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Introduction: Journalism Facing Faith The columnist Richard Reeves describes the modern media as being like the weather—always there, always surrounding us, and always a major factor in our lives, whether we like it or not.1 Yet as we begin the twenty-first century, it seems that virtually everyone—from philosophers to media critics to ministers to academics—identifies the media as a powerful, alienating force that must bear a large share of the responsibility for human beings’ feeling resentful and angst-ridden about modern circumstances. The existentialist philosopher José Ortega y Gasset lamented the “low spiritual plane” upon which the press operates,2 and the media analyst Jacques Ellul complained that the widespread loss of religious belief leaves many helpless in the face of media that foment anxiety by emphasizing catastrophe, danger, and troubles.3 How have the media led us into this bind? Perhaps we should begin with a religious concept, the Hebrew prohibition against the worship of the graven image.For the ancient Jews,this prohibition dealt with a practical concern.They were in tough competition with other religions in the Mediterranean Near East. The faith allegiance of the Jews was in such constant dispute because they owed their loyalty not only to a monotheistic deity but also to an invisible god. That meant that, unlike their tribal neighbors, they did not worship the image of something humans knew directly—animals, emperors, or forces of nature. Instead , their allegiance was to something transcendent and ineffable that had come to their forebears in the form of divine revelation and was passed on in the teachings and the sacred texts of temple life. It is true there were many concrete manifestations of God’s special relationship with the Israelites,such as the temple,the Torah,and the appearances in the form of a burning bush,thunderstorms,and a pillar of fire. But the ancient Jews 00.INTRO.1-16/Unde 1/15/02, 9:39 AM 1 2 Introduction also understood that God, or Yahweh, was infinitely grander and more magnificent than even words could convey and that devotion to anything less than a power beyond all symbolic representation ran the risk of being turned into the worship of human likenesses or idols dreamed up in the human imagination. It does not take much insight to apply these lessons to our own “mediated” age. On television, we are watching images of ourselves. Just as the Hebrews might have predicted,we have become transfixed by new gods that compete for our souls’ attention. Public opinion guides the direction of mass media and has grown into something bigger and more powerful than any human being can control—an irrepressible and monolithic force that is all of us and none of us at the same time. Television viewers live in a mirrorlike world where they are continuously exposed to reflections of their fantasies and pictures of themselves as they would like to be, constantly seduced by the allure of a world where images rule and fulfillment comes in the form of material possessions. The Internet has refined this condition of electronic idolatry, offering individuals their every wish and desire in tailor-made, customized,interactive exchanges with ecommerce marketers, pornographic Web studios, and anonymous chat rooms. Daily newspaper journalists, like the scribes and rabbis who kept alive Jewish identity by putting into print the Torah and the culture’s sacred stories, work to maintain community and civic consciousness by maintaining the written tradition.But inexorably,the battle seems lost as people—especially the young— grow ever more wedded to the beguilements of electronic gratification. From this, scholars have made the obvious connection. In particular, television ,with its richness in imagery and its success in transmitting the new,mediagenerated myths of the culture,has replaced traditional religion in fulfilling the sacramental needs of modern life. Gregor Goethals, in The TV Ritual: Worship at theVideo Altar, saw an almost direct displacement effect:TV commercials have become the most distinctive icon in our secular culture, jingles are visual and musical catechisms, the news and programming formulas provide comforting ritual.In Goethals’s analysis,modern secularity and the banishment of mystery and myth have left a vacuum to be filled by electronic images. Television programming has become the medium to fill our spiritual emptiness, with advertising offering the promise of material redemption. “By buying a product, everybody has a chance to become members incorporate in the mystical...

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