Who am I? Media, Identity & Worldviews

Margunn Serigstad Dahle, Tony Watkinsand Lars Dahle

Who am I?

Who am I?

context for identity formation

media and popular culture

Youth . . . need the media for guidance and nurture in a society where other social institutions, such as the family and the school, do not shape the youth culture as powerfully as they once did.

Mueller

popular media

mirror mould

plurality of worldview perspectives

Key question:What is the view of humanity?

Personal identity/identities?

constructed / given?

content for identity formation

media and popular culture

Marshall McCluhan

Human beings don’t have any core identity any longer. Their only identity is what can be found as image in the eyes of others.

Erling Rimehaug

Clothe me by seeing me

You are what you present yourself as

and what others see

Madonnaicon of postmodernity

Do I have to change my name?Will it get me far?Should I lose some weight?Am I gonna be a star?I tried to be a boyI tried to be a girl I tried to be a mess I tried to be the best I guess I did it wrong That’s why I wrote this songThis type of modern lifeIs it for me?This type of modern lifeIs it for free?

You are whom you are with

Are we who our friends make us?

I’m an assured, receptive, responsive woman of substance. My sense of self comes not from other people, but from . . . from myself!? Can that be right?

Bridget Jones’s Diary

You are what you live out

You are what you possess

You are what you achieve

Antz

?What do you think the media does to you?

How does it shape a sense of identity?

Douglas Rushkoff

© Johannes Kroemer. Used by permission

mediascape

The media shape ourreality

It is just the literature that we read for ‘amusement’, or ‘purely for pleasure’ that may have the greatest and least suspected influence upon us. It is the literature that we read with the least effort that can have the easiest and most insidious influence upon us.

T.S. EliotSelected Essays (Faber and Faber, 1932)

facebook

518 million active users

35 million users update status daily

100 million photos uploaded daily

55

youtube

40%

twitter

Percentage of US teens aged 12–17 who:

use social networks

share content

blog

use Twitter

0 20 40 60 80

techno-nomads

omnivorous freedom

freedom to behold

freedom to seek distraction

distraction from distraction

enjoy rootlessness

enjoy fleeting experiences

fun

stimulation

feelings

The most important thing about the communications we live among is that . . . they saturate our way of life with a promise of feeling.

Todd GitlinMedia Unlimited (2002)

‘the frantic desire for the almost real’

(Umberto Eco)

self

Who am I?

individual/community

All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame.

Isaiah 44:9

59

good things

ultimate things

We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.

Tim Keller

We love idols. We trust idols. We obey idols. We look to idols to love us and provide value, beauty, sense of significance and worth.

Tim Keller

Hell is just a freely chosen identity, based on something else besides God, going on for ever.

Tim Keller

Do not conform to the pattern of this world. (Romans 12:1)

?What do we mean by personal identity? How does the holistic biblical view of humanity shape our identity?

How do the media affect the formation of identity in young people in our own cultural contexts?

How should we approach personal identity and the media in relation to our preaching, Christian communities and pastoral care?

www.damaris.org / www.damaris.no

www.engagingmedia.info

www.culturewatch.org

www.tonywatkins.org

twitter.com/tonywatkins_

facebook.com/tonywatkinspage