sector ranks first among the sectors of the American economy. The information economy, then, has come to be seen as a place where messages count as distinct goods and where consumers purchase information within a maze of direct and indirect pricing schemes. In such a world, it is difficult to differentiate a church's messages from those of other "vendors." Consequently, from Weber to the present, social theorists continue to seek a deeper understanding of the relationship between religion and capitalism (Neuhaus, 1992; Novak, 1993). Pope John Paul II offers his view of the relationship in the 1991 encyclical "Centesimus Annus," where he proposes that the capitalist ethos, "rightly understood," is rooted not only in Protestantism but also in Judaism and Catholicism (Novack, 1993, p.114).
If the prospect grows for a more intimate association between the two spheres, that may be a cause for concern, or at least ambivalence. Nevertheless, churches are often viewed as businesses that participate in the market economy and their followers viewed as consumers. Once portrayed as a devotee or pilgrim, the religious adherent now assumes the role of a consumer of religious messages who may shop at a variety of sects and churches for an acceptable or comfortable world view. Moreover, for the "consumer," the process of choosing a church may be experienced as bargaining, while ministers attend seminars on marketing techniques to attract clients to their product (Neibuhr, 1995, April 18). So, though some may interpret the tension between sects and churches as representing conflicting human desires for "otherworldly" beliefs, few can doubt that churches experience competitive pressures comparable to those experienced in other information markets.
The contribution to the information economy of the nation's religious activities is probably significant, but it is impossible to estimate with any accuracy. On the other hand, the patterns of institutional behavior -- the competitiveness, the marketing strategies, the management of image, the focus groups -- are easier to observe. Their impact on the culture of the information society may be more direct.
Religious Work and Information Work
Information workers, that is workers whose main task involves information processing or manipulation in any form, total more than all industrial, service, and agricultural workers combined in the U.S. labor force (Schement, 1990). Since, all information workers manipulate symbols for consumption by others, the parallel to religious work is obvious; the lay worker and the religious worker perform similar tasks. Information workers possess the verbal and literary skills once reserved for the clergy. That is, literacy skills necessary for personal interaction with religious texts are now the fundamental skills for all information work tasks. In addition, religious leaders have taken on roles comparable to those of idea experts in secular fields such as business, science and technology. Like all experts, religious leaders attend professional schools where the skills needed to perform institutional religious work are taught. If one ignores the greater meaning of the content of religious work and focuses on the daily tasks, the distinctions between secular and religious information workers blur completely.
It, therefore, seems likely that haziness at the boundaries imposes on religious work one of the growing malaises of information work. Because religious workers are also information workers, the alienation possible in information work is likely to be experienced in religious work as well. Once the aura of working for God wears off, the religious worker will see little difference between his or her tasks and those of any other information worker. The ease with which religious work skills transfer to secular information work diminishes the uniqueness of the calling, especially when compounded by the decline in status and special identity associated with religious work. Workers in both spheres may easily view themselves as commodities; and when religious workers find themselves embedded in large organizations, they may also become estranged from a sense of personal ownership of the product.[13]
Media Environments
At home, and at leisure, individuals constantly consume information, often via several channels simultaneously. Middle class homes resemble multiplex theaters, and the amount of personal media devices in each home is far greater than the number of people.[14] By adding to their household media environments throughout the twentieth century, Americans have created a culture of information consumption, even if they cannot claim that they are better informed. What is clear is that media environments are pervasive and inescapable. Religious messages that previously held a monopoly on attention by virtue of their special channels, now blend in with secular messages because of the utilization of common marketing techniques and product formats. The result is that religious messages must contend with a blizzard of competing secular messages in order to be heard.
Organized religion has always depended upon media in some form. One need only consider the prominent place given to pulpits, tapestries, and stained glass windows in Medieval churches to get a sense of the house of worship as a multimedia environment. Throughout American history, religious entrepreneurs have explored the potential synergy between information technologies and the evangelical mission. The media-centered impulse of Evangelicals during the second Great Awakening of the 19th century was based on the fusion of a theology emphasizing proclamation and the fascination with new technologies typical of Americans (Schultze, 1987). In the twentieth century print based media have given way to electronic media as preferred channels for disseminating the Word. Like the connection between Protestantism and printing, the movement from printed text (and revival meetings) to radio sermons and televised services has been gradual and persistent, with the evangelical and fundamentalist wing of the Protestant movement leading the way.
That the Evangelical tradition of utilizing media has shaped the contemporary electronic church in its many formats can be observed in the achievement, by the Reverend Billy Graham, of world-wide, satellite hook-up revival meetings called "World Mission." In 1995, Graham beamed his message from Puerto Rico at satellite dishes in 165 countries and 10 million people from Rwanda to Latin American and Oceania (Landers, 1995). In fact, the realities of the information society are so pervasive, they touch even the technologically conservative Catholic hierarchy. The Pope's visit to the United States in 1993 included a televised outdoor mass for the Feast of the Assumption; and, more recently, John Cardinal O'Connor of New York was featured on the evening news for hosting an on-line question and answer sessions on a national computer network.[15] That the work of churches is fundamentally about communication is underscored by televised masses and a Cardinal's interactive electronic ministerings.
In the information society, work, leisure, production, distribution, and the political system revolve around the importance of symbols and their transmission. Religion with its symbolic core can gain new energy from this new environment. Yet religious expressions must also compete with the flood of secular messages. So, while innovators find new uses for information technologies in the service of evangelism, religious messages themselves increasingly resemble the forms of secular messages. Thus, each tendency of the information society brings an opportunity and challenge to the evangelical impulse.
However, religion in the information society cannot be understood solely in terms of characteristics. The tensions that arise among the members of the information society contribute dynamics that add complexity to the picture; moreover, it is the tensions that challenge morality.
Endemic Tensions
The tendencies that now dominate the information society have become patterns in American life; but, whereas the tendencies give direction even as they reweave the social fabric, the tensions are the counterparts that strain the cloth of society. They are not problems, for they cannot be "solved." Instead, they constitute unavoidable frictions that will be reflected in the private sphere, the public sphere, and in religion. It would, moreover, be an error to presume that the information society with its tensions exists entirely within a secular sphere. Mircea Eliade pointed out that the profane region is never entirely free of the sacred (1959). Religion and the public sphere interact, as evidenced by the powerful presence of the Protestant movement in the institutions of education, media, and government.[16] The essential tensions are not only informed by the conflict of a market or government perspective, but also derived from conflicting world views of religions. Ultimately, the balances achieved for the tensions outlined below will define what individuals consider to be fair and just.
Privacy
Privacy once meant the right to be left alone, its religious dimension being the solitude of a person in the presence of God. There existed an expected balance between a person's secret intimacy with God, often expressed in the home, and engagement with one's community through the congregation. In this vision, privacy represents one anchor in a person's integrated life, the other being participation in the public sphere.
Throughout the twentieth century, the private sphere has advanced, while the public sphere has retreated. For the practice of religion, this has meant a shift in the balance between the two spiritual arenas, especially since Americans tend to define the public sphere in secular terms. For the most part, Americans hesitate to disclose their religious fervor in the workplace or in the community, beyond a perfunctory acknowledgement of attendance at a particular church. The family that regularly says grace before meals is not likely to do so when eating out. In the home, religious expression can still be found, whether through the ritual gatherings of Jews, the icons typical of Catholic and Orthodox practice, or the Protestant preference for simple behaviors such as bedtime prayers. Given the traditional distinction between the two spheres, the private offers a natural refuge from worldliness and fragmentation. Ironically, the growing importance of the private sphere has been encouraged by the reinvention of the home into a window on the world fueled by consumer media and devices for processing information. The home as media center now functions as the locale for learning about current events; thereby replacing older public fora such as the village commons and the corner saloon. Moreover, as leisure has moved from public institutions to the privacy of the home, so too has the focus of the media environment. From the spectacular introduction of radio in the 1920's to the spread of the personal computer in the 1990's, Americans require more and more home based media to meet the demands of individualism and the pressures of fragmentation. Religious media -- books, musical recordings, videos, and satellite revival meetings -- suggest a parallel burgeoning of the private pursuit of religious experience. While the wider variety of media products support shopping, leisure and work. The redefinition of the home as a refuge and as a window has also created the opportunity for an unprecedented intersection between religion and consumption.
There is no doubt that solitude -- an essential condition for communing with God in many faiths -- can be achieved in church, in public, or at home. The reinvention of domestic space has led to a shift of subtle proportions. Transforming the home into a media center has replaced solitude with privacy.
Politics and Logic of Images
The tension between politics and religion is an old one in American culture especially for Protestants. The self presentation of Americans as a religious people can be found in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, where the revolutionaries armed themselves with Divine justification. But, whereas, the signatories to the Declaration stood united in the uprightness of their moral purpose, they were less confidant of the good intentions of the many religious institutions in their midst; the fear of tyranny exacted by an official state church bellows from the first clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution.[17] In the ensuing two hundred years, enduring phrases such as: "God bless America;" "In God we trust;" and, "One nation under God;" reveal the central role of religious beliefs in the political culture of the United States. Their persistence has also produced a volatile mixture. Religious condemnation -- and support -- for state sanctioned slavery dominated public debate in the first half of the nineteenth century. In our own century, the morality of the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, school prayer, family values, and abortion, have contributed to the ongoing interpretation, and re-interpretation, of the First Amendment.
The information society inserts a twist to this constant of American culture. The battle over religion, morality, and the duties of the state was once played out in the pulpit, the revival meeting, and on the chautauqua circuit. However, with the enlargement of the private sphere, the battle more than ever takes place in the media. Religious talk shows, broadcast rites, and video sermons in the interest of political agendas reach millions who need not leave their homes to "participate." Political positions are taken by religious leaders who utilize the mediated pulpit of the campaign trail to promote a particular moral blueprint. Public demonstrations, such as those at abortion clinics, aim to attract media attention; and, thereby, penetrate the homes (and consciences) of potential supporters. The logic of images frames the entire debate, even (perhaps especially) where scandals are concerned; images of "fallen" ministers are presented, destroyed, and reconstructed for audiences. In the information society public debate, and religion, takes place in the home. The merging of the two overlapping orbits foreshadows the growing intrusion of religious issues into public political life.
Literacy
Religions of the Book have long depended on literacy as discipline. The invention of printing made available biblical texts to common people and broke the thousand year old monopoly of interpretation held by priests. However, it was the drive for mass literacy that completed the socio-technical revolution begun by Gutenberg (Eisenstein 1979, 1986). Protestants sought to convert each adherent into a self contained interpreter of the Word; and, in so doing, fundamentally altered the social terrain of Europe.
Literacy represents more than a technique for accessing recorded characters; it is also a way of thinking tied to the interpretation of symbols presented in a linear format. Literacy converted words from sounds into physical artifacts, because writing allowed written messages to be separated from their originators, by virtue of their independent existence as artifacts; literacy converted the Bible from a tradition into a fixed text. Writing conquered time and space, allowing geographically dispersed groups to maintain organization around a common set of documents; early Church councils sought to fix wordings of texts, in order to preserve unity of doctrine. Literacy imposed rigidity on speech by elevating the written form to higher status than the spoken form; the sermon became an instrument to augment the Bible.[18] Thus, as long as print and reading dominated religious instruction and practice, the thought processes associated with literacy shaped attitudes toward the proper expression of religion, but never completely.
In the nineteenth century, when even the Catholic Church with its reliance on tradition and the cycle of feasts moved toward a literate laity, currents of orality and emotional expression re-emerged among American evangelical Protestants. Methodist and Baptist revival and camp meetings spread throughout the country attracting huge crowds for several days of nonstop preaching, exhorting by both men and women, music, swooning, jerking and dancing (Finke and Stark, 1992). Indeed, in all Western religions, as in Western culture, there exists a balance between orality and literacy; that is, both forms of expression must be available.
The age of multiple communication technologies creates a basis for a reshift in the balance. Marshall McLuhan caught a glimmer in the 1950s. He then proposed that media function as extensions of the senses; and so, determine the ways in which a society functions, thus profoundly affecting people's thought processes and their organization of social life (1958, 1962, 1964, 1967, 1968).
His interpretations of the impact of information technologies carry a spiritual quality, as, for example, in his suggestion that radio offers, "a world of unspoken communication between writer-speaker and the listener. ... A private experience. ... charged with the resonating echoes of tribal horns and antique drums" (1964, p. 261). He is emphatic in his assertion that information technologies will push humanity toward a single consciousness, the global village (McLuhan, 1964, p. 67).[19] Though the most extreme of social theorists, McLuhan is not alone in suggesting that the world created by the adoption of so many information technologies will result in a decline in traditional literacy and a resurgence of orality.[20] The implications for religious organization go far beyond reading the Book.
The religions of the Word are on the verge of being reconquered by a new kind of orality, in which multimedia environments will frame the religious experience. Whereas medieval megachurches such as the Cathedral at Chartres provided religious information to its believers through icons and symbols, gargoyles and stained glass windows, and the physical, theatrical ritual of the Mass, new megachurches such as Willow Creek in Illinois provide religious information through the electronic media of music and video and theatrical presentations on moral issues, all of which can be televised. Bible reading and study are relegated to advanced, committed believers (Niebuhr, 1995, April 16, p. A1, A14). Ironically, the decline in focus on print literacy is leading to the return of the theatrical, ritual characteristics of the original megachurches.
Of the consequences of this tension, we have only clues and questions. What role will religious institutions play in the development of the new literacy? As literacy declines or changes, will religions of the Book move to new media formats and new ways of understanding religious beliefs? And, will the shift away from print culture to a new, visual "virtual reality" culture undo the foundation from which Protestant Christianity grew?
Community
The resurgence of enthusiasm for spirituality and religion may be traced in part to the decline in community brought about by the fragmenting tendencies of the information society. The more people take advantage of the increased interconnectedness made possible by information technologies, the more they depend on secondary relationships for their daily interactions, and the more they feel disconnected from their immediate surroundings. Still, the desire for community remains strong; and, along with it, membership in religious congregations as one solution.
Traditional communities, that is those conceived of as geographical locations, find themselves challenged by the information society. As more and more Americans experience fewer primary relationships either at work or where they live, the home town as community becomes more an ideal than a reality. Nevertheless, the new conditions are met with ambivalence. Americans desire the coziness and familiarity of Mark Twain's (1874) Hannibal, Missouri, or of Meredith Willson's (1958) town square in The Music Man. At the same time, they dislike the stifling small mindedness and quickness to judge of Sinclair Lewis' (1920) Main Street, or Sherwood Anderson's (1919) Winesburg, Ohio.[21] And, for those who have ever lived on the wrong side of the tracks, the small town ideal is tinged with resentment. The community as a cohesive unit, especially the small town variety, has been under attack for most of the century. First, the telephone, allied with the automobile, allowed Americans to shed the constraints of small town life while still maintaining connections to family and friends. Then, radio and television, in their successive incarnations, broke the monopoly of the local gathering place for up-to-the-minute news. Now, new interactive technologies revolving around computer networks, further extrapolate this trend by creating the basis for new virtual communities.
Virtual communities supply one kind of connectedness through electronic technology. These "network communities" of individuals bound by common interests transcend the limits of time and space found in face-to-face personal encounters; and, therefore, in all geographic communities. Primary relationships, necessary to the ideal community no longer dominate life as we live far from the family and friends who make up our personal communities. Network members, even though they lack the mundane, physical and emotional dimensions of primary interpersonal relationships, create dispersed communities that provide opportunities for equality, fantasy, and autonomy, while challenging expectations of interdependence and responsibility. Beyond the virtual communities of hackers and Internet aficionados, similar tele-networks meet our daily needs. Home shopping and telecommuting limit our interactions to strangers or secondary relationships but extend our capacities as consumers and workers. They work because the progressive fragmentation of society experienced during the twentieth century has not dimmed individuals' desire for interconnectedness and the reassurance of community. Yet though they meet the needs of their members, the emergence of virtual communities raises questions of a broader nature. How is community to be achieved among isolated individuals? What binds virtual communities together? And, in line with Governor Caperton's concern, can virtual communities by themselves reverse the larger tendency toward social fragmentation?
Given that we have no clear cut answers to these questions, the continued convergence of religion and technology is likely to result in religious expressions within the medium of virtual communities. After all, the fragmentation that has led to a decline in neighborhood structures has not diminished the desire for connection. As a consequence, that desire will find expression within the contexts of new information technologies. Americans may increasingly imagine the religious experience as a personally isolated communion between the individual and God, join electronic congregations where the members know little about each other, and adopt a kind of religious practice that is centered in the home. When this version of Christianity becomes a major presence in the culture, it will represent a new ideal of community; whereas old communities, of the geographically centered kind, will have
lost one of the ties that bind.
Marginalized Voices
In the search for equality in the information society, feminist theorists both from within and outside of Judeo-Christian tradition have struggled with implications of mainline religious belief systems for women. The language and image of God, as male only, has been analyzed as the expression, or perhaps the origin, of patriarchal culture. Elizabeth Achtemeier (1990) writing in Christianity Today explains why God cannot be understood as mother from the Evangelical viewpoint. While language changes have made little impact on Fundamentalist and Evangelical groups, or the electronic church, the movement to alter the male-only conception of God has had impact on mainline denominations through its acceptance of women as ministers. Feminists such as Mary Daly (1968, 1973), Rosemary R.Reuther (1975, 1992), and Tivka Frymer-Kensky (1992) propose this very change in our understanding of divinity will eventually provide the key to women's equality. Aburdene and Naisbitt (1992) point to feminist theology and Goddess worship as some of the most powerful trends currently influencing women's lives. Over the last 20 years women have begun attending theology schools and now account for a nearly half the students in Yale Divinity School. The search for gender equality has led to a fundamental questioning of our understanding of God and religious ideas.
Latinos represent another important challenge to equality in the information society, because they contain a large percentage of Spanish-speakers. Motivated to improve their levels of economic development and political participation, Latinos will likely press for greater access to information resources in Spanish. Moreover, the logic of an open democracy will encourage them to do so. Yet such efforts are sure to trigger deep seated resistance by other Americans who fear the institutionalization of any language other than English. This is sure to result in renewed conflict over a national language, with calls to enforce the use of English becoming more strident.
As metaphors for the culture of the United States change from a melting pot to a patchwork quilt, the dual tension of individual and community is revealed and language takes center stage. Again the question of equality lies in the balance. Two religious approaches to this tension arising from feminist, Latino and African-American communities include political theology and pentacostal movements, the first depending on cultural analysis to create change and the other depending on the experience of the mystical--speaking in tongues, healings, physical and emotional expressions--to challenge understandings of individuals and community.
Women and minorities in the information society will be affected by factors deeply rooted in racism, economics, and the patriarchal culture. The realignment of forces brought about by the information society will bring consumption, employment, and language to center stage. Religious belief systems play a crucial role in resolving these issues of the information society.
Under-Currents
The act of writing this essay taught us that the impact of the information society on the practice of religion will produce a most complex range of possibilities beyond any simple predictions. At best, the dynamics we identify should be taken as markers or as a context within which to interpret old and new religious practices. Still, the tendencies and tensions, along with their derivations, are pervasive; and, therefore, deserve contemplation if one is to attempt to understand the following changes facing religions in the United States today.
As information comes to be considered as a thing, so too will religion. The facility with which information can be converted into a commodity also encourages the brokering of religious symbols in the marketplace, with resulting fuzzy boundaries. Americans will consume spirituality in the same settings in which they consumer entertainment. The reinvention of domestic space has remade the home into a media center. The old public exposure to the norms of the congregation has been left behind for the liberation of the privacy of one's home. Where the faithful once sought solitude they now claim privacy. Americans are busy constructing virtual communities, both within and beyond the internet. The power of the home as media center assists in this quest, and the new attitude toward religious privacy encourages the practice of religion apart from traditional geographically oriented communities. Certainly, the mainstream religions, with their dependence on a centralized hierarchy to govern and socialize the members, will adapt. But many will do so by bringing together mostly anonymous congregations. Still, the yen for intimate community continues unabated. Religions of the book must re-examine their skill base, as traditional literacy declines while new forms of electronic literacy establish themselves. That is, along with the emergence of megachurches and electronic congregations will come the adoption of presentation rituals that emphasize the visual and the oral. The line between media entertainment and media religion will continue to blur, as the consumption of religion and the consumption of secular entertainment take place in the same settings. Individuals accustomed to meeting so many needs via the same channels are thus likely to further blur the separation between religious belief and political conviction.From this intertwining of religion and the information society, we pose three lasting questions. How will the tendencies and tensions of the information age lead people to imagine their God differently? In what ways will these interactions alter religious practice? And, will new religious sects grow from the dynamics of the information society?
America is too large a country to be thought of as a single society; one quarter billion people do not subscribe to a single set of values, and this has always been especially true for Americans' religious practices. Yet the "societies" that make up America evolve along parallel paths. Indeed, the tendencies of the information age comprise some of the paths that are reshaping all of those societies, whereas the tensions emerge out of the struggles to negotiate the consequences. It is within this ferment that Americans are choosing new settings for religious expression. As they do, the most ancient and fundamental assertion of humans as self conscious beings will undergo one more reiteration -- shedding old conventions, adopting new outlooks.
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Biographical Notes
Jorge Reina Schement is Associate Professor at Rutgers University in the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, as well as in the Department of Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean Studies. In 1994, he served at the invitation of the chairman of the Federal Communication Commission, as director of the F.C.C.'s Information Policy Project. Schement is the coauthor and coeditor of many books and articles on the information age, including the recently published Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age.
Dr. Schement invited Hester C. Stephenson, doctoral candidate at Rutgers University, School of Communication, Information and Library Studies to coauthor this chapter. Stephenson's interest in radical feminism and contemporary expressions of spirituality began a conversation and collaboration on a topic of concern for both authors from which this chapter emerged.
More publications by Jorge Schement
http://www.benton.org/Policy/Schement/Religion/
Last updated: 9 October 1998 jss
