Religion, Television & the Info. Superhwy - Waymark Press

Swami Agnivesh holds a Masters degree and an L.L.B from Calcutta University. He was on the faculty of the Department of Law and Business Management at St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. For the last 25 years he has been involved as a social activist fighting, among other things, the suppression and oppression of women and the exploitation of Harijans (Untouchables). He founded a party, Arya Sabha, that works in the forefront of the struggles of farmers, laborers, teachers and students. Over the years he has led many marches and protests in the name of freedom for the most vulnerable sections of Indian society. He spearheaded the movement toward liberation of bonded labor in the stone quarries and brick kilns of the state of Haryana, thus setting up the Bonded Labor Liberation Front of which he was chairperson from its inception until 1992. He is also dedicated to the movement against alcoholism in three northwestern Indian states.

His particular concerns today deal with questioning the western model of development leading to consumerism and avoidable stress and ecological destruction for the Third World in general and India in particular. He is dedicated to the struggle against western cultural imperialism.

Religion, as we know it, has become obsolete. It has not kept up with the times and by not doing so does not respect the vast body of knowledge available to mankind. Science and rationalism have shown us the errors that were superficial in our tradition; they have induced each of us to search deeper for what was the essential core of our tradition, and they have brought to the fore what was common in our various traditions.

It is this core, these elements which are common, which all of mankind will need more and more in the coming decades. These elements are twofold. First, the pearl of great price which each of our traditions has preserved through the ages is that what we see is not everything, that there are dimensions beyond the merely apparent and that to perceive these dimensions we need to engage in the inner- directed search. Second, to advance on this inner-directed search and to live in harmony with our fellow humans and with nature, we need to abide by higher values; in other words, by rules of moral and ethical conduct. I believe that as science and rationalism advance on the one side and as disorder and uncertainty persist, people all over the world will look to religions for guidance on these two aspects; how to find the core of oneself amidst the maelstrom of life and how to order our societies and states.

I believe there is room for religion in our lives. If anything, as wave after wave of information propelled by great developments in technology keep hitting us relentlessly, there is an even greater need for religion or a philosophy of life to help us as individuals to keep swimming and not get sucked in by the currents. But religion must respect truth and reality.

Organized religions have now become like sunset industries clawing to keep ahead of each other in a diminishing market. Like dinosaurs, they too will disappear. But to survive as a civilized race, we still need religion.

This religion will then stress, as all our religions do, ethical values, responsibilities towards oneself, society, nature and possibly even the universe. But it will respect our intelligence and not seek to coerce us into good and conformist behavior. In modern terms, this will emphasize concern and care of the environment, human rights, the rights of nations and diverse civilizations and peace. Only when a vast majority of people come to accept these as sacrosanct can we expect history to come to an end.

The great leaps of technology of recent times have greatly increased the choices available to the recipients and transmitters of information. The fear is that the quality of software will get baser and that somehow this will have a corrosive effect on society. I do not believe this will happen. These choices have always been available to humans, and the majority have always made the right decisions. There is no reason yet to believe that similar good sense will not prevail in the future.

There is a growing feeling in many traditional societies that the flood of information flowing in will break down social institutions, such as the family, so important to maintain cohesiveness and long-cherished values. It is true that this will happen. But much of what comes on the airwaves is also desirable. Technology and state power make it possible to turn off the spigot selectively. Countries are already doing this; for example, China recently forced Rupert Murdoch to remove BBC World Service TV from its Chinese service. Some countries have banned dish antennas. Some have sought to regulate cable systems. But in the end, the people's good sense and right to choose will prevail.

AZIZAH Y. AL-HIBRI

Azizah al-Hibri earned her B.A. in Philosophy from the American University of Beirut (1966), her M.A. in Philosophy from Wayne State University (1968) and both her Ph.D. in Philosophy (1975) and her J.D. (1985) from the University of Pennsylvania.

She has taught Philosophy at Texas A&M University and Washington University in St. Louis, was a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Divinity School and Center for the Study of World Religions, worked for a federal district judge and a federal magistrate and then practiced law in major Wall Street firms for several years before returning to teaching.

Azizah al-Hibri has authored and edited several books, including Hypatia: Essays in Feminist Philosophy (Indiana University Press, 1990), Women and Islam (Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1982), Technology and Human Affairs (C.V. Mosby Co., 1981), and Deontic Logic: A Comprehensive Appraisal and a New Proposal (University Press of America, 1978).

Her journal articles include "Islamic Constitutionalism and the Concept of Democracy," and "Marriage Laws in Muslim Countries." She was editor-in-chief of a law journal and a founding editor of Hypatia, a Journal for Women in Philosophy. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Law and Religion and a contributor to the Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World.

Azizah al-Hibri has travelled extensively as a public speaker both within and outside the United States. Most recently she was invited by the United States Information Agency to lecture in some of the Persian Gulf states on issues of democracy, human rights and Islam. She is currently working on developing a feminist Islamic jurisprudence.

Television and the Soul
American television has become unabashedly consumerist within the last two decades. Its consumer advertising is no longer contained in discrete packages of "ads" inserted between program segments. It has sprouted the new genre of infomercials and has invaded the entire corpus of television programming. Even prime time programs now contain meta-ads, i.e. second-level ads, or messages designed to encourage and reinforce a consumerist mentality.

Traditional ads and infomercials plainly strive to create viewer interest in a particular product, such as a soft drink, a juicer or a car. But the consumerist function of the regular part of television programming today is not as plain. In the guise of entertainment, it strives to create in the viewer a world view which thirsts for owning "things" in general, such as excessive wealth, power, love or beauty. It creates a meta-interest in "possessing" as a worthwhile goal in itself. It focuses our attention on "having" as opposed to "being." A salient illustration of this mentality is the flood of tears, hugs and screams in the proliferating game shows when a participant wins a necklace, a trip to Hawaii or a brand new car.

Consumerist messages in regular programming are usually transmitted discretely and often subliminally. For example, the images of aging actors and actresses parading in ever younger faces appeal to the viewers' suppressed desires for eternal youth. Ads then follow and recommend specific tools which are claimed to help viewers fulfill their desires.

The problem with such an approach to programming is manifold. First, subliminal messages do not permit critical responses or rebuttals. They seep into the subconscious without resistance or recognition like an enemy in the stealth of night. Their pollution of personal systems of values is only exhibited after the fact in an individual's subconscious actions and preferences.

The crux of this problem can be recast in political constitutional terms by noting that in this democratic society, we as a people have not given our express permission for the invading television entities to attack our psyche and mold our values unilaterally. Yet, they do so constantly and with impunity in the name of free enterprise. To propose that the whole problem can be eliminated individually by refusing to watch television is to misunderstand the nature of the oral culture in which we now live. The television medium has become indispensable as a powerful global source of information, and there is no way to "turn off" its subliminal messages while tuning in to its other informational content.

Second, while "having" is a normal urge, television has distorted it beyond all proportions to create insatiable consumer needs. This has resulted in a society where children have killed their parents to obtain their wealth; kids have killed other kids to obtain their tennis shoes; and an Olympic skater was physically attacked in order to eliminate her as a contestant.

Clearly, the television concept of "having" is not bound by any moral considerations. In fact, moral considerations are often viewed as something for the weak-minded or the old-fashioned to ponder. Popular programs such as "Murphy Brown," "Roseanne," "Sisters" and "Nurse" send different variations of this message. Psychologically defenseless children are being constantly bombarded with them and are likely to accept such messages as their own in the absence of strong parental guidance.

Third, television has left no space for "being." Its fast-moving images, 30-minute sitcoms, ever-changing plots and demanding "sound bites" have victimized the thoughts of many a scholar as well as viewer. Even religious worship has lost its introspective spiritual dimension and has been transformed into a consumerist business. Suddenly, the media servants of God turn out to be, like the average viewer, persons who lust after worldly "things."

The problems of television can be properly viewed as an exaggerated expression of the values espoused by those in charge of it. It is after all a business. So, those running it have a business mentality. They are into "having," at least within the context of their business. Therefore, they will not only aim to have but also to provide that which makes viewers addicted to watching and having. They leave the "being," morality and spirituality for other contexts, such as the home.

But these media executives who are dichotomizing reality in accordance with their basic business needs are also setting the moral tone for the whole nation, and ironically for their own children as well. In fact, in the absence of free equal access by, comparable resources of, or guidance from other more value-oriented groups, these media executives have been extremely successful.

As a result, many concerned Americans believe that our society is disintegrating. Its moral fabric is being ripped apart by the ever-widening morality gap. This is why we need to address these problems consciously and immediately before they become moot; that is, before our society becomes irretrievably broken.

ST. CLAIR BOURNE

James Baldwin's writings about the African-American quest for freedom and justice always questioned the wisdom of integrating into a "burning house," his metaphor for this country. To this African- American filmmaker, a survey of current American media production activity raises the same issue. There is a definite link between the standard American entertainment media values of escapism and denial and the current declining quality of American life in general.

One thing is obvious--American film and television images are greatly influenced by the political conditions of the times and these images have tended to serve the psychological needs of those that create them. For example, the purpose of the Africans brought to America by Europeans was to provide service labor. Therefore, European-Americans, from the beginning of the American slave trade up to the present, positioned the Africans and their descendants in the society as the Euro-Americans conceived it. To this day, Eurocentric media attempt to continue this process, and it is this aspect of media in America--and now the growing western commercial media throughout the world--that must not be denied but rather acknowledged and confronted. As long as this basic power relationship continues and expands through new technologies for the benefit of the relative few at the political and cultural expense of the worldwide many, solutions restricted to debating spiritual values alone will be ineffective, and the contemporary trends of greater violence, greed and the destruction of planetary resources will continue.

Ultimately, it is in everyone's interest that groups should have the opportunity to see their lives projected with honesty, depth, variety and most of all, vision. Insightful believers in all faiths should, I believe, enlist enlightened self-interest in their discussions with media leaders by showing, for example, a portrait of the societal decay that will come with the global spread of gratuitous violence and rampant materialism in the mass media. Hopefully, this conference's participants will take the first small steps in the efforts to change Baldwin's "burning house" to a house with a beacon of enlightenment.

JAMES W. CAREY

Professor Carey has held a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in Science, Technology and Human Values. He was an Associate Member of the Center for Advanced Study and senior Inaugural Fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center when that institution was founded in 1985. He is a fellow of the International Communications Association. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Humanities Council, the Advisory Board of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and the Board of Directors of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). In 1990 he was awarded the Freedom Forum Medallion for Distinguished Achievement in Journalism/Mass Communication Administration.

Professor Carey has published over 100 essays, monographs and reviews on the history of the mass media, popular culture and the geography of communication systems, along with two books: Media, Myth and Narratives: Television and the Press (Sage, 1988) and Communication as Culture (Unwin and Hyman, 1989).

We are now in the phase of the natural history of the world whose symbolic dimension we might call the "rhetoric of the digital sublime": the belief that the whole of reality might be translated into and understood through the symbols of plus and minus, zero and one that constitute the lingua franca of modern science. The new technology of digital interaction promises, often quite explicitly, to etherealize us, to overcome the limitations which history, biology and geography have placed upon us, to overcome the intellectual, moral and political limitations that are the common coin of our common history.

This is, of course, yet another of those "dreams of reason" with which we have been visited, and often punished, since at least the Age of the Enlightenment. And, one of the tasks of religion has been to puncture this dream, to describe its nightmare side: to warn us that behind the mask of technological transcendence lurks the more troubling desire to escape our limitations so that we might realize what Lewis Mumford called the Pentagon of Power: unlimited power, profit, productivity, publicity and political expansion.

Despite televangelism, soon to be displaced by digital evangelism, there is a deep hostility between religion and the new forces of technology and economic utopianism that will not be easy to reconcile. For religion contains a continuous reminder of what we at root are, have been and yet will be again. Religion seeks to stabilize a canopy of meaning, as opposed to extending a pentagon of power, a canopy that emphasizes the concrete limitations on human action because of our biological, moral and historic selves. Religion seeks to expose and reconcile us to the tragedy, rather than the blessing, inherent in our wish both to worship and yet to be the lord of all creation.

This is all rather overblown, of course, but it does encourage us to deconstruct notions like the information superhighway and to expose the instability at their core. Superhighways have always been ways of insulating us off from and transcending geography: ways of carving idyllic motorways through historic landscapes while simultaneously keeping at bay the natives and other forces residing there. Doing so has always required immense amounts of capital but, even more, political and police power, to stabilize circumstances where there are neither moral nor communal limitations. Alas, for all its promises, the information superhighway will be marked and surrounded by the potholes and pitfalls of history. And, therefore, we are likely to need more rather than less of the historical resources of religion, resources of time, humility, constraint and virtue. These are not qualities to be found on or realized along the information superhighway, and no one has figured out a way of digitizing them, for they depend on a different order of living and interaction, one that emphasizes our concrete limitations rather than our radical infinitude.

JOSE MARQUES DE MELO

He began his academic career as Journalism Assistant Teacher at the Catholic University of Pernambuco (1966). He also worked as Professor at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo, Methodist University of Sao Paulo, State University of Sao Paulo, and lectured in the foreign universities of Caracas (Venezuela), Iberoamerica and Colima (Mexico), Barcelona (Spain), Grenoble and Bordeaux (France), Texas and Michigan (USA) and Victoria (Australia).

He has occupied top positions in the Brazilian educational system: Dean of the College of Communications and Arts of the State University of Sao Paulo, President of the National Committee for Communication Education, Member of the Board of the National Council for Science and Technology, President of the Brazilian Christian Union of Social Communication and Founder of the Brazilian Association for Mass Communication Research.

At the international level, he acted as past President of the Latin American Association for Communication Research and present Vice-President of the International Association for Mass Communication Research. He has written 16 books and edited 30 readings, besides writing numerous articles for national and international journals. Since he was 15 he has been a professional journalist, writing articles regularly published by national and local newspapers in Brazil and specialized magazines in Latin America.

Religion and Television in Latin America
Since the early fifties, when pioneer television channels started to operate in Brazil and Mexico, the relationship between institutional religion and commercial television has been ambiguous, reflecting the hegemonic policy of the Catholic Church, despite the plurality of religions throughout the continent including Afro-Latin American groups.

At first an attitude of suspicion prevailed peculiar to those times before the Vatican Concilium II. Bishops, priests and nuns refused the spirit of the new technologies. But they soon learned that telecommunications could play an important role in evangelical messages, especially in societies rapidly urbanized, where people were experiencing massive processes of migration, replacing their traditional cultural values with modern social behavior.

On the one hand they tried to occupy all spaces given to reproductive spirituality. But on the other hand they coexisted with a global structure led by amoral convictions.

This ambiguity is reproduced in the heart of the communication schools (including those supported by the Christian universities). They provide a kind of education for their students, which is characterized by professional legitimized knowledge, but isolating the question of values in the discipline of ethics. It means that discussion about social responsibility is a kind of conscientious refreshment.

The immediate result is the near impotence faced by new mass communicators inside the cultural industries. They struggle between two tendencies: the owners' "profit obsession" and the unions' "political correctness." There is very little opportunity to think about public interest, citizenship and morality. Sometimes these subjects are considered when they serve merely to reinforce arguments used by entrepreneurs or political leaders in their occasional campaigns.

It is important to understand that Latin American is still a region where democracy, social justice and economic equality have only become stronger in recent years. Mass communication has been a tool in the hands of state and private oligarchies. Television was originally a way to reproduce elite visions, the majority generated abroad. But as fast as it was converted to the rules of the mass market, many signs of the national popular culture were incorporated in almost all countries. It is a mechanism called mestizaje (melting point) where tradition and modernity, national and transnational, cult and rustic, are creatively mixed.

Because of this change, TV is really acting as an alternative school for extended populations, mainly illiterate people or young citizens early excluded from formal school. It increases the responsibility of communication scholars in order to educate more effectively the professionals who will perform the tasks of collective education for the next century. It challenges the attitude of religious leaders who should develop up-to-date feelings to avoid cultural mistakes as, for example, between morality and moralism. It also means an ethical revolution in the mass media business just to understand that the broadcasters' main job on their communication channels is to help our people to overcome poverty, becoming consumers of goods and services that today are enjoyed by a small contingent of the privileged.

In this struggle for survival, spiritual messages delivered through television in Latin America should not avoid the daily problems of real existence. Entertainment programs, like serial fiction, represent a space to dream and to cultivate fantasies but also allow many viewers to recognize their cultural identities. This socializing process affords psychological compensations for human beings marginalized from "western consumerism."

GEORGE DESSART

George Dessart had been a long-time senior executive of the CBS Broadcast Group, most recently (until August 1988) as Vice-President for Program Practices. During his 35 years with CBS, Dessart wrote, produced and directed EMMY, Ohio State, Sidney Hillman and CINE Golden Eagle award-winning documentaries. Later at the vice- presidential level, he had diverse management responsibilities in compliance, policy development and other areas for news and for the entertainment, television stations, radio, cable and television network divisions.

From 1975 to 1985 in addition to his other duties, George Dessart was the instructor of Broadcasting in the General Manager's Sequence in the highly acclaimed CBS School of Management.

Dessart has also served on the faculty of the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania and on the adjunct faculties of New York University and of City College, Hunter College and Lehman College of the City University of New York.

Since leaving CBS, Dessart has served as a consultant to government, public health and broadcasters on three continents. His company, Dessart Communications, is also engaged in program development.

A long-time volunteer with the organization, he is currently Vice Chairman and Chairman-Elect of the American Cancer Society. He is also Secretary of the International Council, NATAS (the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences) and publisher of its annual, Almanac.

The footprint of STAR stands astride both the deliberations of this conference and each of the terms in its title. In a multicultural, multichannel world, with media increasingly coming under the domination of multinational monopolists, we cannot escape the implications starkly evident in the story of that one television service which blankets more than thirty countries with their 1.6 billion inhabitants. What happens to indigenous institutions and historic cherished beliefs? Where is the locus of cultural identity? What are the consequences of news and information produced in one continent by natives of another, distributed in a third and overwhelming the voices of a fourth?

Nearly sixty years ago, E. B. White shared his vision: "I believe that television is going to be the test of the modern world. We shall stand or fall by television--of that I'm quite sure."

The truth behind White's vision becomes increasingly clear as we remember with what stunning results television has occasionally united the world in horror, in grief, in exultation or in compassion. It also becomes clear when we let ourselves acknowledge how easily-- and how often--we have permitted television to become trivialized, to ignore its promise in favor of mindless distraction. Worse yet, when we have stood by and watched it cynically sacrificed in the service of power, or of greed.

How shall we come to think of STAR? How might those whose province is identifying and nurturing the best in each of us, help STAR--and the other stars to come--in realizing their promise?

DIANA L. ECK

Diana Eck's work on India includes the books Banaras, City of Light and Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. With Devaki Jain she edited Speaking of Faith: Global Perspectives on Women, Religion, and Social Change and with Francoise Mallison she edited Devotion Divine: Bhakti Traditions from the Regions of India. Her most recent book, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras (Beacon Press, 1993), is in the area of Christian theology. It addresses the question of Christian faith in a world of many faiths and, more broadly, the questions of religious diversity that challenge people of every faith. Diana Eck has worked closely with the churches, including the United Methodist Church and the World Council of Churches, on questions of interreligious relations and dialog.

Recently, Diana Eck has been heading a research team at Harvard University to explore the new religious diversity of the United States and its meaning for the American pluralist experiment. The Pluralism Project, funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., has been documenting the Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Zoroastrian communities in the U.S. It is a student-based research project that has involved Harvard students at all levels--A.B., M.A. and Ph.D.--in "hometown" research on this new religious landscape and in thinking about the theoretical and practical issues of the expanded complexity of pluralism for American public life. She has been working with WGBH in Boston on a proposed public television series on the world's religions in an American context. The first of these films, "Becoming the Buddha--in L.A.," is completed as a pilot. She is also working on an interactive CD-ROM that will make accessible the data and research of the Pluralism Project on multireligious America.

Understanding the religious traditions of the world is one of the most crucial tasks of public education in the 21st century. While most Americans say they are religious and interested in religion, most have limited knowledge of the religions of their neighbors, even though those neighbors are not only around the world, but increasingly across the street. Because of the media-oriented strategies of extremists, the public image of many religious traditions is shaped by stereotype, often negative stereotype. It will be important in the years ahead for television to take the lead in reaching beyond the headlines to a more nuanced portrait of the many religious traditions that have shaped the major cultures and civilizations of the world.

With the increasing movement of peoples through both political and economic immigration, the 21st century will also see an increase in religiously complex cultures, making religious literacy an important domestic issue for many countries. The United States is a good example of what is happening. In the past thirty years, since the Immigration Act of 1965 altered and widened the basis for immigration, people of many national, cultural and ethnic groups have entered the U.S. and become citizens. The largest percentage increase has been the Asian and Pacific Islander population, which grew in state after state by nearly 200% between the 1980 and 1990 census.

What are the religious dimensions of this new influx of immigrants? The term "multicultural" has come to be used to describe the changing texture of American society with its ethnic and racial diversity. But what about religion? In what ways is the United States also becoming multireligious, as Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Sikhs take their places in American society? How are their religious traditions changing as they take root and grow in the American context? And how is America changing in the process? How does the proximity of new neighbors of other faiths challenge and change the religious and societal presuppositions of the Judeo-Christian majority and reshape the mental landscape of traditional "church- state" issues? What are the elements of a new interfaith infrastructure that will be adequate to bear a new multireligious America?

For example, Islam is often said to be the fastest growing minority religion in America. There is an active nationwide Islamic ecumenical organization, the Islamic Society of North America. There is a politically conscious Islamic organization, the American Muslim Council. There is an Association of Muslim Scientists, and an Islamic Medical Association. There are currently more Muslims than Episcopalians in the United States. By the end of the century, according to some estimates, there will be more Muslims than Jews. To speak of the "Muslim world" as if it were somewhere else is misleading in late 20th century America. The United States and Canada are today part of the Muslim world. Similarly, there are well over four hundred Hindu temples in the U.S. There are Sikh gurudwaras and Sikh summer camps. There are Jaina conventions and regional Buddhist councils.

Religion has long been an integral part of the life of all of America's ethnic communities. Understanding the contribution of Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu values and visions will increasingly be essential to our ongoing appropriation of the ideal expressed by the motto, E Pluribus Unum. This new diversity will require of us not simple tolerance alone, but critical understanding and more self- consciously cultivated instruments of understanding. Pluralism is not simply the co-existence of a multitude of cultural and religious groups, but pluralism requires active engagement with one another and the means of facilitating that engagement in the "public square." Since television is so much an interlocutor of the public square, the potential of television for the engagement of interreligious dialog is tremendous.

GEORGE EXOO

For thirteen years Exoo worked in parish ministry in South Carolina (Charleston, Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach). During that time he became known statewide for his outspoken activist views on animal euthanasia; living will legislation; interracial and Jewish-Christian amity; HIV contagion in public places; mental health, consumer and gay rights; and religious liberties for non-Judeo-Christian communities of faith.

While working on a doctorate in Religion and Society at the Graduate Theological Union, Exoo taught sociology at the University of the Pacific and Washington and Jefferson College.

His current work as Pittsburgh's Church Man has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Time, Pittsburgh Post- Gazette, Gannet, UPI, BBC, CBC, NPR, ABC-TV, even by the National Enquirer. His undergraduate college, Emerson in Boston, just awarded him a 1994 Alumni Achievement Award.

Among his recent projects are a book on America's top services of worship, the Spiritual Coop (a new interfaith experiential congregation inspired by a recent visit to Pittsburgh of Matthew Fox in collaboration with a free-spirited Roman Catholic priest), and development of a monastic community to minister to the terminally ill, especially those with AIDS.

Secular Great Britain gives the world what no other country has yet managed to muster: superb religious broadcasting. Not a voice only for the established Anglican Church, the BBC's religious programming is thoroughly ecumenical and interfaith.

No TV evangelists in double knits haunt these airwaves. No loud mouths hawking ghostwritten pamphlets. No vultures honing in on Social Security checks of hapless widows. Entrepreneurial religion, religion that shoves, that hard sells, is what America exports to the world on the information superhighway.

In contrast, the BBC Religion Department offers religion that shares. It balances Christians with Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Hindus. Through these varied lenses of faith, listeners around the world, via shortwave and satellite, discover the riches of spiritual traditions not their own and the commonality of the human struggle for integrity that crosses all time zones.

In addition to the traditional Sunday service of the week, now called In Praise of God, three times each day the radio World Service airs four-minute segments, Words of Faith, devotionals from diverse faith traditions worthy of taping and listening to many times over.

Once a week, on Friday morning, the World Service airs Focus on Faith, a half hour news magazine of features about religion and religion's impact on world events, both political and cultural.

But there's more. To tune in the BBC's unexcelled secular news is also to understand the impact of religion upon the secular. BBC management commits to airing the perspective that religion and values profoundly shape everyday life. In the United States managerial red ink, the prejudicial Invisible Hand of Censorship, on radio and TV alike, muzzles it.

Since the World Parliament first gathered in 1893, the planet has been preparing for the globalization of world religion. Syncretism becomes inevitable as people of divergent faiths become aware of each other, share with each other, then meld thought with thought. Fear of foreigners, fear of heathen--these begin to crumble when faith perspectives flow. Awkward at first and very slowly, misunderstanding, globally realized, will diminish as the flow of information on the communications superhighway expands.

Later today I shall be interviewed by Radio 702, Johannesburg. That I shall be sitting in my living room talking by phone, live, to people in Johannesburg about religion in Pittsburgh is remarkable enough. Radio 702 itself is even more remarkable. South Africa's first talk station since its inception five years ago has enabled people to dialog across classes and races as they never could before. In a country where television is beyond the economic reach of 80 percent of the population, Radio 702 is a vital link to the world of ideas for people, until recently forced by circumstance, to wear blinders of ignorance.

Religious discussion on the station is frank. Controversy flourishes. The orthodox and New Age alike have equal access to the minds of the people. Political analysts in South Africa credit the station with speeding the fall of apartheid and the Mandela victory. How do I know these things? A story serendipitously aired yesterday about Radio 702 on the BBC World Service.

The opportunity to hear about, even to discuss faith perspectives not one's own, more than that, to open the door to services of religion of diverse faith traditions is both seminal and revolutionary. The ethos, the key is to provide religious programming that shares, not shoves.

Radio 702 and the BBC offer two models of spiritual sharing. Another prospect emanates from Clearwater, Florida. Worship, Inc., though specifically Christian, produces programming that well might become interfaith and global in focus, as was the movie, Baraka. Worship sets music (what I have seen is soft rock hymnody) over dissolving scenes from nature with sacred texts imposed intermittently. No speeches, no selling. The mood is meditational, reflective; in short, truly worshipful. Aesthetic quality is impeccable, polished.

Certainly, interfaith sharing can be packaged in many exciting ways. The best have yet to be conceived. In the past we have had commercial sponsors eager to uplift "the American way." Could they not also be persuaded now to uplift "the global way"? Cannot the czars and toll takers on the information superhighway follow the BBC model to make religion that shares without shoving an integral part of every broadcast day, an expected part of the toll required for entry onto the satellite?

Can things change? Yes. Indication is they are. So reported the New York Times on Sunday, April 30, in a religion page article covering the enthusiasm expected at the gathering of the National Association of Religious News Writers. Pressure is on within the industry to boost coverage of the religious dimension of American culture. This constitutes, the Times concluded, what journalists (and scholars) love: indication of a trend.

WILLIAM F. FORE

William Fore's professional career began in 1956 when he served as a consultant on religious programs for CBS. He spent the next eight years as Director of Visual Education for the Methodist Board of Missions, and in 1964 he became the head of the Communication Commission of the National Council of Churches. In that capacity, he supervised broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC and served as liaison with the FCC, Congress and the communication industry before stepping down in 1988. From 1982 to 1990 he was also the President of the World Association for Christian Communication, headquartered in London.

During that time he also founded the National Coalition Against Censorship, a group he chaired from 1971 through 1988, and was Chairperson of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Advisory Council of National Organizations.

William Fore is also the author of Television and Religion: The Shaping of Faith, Values and Culture (Augsburg Press, 1987), which has been translated into Spanish (1989) and Korean (1992), and of Mythmakers: Gospel, Culture and Media (Friendship Press, 1990) and an editor of Christian Century magazine. He has written several hundred articles for major publications and produced over a dozen films.

Today television is beginning to replace religion as an institution. Television, rather than a place of worship, is where an increasing number of people find the expression of a world view which reflects what is of ultimate value to them, and which explains and supports their behavior and way of life. Television today, whether the viewers know it, and whether the television industry itself knows it, is competing not merely for our attention and money, but for our very souls.

Thus all of the world's great religions are being challenged by a world view that appears to be more powerful than any one of them, or all of them combined. This new world view, which depends upon television to carry it to the ends of the earth, has been called by many names, but is perhaps best known as Industrial Capitalism.

Capitalism, in its industrialized form beginning about two hundred years ago, was something radically new in the history of the world. Its fundamental values are pragmatism and technology. Its measure of success is efficiency. Its method is standardization. It asks only "does it work?" not "what, or whom, does it work for?"

In order for standardization to work, everything--including people--have to be fragmented, divided into components that can be put together quickly, cheaply and with as little attention to individual differences as possible--like in printing, and later in the production of rifles and automobiles.

This affects everything, but especially the way we communicate. With standardization comes fragmentation and separation. Cultural historian John Staudenmaier says that capitalism tends to separate people's inner selves from their outward "persona," that is, their real self from the self they project to others. It tends to separate news and information from their context, so that we find it difficult to connect bits and pieces of information in ways that make sense to us. And it tends to separate those who shape public mass media messages from their audience, so that we cannot easily judge whether a reporter or politician is "real" and trustworthy or merely entertaining or misleading.

But capitalism is not just an economic theory. It brings with it an ideology. According to Staudenmaier, the frightening invention of capitalism is not the creation of artificial or new needs, but rather the concept that there is such a thing as purely physical or biological need. All other social systems treat human beings as social entities, not biological machines. But only capitalism has conceived of human beings as raw material.

As a result of this shift in world view and the increase in the technical capability of mass media (especially, but not exclusively, television), the true power centers of the world today have become multinational corporations which must depend on high-tech communication for internal operation and on mass media for external controls--political, economic and social--that transcend any individual nation.

As multinationals move out from the industrialized West, they are penetrating every culture, changing them forever. They depend upon mass communication first to extract people from their social base, then to separate them from all outside points of reference (such as a transcendent religious perspective or their own society's world view, so that in the end people fit comfortably into a mass production-consumption process in which they have virtually no power.

The United States was the first society to be transformed this way, but what has happened here is spreading rapidly--first to Europe and the high-tech parts of Asia, and shortly to the whole of the southern hemisphere.

For example, in less than a decade, most U.S. mass media-- newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cable, cinema and so on-- will be controlled by no more than a half-dozen multinational corporations. And this pattern already is moving out to the rest of the world. The ownership of television and other mass media in South America, Africa and Asia is rapidly coming under the control (if not the actual legal ownership) of a half-dozen multinational conglomerates, all of which share the same technological world view which values profits and control above human values such as diversity and freedom.

But just because television is dehumanizing in so many ways does not mean that it must continue that way. TV can be reformed. Its myths can be changed. People can learn how to protect themselves from media myths that are distortions and falsehoods. And nations can establish laws that protect their citizens from media monopoly and domination.

We must begin by thinking of the media less as acting upon us, and more as being acted upon by us. Culture is our creation. While we inherit a great deal of culture, we can also change it.

People of faith must champion a world view in which men and women are valued as children of God, and where human growth and development is far more important than the possession of any power or thing. We must insist that human beings are the greatest good, and that everyone's needs are best met when we live in community, caring for each other rather than looking out for Number One.

Thus, we must tell stories on TV that talk about community, connectedness, giving, sharing, helping and nurturing--rather than self, things, getting, keeping, forcing, using and conquering. And we must insist that the political structures in which media operate require them to meet the needs and interests of the citizens, not of the few. This is a moral, and a religious, issue--which few religions have yet recognized.

Men and women of faith have a mighty resource to aid them: their local fellowship of followers. This community exists in every town, city and metropolis in the world--a continuing presence of God working in societies. As weak and faltering as this community may sometimes be, it is a sign of hope in a world filled with power and greed.

And as we continue our search for answers, it is good to remember that the medium is not the message. Life is.

GREGOR T. GOETHALS

Western Consumerist Television & Spiritual Values
In America many mainline religious groups have been uncertain, often negative, about television as a form for mediating spiritual values. Yet the TV medium has become extraordinarily powerful in communicating civic icons and in opening up ritual experience to millions. To put this in perspective, we shall consider, first, how secular institutions, perhaps unconsciously, transformed traditional forms of religious communication--icons and rituals. Then we will look at attempts of religious groups to adapt the medium for particular liturgical emphases. Finally, I would like to describe some experimental productions in interactive television.

Throughout human history, many world religions have used images to narrate sacred stories, visualize spiritual heroes and enhance liturgical space. There are, of course, aniconic traditions which reject representational forms both for teaching and liturgy. In many religions, however, pictures of exemplary individuals and sacred stories have served as models of human behavior, rendering visible values and world views. Similarly, worship spaces have been adorned with images that reflect and enhance rituals.

Ironically, our consumer culture stumbled upon the power of icons. Decades ago, advertisers learned how pictures of extraordinary, revered persons can be linked to products. Publicity firms grasped intuitively the ancient psychology of exemplary images and their capacity to evoke imitation. Today, culture is saturated with representations of secular "saints" who tell us that we can be like them--successful, beautiful, powerful--if.... Their spiritual substance is simple, within our grasp: sneakers, soft drinks, cereal, beer, fast foods, cosmetics and automobiles. While publicity images may not be tied directly to increased sales, clearly they have iconified our cultural heroes and heroines.

Television's transformation of ritual might also have been hard to predict. As early as 1953, however, when thousands of Britons were in some degree "present" at the coronation of Elizabeth II, it was clear that television had opened up sacred space and time. Americans discovered this extension of ritual during the days following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Countless grieving citizens "walked along" in the funeral procession with worldwide dignitaries and "saw" Air Force One fly over Arlington cemetery in a final goodbye to the slain leader. Since then the ritualization of public and sports events has become an important factor in social integration and plays an essential role in defining ourselves, our passions and loyalties.

Sensing television's power, various religious groups, especially conservative Christians, attempted to tap into it. Television evangelists are best known and perhaps most widely criticized. Yet the charismatic video preachers understood exactly how to use TV. The camera can zoom in and intensify prophetic zeal, dramatic facial expressions and gestures. Like the charismatic politician, the electronic preacher creates a sense of intimacy with individual viewers who may be persuaded by the eyeball-to-eyeball experience that television offers. Many of the successful television preachers came out of a tradition inhospitable to religious image. While fearing the idolatry of images in worship space, TV evangelists seem oblivious to exploitation of believers through their electronic personae.

Suspicious of marketing charisma, religious congregations which put more emphasis on liturgical rites have tended to bring the camera to their services. The viewer tunes in and "slips into a pew" to watch the rites unfold. Yet for many the potential depth of religious ritual is missed. Viewers accustomed to civic rituals--whether in sports or politics--note the slow pace and complain of too many talking and singing heads. In short, it cannot compete with the emotionally engulfing spectacles of professional sports and politics.

Late in the 20th century it is not clear how new imagistic technologies, such as interactive television, may be used to communicate spiritual values. One experimental interactive project under way is sponsored by the American Bible Society, an organization committed solely to translating the Bible and distributing study helps. The pilot projects entail multimedia translations of particular New Testament passages and are accompanied by exegetical study helps. The target audience for this project are teenagers-- eighteen to nineteen years old. These experiments emerge from the Society's historical concern to translate the Bible in the language and symbolic forms of present-day culture. While seeking contemporary equivalents for scripture, the projects are also designated to encourage viewers to return full circle to the reading of the text.

Concentrating upon what the stories meant in their own time and setting, Biblical scholars work with artists, musicians and technicians to develop treatments, images, music and symbols to create contemporary counterparts for the ancient texts. As earlier medieval and Renaissance religious leaders worked with artisans, scholars and translators--translators collaborate with musicians, computer artists and graphic designers to communicate the redemptive power of the Gospel. Some of the music/visual forms created for these projects have drawn upon the styles of MTV, rap and country blues. In designing screens for the interactive program, artists have had the opportunity to recover a tradition of translation which has been lost. Like early medieval illuminators they seek translations that transfer meaning from the original to the language and visual codes of contemporary persons.

The theme of this conference, "A Search for a Middle Way," reminds us that faith and culture have over centuries been engaged in continuous dynamic relationships. Moreover, each religious tradition interprets culture in particular ways. In the Judaic-Christian tradition we may assert that media images, like all human endeavors, are subject to self-aggrandizement. Yet even as we corrupt cultural forms, we see also that they are open to transformation and renewal. For Jews and Christians, the search for redemptive aspects of culture is ultimately rooted in an irreducible confidence in the goodness of creation and the continuing activity of a Creator throughout time.

RIFFAT HASSAN

She has lived in the U.S. since 1972 and taught at Villanova University, the University of Pennsylvania, Oklahoma State University, Harvard Divinity School and the Iliff School of Theology. Ms. Hassan has also been Professor and Chairperson of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Louisville where she has taught since 1976.

In addition, she has been intensively involved in developing feminist theology in Islam and participating in Jewish-Christian- Muslim interreligious dialog since the 1970s. Ms. Hassan's books include The Sword and the Sceptre (Iqbal Academy Pakistan, Lahore, 1977), An Iqbal Primer (Aziz Publishers, Lahore, 1979) and The Bitter Harvest (Aziz Publishers, Lahore, 1977), she has also co-edited Women's and Men's Liberation, Testimonies of the Spirit (Greenwood Press, 1991) and written numerous articles.

The Present & Future Relationship Between Western Consumerist Television and World Spiritual and Cultural Values: A Muslim View
Muslims, in general, tend to understand "modernity" in two ways": (1) modernization and (2) Westernization. Modernization, which is widely approved, is equated with the advancement in science and technology, which in turn is associated with improved systems of communication and transportation, health care, public services, etc. Westernization, which is widely disapproved, is equated with the influx of "mass western culture" into non-western societies and is associated with a large number of social problems ranging from promiscuity to latchkey kids, drug and alcohol abuse, breakdown of community/family relations, etc. To what degree it is possible to separate modernization from Westernization is a question which is confronting all contemporary Muslim societies which, whilst they want to attain a better standard of living, wish zealously to preserve what they consider to be "the integrity of the Islamic way of life."

While television has undoubtedly contributed significantly to the process of modernization, it has also, according to Muslim perception, been a major source of Westernization. Although it has made useful information about many subjects accessible to people across the world, it has also exposed the youth of societies in which a high value is placed on modesty, chastity, fidelity and respect for parents and tradition to a world dominated by materialism and the pleasure-seeking instinct in which the higher values of life seem to be lost.

While I think that Muslim stereotypes of what is western need as much correction and qualification as western stereotypes of what is Islamic, like most Muslims I tend to have mixed feelings about western television, particularly in terms of its impact upon children and young adults.

Though the television of today and the interactive media of tomorrow will give our children access to an incredible amount of information, will this information lead them to becoming what the Islamic mystical tradition calls Insan al-kamil or the complete human being? I am reminded of the words of T. S. Eliot who said:

Since televisions and VCRs took over the living rooms in most countries of the world, children have become less, not more, literate. The precious time that is needed for them to grow internally is consumed by the habit-forming entertainment to which many of them are overexposed. For many people in the Third World, television and VCRs have become a national escape from the harsh realities of life into a fantasy world of glamour, romance and adventure. According to Marx, religion was the opiate of the masses. Today, television may be regarded in a similar way. While there may be a few people who watch television for instruction, the vast majority watch it for entertainment. While entertainment has a place in human life, no great religious or cultural institution makes entertainment its central value.

The emphasis in Islam, as in other prophetic religions, is on living righteously and justly. This involves constant remembrance of God, the merciful and beneficent creator and sustainer of the universe, and service to God's creatures and creation. These objectives require a serious attitude toward life and the ability to reflect deeply and to live a life free from material addictions and distractions. In some way all major religious traditions see a connection between " whole" and "holy." The consumerist orientation of western television is not toward "wholeness" but toward generating what the Buddhist tradition calls "craving" which it sees as the cause of life being "out of joint."

I am afraid that the inner space, which we all need to discover our deepest selves and the meaning of what is ultimate, will become less and less as more and more our outer space is taken over by present or future media agencies. If interactive media of tomorrow is going to be a major means of education, then place must be made for it in our homes and lives, but great care must be exercised to ensure that that which was created to serve us does not become our master. If television or interactive media consume the time, space and energy which are needed for the most important things of life--such as the preservation of one's inner well-being or sense of wholeness, or relationship with others and with creation--then they need to be reevaluated and put "in their proper place" within the context of our total life.

JUDITH RUTHERFORD JAMES

There are very interesting, subtle complexities hidden in the rush to make money in the Western Way, in Western amounts, in the "television" of the 21st century. What follows are two stories that struck me as food for our collective response to the excellent questions posed by this conference. They are practical examples of what does and does not "drive the market."

The first story comes out of the new and brash "interactive" media. There was tremendous anticipation last year for a new animation process called "32 bit" to be used in a game for the much- heralded new delivery system, 3DO, which allows the player to use TV for interactivity. The advance demos showing at various conventions were indeed impressively clear and fast-moving. If their goal was to give a "player" a sense of really moving smoothly through a complicated landscape, it looked very promising.

Two large and well-financed companies were focused feverishly on creating the best game ever so that the new delivery system would sell well and be adopted as the victorious technology. When they unveiled the game, however, it was brilliant technology and a shocking game--it had no principles, no thought, no perspective. "Best," here, meant the most viscerally, seductively and subjectively mean game on the market. It demands of the player split-second "killer instincts" to survive--in a real (violent) landscape, meeting real (violent) challenges, egged on by real (violent) actors absolutely speeding on a startlingly clear, brilliantly animated city street.

"Profit!" one can cynically say; they were after the millions that can be made with a new, violent game! Maybe, but the primary platform was a box that sells for $750--not your mommy-mommy-buy-me- the-latest-game price. Working myopically within a marketplace in which violence had always sold to unsensitized adolescents fascinated by eye/hand coordination, these brilliant, technical designers forgot they had to develop for the population who could afford the box-- adults unable to get past the violence.

I don't think the designers were at all interested in perfecting violence; they were interested in perfect animation. They couldn't have cared less about the territory. But as this illustrates a lack of acumen, it also illustrates a suspension of humanity. They were so into what they were doing, they weren't looking at what they were doing. There has to be a way we can get them to reach for the highest common denominator. It's particularly important now as we charge toward global denominators.

And a second story, in its own way also about the tenacity of established profit centers. Two years ago, a partner and I bought the rights to some short stories written by South American women about women and men. Robust, energetic, tongue-in-cheek, smart stories. We proposed them as a series of films directed by international women directors and sought international financing since we knew it was material more often done in Europe than here. We shortly lined up five countries and enough financing to do them. But not one of the foreign companies would conclude negotiations until they knew there would be a U.S. air date.

We didn't need American money to complete the financing of production; they wanted an American cable station to validate the endeavor. The recent fierce struggle in the European Economic Council to protect their market from "other" (read: American imports) may have been wise men trying to keep a ship from sinking; ironically, in our example, even though they didn't need America, they wanted the assurance that the product was commercial by American standards. They didn't want to be tricked into buying quality from Americans; they wanted commercial from Americans. What they think of American products is complicated by what they want of American product. They want it to make them a great deal of money. What may also be true is that the label of "American" gives permission for the crassly commercial and the attendant profit. It didn't matter that they were letting American TV set their programming agenda in a negative way. We never did the series.

Television is already ubiquitous and, as such, it presents a terrible pressure towards homogeneity and one fashioned by the culture of the dominant programmers. Culturally that's suicide. If we add to that the tendency of suppliers to sell what has always sold, without thinking, and to be satisfied with the lowest common shared denominator, no wonder we sense trouble. No wonder we're going to meet April 22 and 23!

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON

Kathleen Hall Jamieson has authored seven books including Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Advertising (Oxford University Press, 1984; 1988), Eloquence in an Electronic Age (Oxford University Press 1988; 1990) and Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction and Democracy (Oxford University Press, 1992). She has also written over 40 newspaper and journal articles.

I am interested in exploring the ways in which the media can work to create a sense of national and global community with tolerance and generosity of basic norms.

NORMAN LEAR

Lear began his career in television writing for "Ford Star Theater," "The Colgate Comedy Hour" (starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis), "The George Gobel Show" and "The Martha Raye Show" (the latter two he also directed). In 1959, Lear and Bud Yorkin formed Tandem Productions, Inc.,which produced and packaged television specials showcasing such stars as Fred Astaire, Jack Benny, Andy Williams and Henry Fonda. Tandem's films included "Divorce American Style."

In 1971, Lear obtained the American rights to the popular BBC series "Till Death Us Do Part," adapted it for American audiences and titled it "All in the Family"--the rest is television history. Its success led the way for other Tandem hits, "Sanford & Son," "Maude" and "Good Times."

In 1985 Lear formed Act III Communications, Inc., whose operations include broadcasting, publishing, theatrical exhibition and motion picture and television production. The company's most recent film, "Fried Green Tomatoes," became one of the biggest box office hits of 1992. Most recently, he created "704 Hauser," a series for CBS.

Norman Lear is the recipient of countless awards and honors. At the 1993 Writers Guild of America Awards, Lear was presented with the Paddy Chayefsky Television Laurel Award, the highest honor the Guild bestows and representative of a lifetime achievement in television. Lear is also the recipient of four Emmy Awards; an Academy Award nomination for his "Divorce American Style" screenplay; and in 1984, Lear was among the first inductees into the "Television Academy Hall of Fame."

Lear is also noted for his activism on behalf of human rights. In 1980, he directed his efforts and energies towards the formation of People for the American Way, a national, nonpartisan constitutional liberties organization. In 1989 he, along with James Burke and Warren Buffett, founded The Business Enterprise Trust, an organization dedicated to identifying acts of courage, integrity and social vision in business.

Television and the Varieties of Religious Experience
There was a time, not so long ago, when an old ancestral order gave stability and higher purpose to our culture. The church, the family, public education, civil authority--these institutions were widely revered for their ability to transmit cherished common values from one generation to another.

No longer. Today, ours is a fragmented culture whose center may not hold. We are 250 million souls with few common values and even fewer common institutions that can bind us together.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and this one too must be filled. And I believe that the void in the inner life and culture of Americans has increasingly come to be filled by the one institution that touches everyone's life: American business. I hasten to add that this is not a role that business has sought for itself. Yet there is little doubt in my mind that business has in fact become the fountainhead of values in our society.

Joseph Campbell has an arresting metaphor to describe this shift. In medieval times, he said, as one approached a city, the tallest structure on the skyline was the church and its steeple. Later, as the power and influence of the church gave way to kings and rulers, the castle dominated the skyline. Today, as one approaches the city, the most commanding structures are skyscrapers, the cathedrals of modern business. To Mr. Campbell's marvelous metaphor, I would add the phenomenon of television, itself a great American industry, whose satellite dishes are the veritable crowns of our 20th century cathedrals. The satellite dishes project the messages of American business into virtually every home by the dozen per half hour on the TV sets that research tells us may be on as much as seven hours per day.

What is notable about this fountainhead of values in American life is not simply the message, "We are what we consume," although that is hardly insignificant. It is the overweening commitment of American business to those values that can be quantified--to numbers- -with a corresponding aversion to qualitative values, so often dismissed as "soft and squishy." There are no villains here; nobody ordered this shift in cultural values. It just happened. Yet over the course of my career in television, I have seen the rise of a pernicious dictatorship of numbers and an escalating imperative to feed a bottom line, no matter the cost.

The proliferation of computers and the convergence of so many digital technologies have only accelerated this trend, so that now our culture is dominated by numbers. We define ourselves, our values and our aspirations by SAT scores, Nielsen ratings, box office grosses, cost-benefit analyses, quarterly profits, bottom lines and polls, polls, polls--all of which exert an iron grip on our sense of the possible and on our very identities. We have become a numbers- oriented business-driven culture that places its faith on what we can graph, chart or count, and is suspicious of the unquantifiable, the intuitive, the mysterious.

This is a perilous development. When a culture becomes a stranger to its own inner human needs (which are, for better or worse, unquantifiable, intuitive and mysterious), it is a culture that has lost touch with the best of its humanity. It has lost the spark of inspiration, hope and vision that any robust culture must have.

It is tempting to lunge for the word "religion" as the missing dimension of our times, and that may be partly correct. But this term, I believe, is unduly narrow. Organized religion is not the only place in our society where the yearning for higher meaning and spiritual connection manifests itself. One can see it in dozens of grassroots movements through which people are trying to find spiritual meaning: twelve-step groups, Eastern philosophies, New Age regimens, the men's movement, cross-cultural myths, eco-theology, positive-thinking entrepreneurs and even in new management techniques used in major corporations. One can see the search for higher meaning in art and literature, contemporary dance and rock music, and even in such temporal pursuits as politics and business.

I am a Jew, and I love my people and their culture, and what they have brought to the world. But that is not what makes me religious. What makes me religious is the way I experience Creation, the way I experience life and the way I try to live it. When I realized one day that religion in our popular culture has a special language--a language I don't speak--a good friend, a noted theologian, suggested I read William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, a seminal work written early in this century. There I was, between the lines, between the experiences. So, now, I ask myself: Why can't I share my sense of God's presence without being made to feel like a second-class groper after meaning in life?

The news media, including television, prefer to deal with the familiar pigeonholes of Protestant, Catholic, Jew and so forth. These are not unimportant categories, of course. But once we get beyond the formal theologies or nominal affiliations, there is something larger that unites us. In the end, most of us are really gropers, searching every step of the way for a better understanding. Unfortunately, this nether zone has no standing in our culture, least of all in television. It has been preempted by "experts" who claim that their distinctive theology, tradition or sizeable membership gives them a special stamp of superiority, a greater right to be heard. It is precisely this spiritual arrogance and intolerance--particularly toward us, the unaffiliated "gropers"--that has stifled a frank, 360- degree discussion of what it means to have a living faith in these troubled times.

Can commercial television tackle this task? Or would some new forms of non-commercial television do a better job? These are important questions for which I do not have answers. Yet I know that there is more to this debate than the merits of commercial versus non-commercial television. What may be most critical is our willingness--individually and as a secular culture--to confront the widest variety of spiritual concerns with candor and tolerance.

WILLIAM H. MELODY

Professor Melody has many publications in books, reports and professional journals on the communication industries, technologies, economics and public policies, as well as the economic, social and cultural implications of communication technologies and their applications. He has authored five articles on communication and information technology issues in the Canadian Encyclopedia, as well as the article on "Telecommunication" in the International Encyclopedia of Communications. He has undertaken policy research studies and consultations with local, state and national organizations--both government and corporate--in a number of countries, as well as several United Nations and other international organizations.

The Transformation of Communication in Society
The widespread application of new communication and information technologies and services is providing new opportunities to communicate, and increased choice for those in a position to take advantage of them. Cable and satellite television have expanded enormously the quantity of programs, and new interactive multimedia is expected to enhance viewer selectivity with instantaneous on- demand viewer control. On the surface, these reductions of barriers to communication in the marketplace of ideas would appear to provide benefits for all. A deeper examination, however, reveals that some fundamental transformations in the processes of communication are under way as society becomes increasingly dependent on electronic communication and information networks.

As always, some institutions and individuals (including most people at this conference) are well positioned to take advantage of the new opportunities; others are not. This brief statement outlines a framework for examining some implications of the changes in communication now under way--for television, religion and the fostering of cultural and spiritual values in technologically advanced western countries.

The Marketplace of Ideas. The notion of the unfettered marketplace of ideas has played an important part in the mythology of participatory democracy. It implies a process to which everyone has equal access, and the relative merits of competing ideas communicated to the majority of participants will prevail at any point in time. In reality the marketplace of ideas suffers from the same imperfections of economic markets, and maybe more. Some people--for lack of ability, education, resources, awareness, etc.--are only marginal participants, and others don't participate at all.

The marketplace of ideas can be distorted and monopolized. It can be directed to a variety of special purposes in direct contradiction to "the relative merits of competing ideas." To a degree, government propaganda, television advertising and organized religion are all directed to persuading people to suspend their critical communication capacities and have "faith" in what they are told by authority. As communication processes in society become increasingly institutionalized and commercialized, we must question whether there will be more or less room for expression that reflects other values and is directed to other purposes. Will the new environment foster the blossoming of a thousand flowers or of a few dominant flowers a thousand times?

Commercial Television and Religion. The history of radio and television in the U.S. and many other countries has involved a struggle between social purpose (informing and educating the public) and commercial opportunity (profitability and expansion for promoting mass consumption). As an economic process, the exchange taking place in commercial broadcasting is the sale of viewing audiences to advertisers. Programs are the bait for assembling audiences with particular demographic characteristics, e.g. family, children, etc., that can be sold to particular advertisers at particular times.

Non-commercial programming on commercial media, as required by the public interest responsibilities of license conditions, has always been minimized and placed in time slots likely to attract small audiences (in both numbers and purchasing power). For many years, religion--as expressed either in terms of spiritual and religious values as a subject for examination, or as presentations by organized religions--received only minimal coverage.

This changed with the discovery of the fund-raising potential of television by some religious organizations in more recent times, especially as the expansion of cable television has reduced the cost of access. The result has been a major expansion in the programming time and the audiences exposed to the religious messages of some religious organizations. In turn, both the necessity and the opportunity for fund-raising has "biased" the religious messages to satisfy the fund-raising objective. This has resulted in the same kinds of concerns about market (i.e. audience) exploitation and quality of programming that characterizes other television markets. Is television being used to convey spiritual messages to larger audiences? Or are spiritual messages simply being fashioned to raise funds from vulnerable audiences? Is it inevitable that over time the commercial pressures will require less emphasis on the former and more on the latter? Is this an example of new communication opportunities being used not to empower people (which in this case would promote spiritual values in independent people), but to make them more dependent (in this case, spiritually dependent) on established institutions? Can a balance be struck to preserve the integrity of the message and the empowerment of the viewer within a framework of commercial television? This is the challenge before us.

Opportunities in the Age of Interactive Television. The development of interactive television provides for a restructuring of television markets. Pay-per-view, with wider program choice and greater viewer control, opens new opportunities for program makers, merchandisers and viewers who can afford to participate. So-called "free" TV is likely to take on the characteristics of an electronic billboard with increasing penetration of merchandising into the design of program content.

The new technologies are also reducing the barriers to create programming and distribute it at a local level through narrowcasting. This could be a boon to fostering communication within and among cultural, religious and neighborhood groups at the community level. This development, however, is not likely to be supported by major industry players, and without public policy support it is likely to remain at the margins of the industry, although providing important opportunities for restoring community values at the local level.

The Role of Communication Schools in Preparing Socially Responsible Leaders. Traditionally, leaders in industry and government have been trained in business or law schools, not communication schools. The first step is to broaden the multidisciplinary focus of communication scholars and to strengthen links with business and law programs to ensure that an increasing proportion of leaders are exposed to the teaching and research contributions of communication schools.

This should be facilitated by the increasing recognition of the centrality of communication and information to understanding economic, social, cultural and spiritual life. For example, economists are grudgingly admitting that markets are a social institution, organizations have different cultures and value systems and consumers, investors, bankers and business cycles are ruled by expectations and animal spirits, not immutable economic laws. To understand the markets of the future, one must understand both the old and the new communication processes.

Finally, communication scholars are going to have to be more pro-active participants in public policy debates and in monitoring the performance of leading organizations. Academic researchers are in a unique position to provide substantial contributions from an independent, holistic, long-term public interest perspective. No other institution in a society is so well placed to research and advocate for the public interest and for social responsibility on a continuing basis. Public interest values can become a major, rather than a fringe force in policy-making. The academic research community can fulfill its own potential as a major player in the marketplace of ideas that guide the course of development of the communication industries and of society.

J. PATRICK (RICK) MICHAELS, JR.

Rick was raised in Jamaica, West Indies. He received his B.A. from Tulane University, graduating magna cum laude, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Eta Sigma, and a Tulane Scholar and Tulane Fellow. In addition, Rick studied at the London School of Economics and later received his M.A. from The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. While in England, Rick was Assistant Manager and on-air personality for Radio City, an offshore radio station. While at the University of Pennsylvania, he received an American Broadcasting Corporation Fellowship.

Rick has hosted numerous industry conferences and seminars including the Pan Asia Satellite & Cable Television Conference and the Global Media Investments and Development Conference. He is sought after as a speaker and has appeared at industry gatherings around the world, including Hong Kong, Australia, United Kingdom, West Germany and Canada. He has also written numerous articles on topics including investments, financing and brokerage.

Rick is a member of the Cable TV Pioneers, the Institute of Directors (U.K.), National Cable Television Association and Community Antenna Television Association. He is a former director of the Home Shopping Network, Inc., Sonic Cablevision, the Florida Cable Television Association and the Minnesota Cable Television Association. He has also served on the Federal Communications Commission's Local-State-Federal Advisory Committee.

Spiritual and Cultural Values: Road Kill on the Electronic Highway of Tomorrow
The growth of television watching is increasing geometrically on a global basis. Broadcast television, whether by terrestrial transmission, cable television, satellite, wireless cable or other technologies, exists in every country of the world. It is probably the single biggest influencing factor in shaping cultures in this century.

Some governments are increasingly concerned about the influence of western television programming on their cultural and spiritual values although it might be argued that government actions to repress the reception of western television programming are generally political in nature. An example of this would be the recent ban in the People's Republic of China on ownership of satellite-receiver dishes. There is a similar ban in both Malaysia and Singapore with these governments citing "cultural imperialism" as their reasons for restrictions on freedom of viewing.

The government of Saudi Arabia is currently completing a plan for a nationwide MMDS or wireless cable system, covering most of the major population centers. Once this wireless cable system is in place, it is highly likely that the government will ban reception by satellite. This ban is aimed at not only STAR-TV, originating in Hong Kong, but also at Orbit, originating in Italy. The King has stated that he is concerned about values contrary to the Muslim religion being introduced into his country via satellite television. The country is thought to have in excess of 80,000 dishes.

Every day, new programming services are launched on a global basis with many being targeted at specific audiences and countries. Zee TV, uplinked out of Hong Kong via STAR-TV, brought the first commercial television signal to India, which has caused a rapid proliferation of satellite and private cable systems. This has been followed by another service targeted at the southern part of India uplinked out of Moscow but owned by Indian businessmen.

Within the last five years some 60 satellite television channels have become available to Latin American countries. Many of the programs being carried are antithetical to the fundamental beliefs of Catholic countries under the footprint of the satellites.

The Southern Baptist Convention owns ACTS, a television channel seen by people in millions of homes in the United States. The Maurice Cruillo ministry operates the New Inspirational Network uplinked out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Catholic viewers can tune in Mother Theresa on a channel owned by the Catholic church while Jewish viewers in certain U.S. cities can watch the Jewish Television Network uplinked out of Los Angeles.

Pat Robertson's 700 Club can be seen in Southern Lebanon over a television station operated by CBN, as well as in other parts of the world, and in the U.S. in 52 million homes via The Family Channel. ZTV, uplinked out of Lake Helen, Florida, a 24-hour Christian music video channel, is available in some 4.5 million homes. The Worship Channel out of St. Petersburg, Florida, offers viewers an opportunity to dial 1-900 and have their prayers "offered up."

All the efforts of organized and commercial religion pale by comparison with the several hundred million viewers who can watch MTV 24 hours a day. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are available on music videos from Russia to Guam. Now, in the twilight of the 20th century, television is moving into the interactive age.

The convergence of telecommunications, computer software and video programming will open up new vistas for entertainment and information services. For other than a few applications such as games and educational uses, they are still essentially experimental. The recent attack by the Administration and regulators on the cable television industry in the United States will undoubtedly delay capital expenditures affecting progress towards the 500-channel universe for several years. It is inevitable, however, that the major telephone companies and other telecommunications companies will continue to develop new technologies, and new technology and software will also emerge from the computer industry.

It is clear that the number of CD-ROMs and the widespread availability of CD-ROM kits for existing PCs will bring multimedia into the homes of Americans and Europeans and perhaps in the not-too- distant future into Asia. With the exception of business and education usage these developments will take place in more affluent homes. The gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" in the information age will widen substantially. There will also be an urban/suburban/rural differentiation. Major experiments in convergence will take place in the metropolitan suburban areas first. It may be that when the superhighway of information arrives in East Snowshoe, Minnesota, it will just be a two-lane road.

How can communication schools better prepare their media students to be socially responsible decision makers? There are no easy answers. Education is frequently behind and not ahead of developments in the media. Unfortunately, the focus of much research in communications is historical, and little thought is given to looking ahead. Social responsibility is something defined on a cultural basis and learned at home, school and church, as well as from one's friends and business associates. What may be viewed in Afghanistan as socially responsible behavior in terms of the Holy War against the infidels may be looked at differently through eyes in the United States. There is no globally-accepted definition of social responsibility.

The most important thing that communications schools can do is to equip their students with an understanding of how media, and television in particular, can shape opinions, attitudes and views; and how it can change cultures. Understanding change is important; effecting change is a mission, which is either political and/or social. Communications schools should require that their students take courses from other departments in universities whether they be in international affairs or anthropology so that students can better understand the world in which we live. It is not uncommon to see a recent graduate with a master's degree in communications who may understand something about the nature of television programming but who cannot locate Myanmar on the map. Having students pontificate on the evils of repression of satellite television in the People's Republic of China without understanding culture in the current political and economic stage of the PRC is a sad commentary on graduate education around the globe.

As cultures change, religions change. Organized religion is continuing to redefine itself, and even individuals steeped in tradition must redefine their views in the context of modern times. Television has become the window on the world for the majority of the world's population. A definition of society, culture and religion in terms of one's village, region or country is now, for better or worse, colored by the view of the rest of the world as shown on television. Let's hope that views presented are balanced ones, presenting a wide range of political, social, cultural and religious viewpoints, and that the view of the world being shown on television on a global basis is not totally dominated by the people who bring you "Beverly Hills 90210."

KATHRYN C. MONTGOMERY

CME is currently coordinating two major projects: the "Future of Media Project" is dedicated to fostering a public interest vision for the information superhighway of the 21st century, and educating the public, the nonprofit community and the press about the critical public policy choices that will shape the new media system. The "Campaign for Kids' TV" is the designated successor to Action for Children's Television which closed in 1992. The Campaign is aimed at improving the quality of children's television, educating the public about the Children's Television Act and empowering parents and educators to deal more effectively with the media.

Dr. Montgomery is a leading expert on television and the media, whose book Target: Prime Time (Oxford University Press, 1989) is the key work on the relationship between advocacy groups and network entertainment television. Before moving to Washington, she was a professor of film and television at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has consulted with a number of nonprofit organizations and foundations on media issues and strategies for using the media to promote public policy goals. Dr. Montgomery completed a fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, examining the use of media advocacy techniques by public health and environmental groups.

Our nation stands at the crossroads of a new media era. An information superhighway is being built which promises to dramatically alter our existing communications system. The convergence of powerful new technologies--from fiber optics to computers to satellites--presents us with the opportunity to reinvent television. But whether or not the true potential created by these technologies is fully realized will depend on the policies that shape them.

The most tragic mistake we could make at this crucial time would be to believe that technology alone will magically transform the media system. The history of the electronic media in the U.S. is replete with lessons. As each new medium has appeared on the horizon, it has been accompanied by great fanfare, promising to correct all the inadequacies of the present media system. Every invention--from radio to FM to television to cable--has brought with it new opportunities for reinvigorating culture, the arts and education. Each has promised to enhance the democratic process. And yet in every case, the full potential of the medium has not materialized. Public policy choices at critical historical moments have determined the fate and direction of the media system.

The emergence of the information superhighway holds both promise and peril for our country. The combination of expanded channels, affordable production, and interactive capability could significantly improve our media system by

The policy decisions that will determine the structure of the next media system are being made right now--in Congress, at the White House and in corporate board rooms. What is desperately needed is a public interest vision for communications in the 21st century.

The Center for Media Education is working with a broad coalition of consumer, public interest, religious and cultural organizations to promote such a vision. Its guiding principles are spelled out in a document entitled, "Renewing the Commitment to a Public Interest Telecommunications Policy" which was released last October by the Telecommunications Policy Roundtable. One of its key tenets is the need for a vibrant telecommunications civic sector to serve as a counterbalance to the commercial forces of the media marketplace. Following the tradition of public libraries and public highways, the Roundtable is calling for the creation of public arenas or "electronic commons" in the media landscape.

We hope others will join us in our efforts to create an electronic legacy that will truly benefit future generations.

DAVID NOSTBAKKEN

David Nostbakken has served, at various times, as the Director- General, Communications Division, IDRC; President, Canadian Centre of Films for Children; Governor, Children's Broadcast Institute (CBI); director of the Power of Television series (CBI--National Programme); Board Director, Montcrest School, Toronto; Director, Broadcasting for International Understanding and member of the Helsinki Group, Television Trust for the Environment. He has also taught at the secondary school, community college and university levels, and has worked on numerous television productions and publications.

In addition, he has served as President of the International Liaison Group on Smoking and Health; President of the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health; Director of Public Education of the Canadian Cancer Society; President of the Fifth World Conference on Smoking and Health, 1983; Chair of the WHO/UICC Smoking Central Programme-Africa (a position he held for 10 years) and member of the WHO expert committee on tobacco and health.

Dr. Nostbakken received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto where he studied, taught and worked with Marshall McLuhan.

Television--The Great Legitimizer
Television is the great legitimizer of ideas and perspectives it conveys, and a de-legitimizer of those it does not.

In the western world, television tends to reinforce the values of those who own and control it. They are for the most part in the business of delivering large audiences to advertising. Audiences are asked to "buy it"--McDonald's, Nikes, politicians, salvation.

Television is more akin to music than to print. It is more an oral tradition than a literate tradition. It is where we participate ritualistically in the repetition of commercially shaped dramatic form and content. It has replaced organized religion as the place to suspend disbelief. It provides for a culture of contentment. It is our culture.

If it can be argued that there is a repressive singularity to the program ethos of contemporary commercial television, then the new digitally compressed expanded channel universe should trigger among those concerned a dramatic response to create and operate alternative systems to lift the repression of creative spiritual expression, and to generate a reflection of ethnic cultural diversity.

A Canadian satellite to cable television network called Vision TV has, over the last five years, successfully liberated regional cultural ethnic minority perspectives. It is a noncommercial system, making it possible to carry in prime time entertaining programming while also reflecting cultural diversity and spiritual expression. Vision TV is an evident alternative for the channel switchers of today, and as such, legitimizes the core of spiritually rooted perspectives it conveys. It was created in partnerships with those who were seeking voice. It is based on a simple model that is transferable.

WETV is a second Canadian initiative in progress to develop a global television network modeled after the Vision TV network in Canada but with a different set of partners, and with the objective to liberate and to carry globally a wide variety of regional cultural perspectives. In the five hundred channel global television village, WETV will legitimize social and spiritual reflection, not found in the webs of Disney or Hollywood or the highly competitive commercial systems. It will provide programming via satellite from around the world to be downloaded by national broadcasters in the short term, and to be received in DBS format before the end of this century. Independent producers will be a major source of programming. Their imagery and creativity will be a contemporary spiritual event, a venting of who we are in our collective diversity.

Marshall McLuhan argued that moral principle is in inverse proportion to the speed with which things occur. The faster things move, the less relevance truth holds. We are in a period of accelerated change, partly owing to the emerging technologies of communication and information. This may hasten what could be called "airport mentality," i.e., we rush to the airport, not to be there but to be somewhere else. While in the airport, in suspended animation, as it were, we can be or pretend to be anyone we wish and say anything to strangers in our midst without fear of contradiction or consequence. Metaphorically, the global village may be suffering from airport mentality. What then is needed are some still points in the turning world.

In a sense, the Earth Summit in Rio, in 1992, was a still point where we challenged the global momentum to consider the consequences of uncontrolled or unconditional change. Agenda 21, following out from Rio, challenged that "countries in cooperation with the scientific community should establish ways of employing modern communication technologies for effective public outreach" (Agenda 21, chapter 36, 36.10 [f]). Public outreach is not to mean global propaganda a la Disneyland or Hollywood, but social dialog for diversity of perspectives, particularly on important matters of global concerns.

In the 1990s, the concept of "sustainable development" championed at Rio in 1992, is a modern appeal for our spiritual selves.

Cultural and spiritual diversity will continue to exist with or without television. The questions in the environmentally aware '90s is whether or not this diversity will express itself in healthy, dynamic ways, or in aberrant ways such as in the rise of fundamentalism, vicious ethnic cleansing nationalism and rigid sectarianism. Cultural diversity is akin to bio-diversity in our hope for the future. The emerging television environment is anathema to these sentiments unless creative and dramatic alternatives are found.

CHARLES M. OLIVER

At Cohn and Marks, Mr. Oliver is concentrating his practice in the areas of telecommunications, spectrum management and new communications technologies and media.

Are the Western commercial media undermining religions around the world? I don't know. Most of the time I have spent in other countries has been in windowless rooms conducting government negotiations or presenting U.S. government views to captive audiences. On one occasion, Eli Noam and I escaped from a government seminar in Uzbekistan and made an unauthorized excursion to Samarkand, an ancient center of Islamic learning and religion. We learned a lot about local attitudes and culture, but we were severely chastised by the U.S. State Department, which wanted us to spend a day in a room listening to a U.S. official deliver a lecture on postal ratemaking theory. My advice to the current crop of government officials is to spend more time playing hooky from official business when they're abroad. They might begin to understand the people they're supposed to be dealing with.

Can the new interactive media offer new opportunities for spiritual and cultural values? Yes. They will also offer new opportunities for pornography. The same press that Gutenberg used to print his famous Bible was used shortly thereafter to print pornography. The same will doubtless be true of the new interactive media, except that the order will be reversed.

The new media will allow people to pursue their worst instincts as well as their better instincts, but that isn't all bad. Martin Luther said that if you are going to sin, you should sin wholeheartedly. Then you will at least have some possibility of being saved. He believed that the worst position was to be a fence- sitter.

The soft-porn being purveyed by some of the networks today resembles the moral position that a certain senator adopted when he invited the reigning beauty queen of his state up to his room to share a bottle of champagne and give him a massage--but didn't get in bed with her. The senator's public explanation failed to satisfy the religious right and offended the lecher constituency as well, thereby alienating the vast majority of the electorate. He should have chosen one constituency or the other.

How can communication schools better prepare future media leaders for their role as socially responsible decision makers? They can't. Communications schools are, and ought to be, trade schools. The way to learn to be a socially responsible decision maker is to have good parents and major in the humanities. Then you can go to communications school or law school or business school with a clear conscience, as I did.

Concerning the suggestion that communications schools should have courses in ethics, I see no harm in it, and it might do some good by helping people understand the unintended consequences that their actions in the media business might have. By and large, though, the principal problem is not recognizing the difference between right and wrong--most people do--but caring about the difference. Most people want to be saved, but not just yet.

MICHAEL PALEY

Before coming to Columbia, Rabbi Paley was the Jewish Chaplain at Dartmouth College and Rabbi of the Upper Valley Jewish Community. In 1983 he founded the Conference on Judaism in Rural New England which gathers over 500 participants each year to celebrate the rural richness of New England through the lens of Jewish tradition.

Rabbi Paley has taught and lectured extensively in universities, conferences, synagogues and community centers on topics ranging from medieval and modern Jewish philosophy and theology to Jewish and Islamic law, Biblical thought, the Jews of Muslim Spain and the world of Islam. Most recently, through the Jewish Theological Seminary's highly successful The Children of Abraham series, Rabbi Paley explored Islam as a key to a deeper understanding of Judaism. In addition, he currently serves on the editorial board and is Jewish Book Editor of Tikkun magazine. He is the Vice-President of the Association of Religion and Intellectual Life (ARIL).

Rabbi Paley earned his B.A. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University and pursued graduate studies in Jewish and Islamic philosophy and science under the direction of Professor Seyyes Nasr at Temple University. He studied at Yeshivat Hamivtar and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and became a rabbi in 1981. He was a member of the Havurat Shalom, and has contributed to The Jewish Catalog and The Schocken Guide to Jewish Books, among other publications.

In the late 12th century, Moses Maimonides, one of the great figures of Jewish philosophy and law, published his epic law code, the Mishnah Torah. This work was the first comprehensive code of Jewish law. This law code had three features. First, it was unique in that it used aesthetic judgments or standards of coherence instead of merely precedent to decide Jewish law. Second, it quoted no source material or argument in the body of its text. Third, it sought to destroy the rabbinical community of the time.

This last point is perhaps the most significant. Until Maimonides' code of law was presented, local Rabbis had the authority to establish the customs of their communities. Their particular art was to enter into the great arguments and dialogs of the Talmud and then employ their own judgment to establish a standard. Because the Talmud is difficult to pierce, only the educated elite could come to such decisions, and so while the Rabbis had no intrinsic authority, they earned their living by rendering judgments that were unavailable to the laity. With Maimonides' code, the laity could simply scan the index and find a clear response to each of their questions. This meant that the rabbinical community became superfluous and that for the first time uniformity of practice became a possible option for the far flung Jewish world. The Rabbinic response was swift. Within two generations, Maimonides' elegant code had been commentaried into submission. By the time of its publication a century later each page of code contained no less than ten alternative positions.

What has this to do with the information superhighway? The Jewish community always has a dilemma. On the one hand, Jewish unity has always been established by a general, if not exhaustive, commonality of practice. For the Jewish community to remain a quarreling but single entity, all Jews must participate in certain traditional commonplaces. On the other side, Jewish life, both intellectual and communal, has only flourished when many voices, perspectives and opinions have been heard. The very nature of the Talmud is based on the multiplicity of voices in which an eternal conversation can be heard. For the first time technology has presented the Jewish world with a method of addressing this dilemma. In Talmudic times, the conversations that happened in the various academies were unknown to even their closest neighbors until the text that they produced were redacted for a later audience generations afterwards.

But now, the Jewish world can engage in an international conversation in which, in the wink of an eye, all opinions, arguments and judgments are available to even the casual reader. With new technology both the Rabbis and Maimonides would get their say, and the dynamism of the conversation would be preserved without destroying the fabric of the community.

The modern world has posed a serious threat to religious tradition. This threat has many names, but the one I would like to argue for is individualism. A consumer society must cater to the widest group of individuals that it can usefully find. In order for mass production to continue, the market demands that each individual must possess a complete set of prescribed objects in order to feel truly human and empowered. Whereas participation in a sacred community once filled the need of individuals to be connected to something larger than themselves, the modern conception of being truly human is that each person be completed as a free-standing individual.

Religious communities often work the opposite way. They sit on collective action, on practice that binds people together, either through a relationship to a Keihilah, or sacred community, for Jews, by surrendering to the dictates of the Ummah for Muslims or by a believing part of the ecclesia for Christians.

In many ways the Internet and the information superhighway are the greatest blessings that a religion can have. They provide a method of communication that is both participatory and cohesive with the added expectation that it will some day be global. It may be that these technologies will arrive in the nick of time because as interactive media grows more personal, the commercial media have become more obsessed with their attack on the sacred, the spiritual and the religious.

Any half hour in front of a TV news broadcast or even a cursory glance at a daily newspaper will underline the image of religion in the press. From Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and other televangelists, to the portrait of Islam as characterized by Sheik Rahman, Louis Farrakhan and assorted Ayatollahs, to Baruch Goldstein, religions are portrayed as fanatic, fundamentalist and hypocritical. Even the religious message and the "politics of meaning" have been assaulted unrelentingly, first on theoretical grounds and then by the constant exposure of the alleged hypocrisy of the president and his wife. In a remarkable piece of journalism, ABC played an old video of Hillary Rodham Clinton's graduation address when she was a senior at Wellesley and then showed how her personal behavior had not attained her eloquent standard. What is the message here? Should we not have standards? Should moral utterances become forbidden or so risky that self-censorship should hold them back?

As the information superhighway may indeed re-weave the conscience of a religious community without destroying local leadership, the commercial media are certainly oriented in the opposite direction towards a development which Charles Taylor and others decry as depriving people and communities access to the authentic identities which can only be developed within the context of the dialog. There is a coming struggle between the images of religious leaders as packages of fanatics, radicals and hypocrites, and the decentralized and yet cohesive communication nets of inspired religious conversation. In the last few years Bill Moyers has presented to us the simple alternative through serious and intense conversations with religious leaders whose wisdom is given precedence to an analysis of their character. It is a model to embrace.

JEFFREY C. REISS

Prior to the launching of RME, Mr. Reiss was instrumental in the founding of two other start-up ventures. In 1981, Mr. Reiss and Dr. Art Ulene joined with Viacom International, Inc. to develop the Cable Health Network which merged with Daytime to become Lifetime Television. Mr. Reiss first served as the network's president and CEO and later as vice chairman and CEO.

Mr. Reiss joined Viacom in 1976 for the purpose of building Viacom's in-house pay TV operation into a sophisticated international satellite-delivered movie and entertainment service, which came to be known as Showtime, the nation's second-largest pay-TV network.

Earlier, Mr. Reiss was a director of feature films for ABC where he participated in the development of the two-hour made-for-TV movie. Before joining ABC in 1973, Mr. Reiss was in charge of program acquisitions and development for Cartridge Television, Inc. the manufacturer of the first home video cassette recorder. As a partner in Kleiman-Reiss Productions, he presented several theatrical productions in New York.

Mr. Reiss holds an A.B. degree from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and did graduate work at New York University's School of Education. He has served on the Board of Directors of People for the American Way and on the Board of Trustees of The Washington Institute. He also serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Request Television, Reiss Media Entertainment Corp. and Reiss Media International.

Possible Effects of the Global Media Expansion on Spiritual and Cultural Values
Newspaper headlines have announced the arrival of the information superhighway along with the convergence of telephones, computers and television sets. CD-ROMs, personal digital assistants, global telecommunications satellites and the explosive growth of Internet users also contribute to the headlines and news articles heralding not only a media revolution, but a social revolution as well.

What can we hope for, what can we expect when the rest of the world begins to share in the explosion of media options which is already sweeping our country? Some good, some bad and a lot of uncertainty.

An overriding concern is the continuation of ancient wisdom, ritual and tradition. The traditional practices of Judaism and Christianity have lost much of their spiritual and mystical components as they have been embraced by western civilization even though they have survived for thousands of years. How can they, along with the hundreds of other religions and cultures around the world, retain their spiritual legacies in the face of the media explosion which historically disseminates predominantly western values? Through the enlightened dedication of each religion and culture's most adept scholars, practitioners and historians, translating their spiritual knowledge and wisdom to the new media, both audiovisual and data, the future generations will have the opportunity to share in their ancestral heritage.

Translating or transposing oral, written and movement traditions to data files and audiovisual recordings may be a massive task, but it is one worth pursuing. Training scholars and spiritual practitioners in how to use the new media can become a high priority of the spiritual traditions within each culture. And through this process, traditions may be updated and transformed as they often have been when they went from the oral tradition to written tradition, from one geographical setting to another, from one generation to another and from culture to culture. Mounting a campaign to educate and enlighten television and film professionals to the importance and specifics of spiritual traditions while exploring with them new ways to convey information and values in their creative output is the challenge we now face.

Can we do it? Will we do it? If we wish to preserve our spiritual and cultural values, we must do it.

YALE ROE

Throughout his career he has struggled to find the balance between the social potential of television and the commercial realities. He first wrestled with the issue in 1962 in his book, The Television Dilemma, in which he suggested that socially irresponsible programming on television could not be excused because of the company's obligations to its stockholders because the economics of the television industry were such that both the stockholder and the viewer could be served responsibly and well. (Mr. Roe compares his book to the Bible: "Everyone has it and no one reads it.") Mr. Roe disclaims any illusions that his book made any significant difference. His world view is that life is a struggle between the forces of evil and the forces of good and that the challenge is to be on the right side of that struggle.

Roe acted out his personal value system by moving with his wife and children to Israel in 1972 and living there for 14 years during which time he produced documentary films and learned more about his religion, Judaism.

He is the father of four children, currently resides in New York with his wife, Anita Kaskel, and continues his inner struggle, working for major corporations while producing projects such as the six-video series, Great Figures of the Bible with Elie Wiesel.

The assumption used to be that East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. Today they not only meet, they confront each other every second of the day. It seems like yesterday when Edward R. Murrow invoked his sonorous tones to witness creation--an image from a far-off country entering our own television screen. Today from CNN to the Olympics to a pleasantly innocuous morning show, all day long we encounter virtually every far-flung people--and problem.

And now that we are one television world, we are asked: "What is the present relationship and what will be the future relationship between western consumerist television and world spiritual and cultural values?" That question concerning the tension between the forces of self-satisfaction and moral attitudes has been argued as long as man could speak, for certainly as long as man has spoken he has argued. I would not be so presumptuous as to think I would be the one with the answer even with five hundred to one thousand words at my disposal.

I would simply cite Ecclesiastes: "There is nothing new under the sun." (Even television is just another form of commerce and communication.) It seems that what is happening and will happen is rather obvious. In the global village we are exposed to virtually everything, perhaps more than a human being should have to bear. In more insular times at least there was respite in not knowing. Today we must know instantly about every throat that is slashed in Bosnia, every body that is blown to bits in the Middle East and every scandal that rocks Japan. No battlefield or bedroom is denied us. Meanwhile, millions of people who have not yet been exposed to television will quickly learn that life is less meaningful without the latest fashion jeans or the fastest car on the highway, complete with not one but two air bags.

Was it Wordsworth who said, "The world is too much with us…"? No question about the question--Western consumerist television will certainly permeate the world. But it won't conquer it.

And what about those world spiritual and cultural values? They will still be there too. That is the mystery and the beauty of spiritual and cultural values. You see it when communism collapses and Russians return to their churches. You see it when one out of every three Jews in the world is slaughtered in the Holocaust and yet the words of the Prophets continue to influence our lives with their awesome dignity. You see it when an art museum is filled on a summer Sunday when you would think that everyone is at the baseball game or at the seashore. People will maintain their spiritual and cultural values. More accurately, spiritual and cultural values will maintain us. And we will meet and discuss these issues. And after we are gone still others will confer. All of us, impressed with our wisdom.

But we will change little. As Jewish wisdom tells us (and the observation probably exists in other cultures as well) it is not our obligation to complete the task. It is our obligation at least to begin--at least participate--at least try.

Going back to the question, "What will be?" None of us knows nor does it really matter. The only important question is "What will each of us do?"

SUSAN ROOK*

Her first job in television came after a chance encounter during volunteer work at a local adoption center in Fort Meyers, Florida. She subsequently moved on to a larger market in New Orleans.

She has earned many honors among them the 1993 Ace award nomination from the CableAce Group. She was also one of three panelists for the third presidential debate in 1992. Rook is currently working on her Ph.D. in international relations at Emory University.

DONALD W. SHRIVER, JR.

Donald W. Shriver is currently also a Senior Fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center and teaching a course, "Religion in the Media," for seminary and journalism students. He is the author of 11 books, including Spindles and Spires: Religion and Social Change in Gastonia, The Unsilent South: Prophetic Preaching in Racial Crisis, The Lord's Prayer: A Way of Life, Beyond Success: Corporations and Their Critics in the 'Nineties and (in 1994) An Ethic For Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics.

He has traveled in 55 countries and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also active in the Presbyterian Church, the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. He has been a resident of New York City since 1975.

Global Communications and Consumer-oriented Television: Some Issues
On the whole, the developing world communication system serves the interests of profit and power. Corporations invent new communication technologies in hope of building a market; governments claim and sponsor the latest in rapid communication for influencing citizen acceptance of policy, for social control, and for war; education, trailing behind, enlarges its clientele, tries to enlarge its access to "wisdom" and to convey that wisdom to new constituencies. For the most part these systems begin and continue in the primary service of the communicators, in spite of their frequent claim to be only "responding to the market." Modern technology creates markets, and the primary customers are those persons and organizations with resources enough to be players in the market.

My interest in the burgeoning systems of world communications, in a broad sense, is that of a religious educator. The late Douglas Edwards said once that the values of CBS News were profit, entertainment and information--in that order. Educators tend to reverse the order of priority. We test the media by the quality of their information; we are glad if "important" information is entertaining enough to attract attention. Yet, while we know that there are no free lunches or TV cameras, we are not primarily concerned with financial profits.

Like corporations and governments, educators are likely to have ideas about what their constituencies "need" to know, and the danger of paternalism looms here, as it does with any corporation seeking to convince customers about what they need. The greater danger is that profit and power will dominate the content-choices of the public news media with the result that (1) the notion of "important public information," defined in terms of ethics and public good, gets radically eroded, and (2) the interactions of various world publics become progressively thinner to the detriment of democratic politics.

The latter danger worries me the most. In all of the talk about the information superhighway, I see lots of hope for profit and power from tapping into specialized markets, and much touting of consumer choice but little concern for what an abundance of communication channels will do to and for public life, public deliberation and intra-public understanding. G. H. Mead said once that democracy depends on the ability of voters to vote for someone else's interests as well as for their own. As pluralism of interests and diversity of world views multiply locally and globally, what will electronic communication do to confront each of us with the rest of us? How can we build an interactive system of communications that will on occasion tell us something our neighbor needs us to know even though we would rather not know it? How will the system widen citizens' awareness of each other and give them opportunity to respond to each other's awareness?

The "information-rich" society could turn out to be the same old society in which the rich get richer. How it will serve the information-poor and bring their poverty to the active attention of the rich, remains for me a little-asked question.

JOHN S. SIE*

Prior to EMC, Mr. Sie served as Senior Vice President with Tele- Communications, Inc. (TCI) with responsibilities for strategic planning of new business development, programming, technology and public policy. Beginning in 1988, his focus shifted to the areas of high definition television, fiber optics, telco issues, cable and DBS as well as managing many of the company's programming and new business developments.

Prior to joining TCI in 1984, Mr. Sie spent six years with Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. where he was Senior Vice President of Sales and Planning. Prior to that he was with Jerrold Electronics as Vice President of the CATV Division.

Born in occupied China, Mr. Sie and his family escaped to Taiwan in 1949 and emigrated to the United States the following year. After learning English and graduating from high school near the top of his class, Mr. Sie attended Manhattan College, where he received a B.S.in Electrical Engineering. He also holds an M.E.E. in Electrophysics from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn where he was the recipient of RCA's David Sarnoff Research Fellowship. In 1982, he was awarded the Vanguard Associates Award by the National Cable Television Association and in 1986, the Cable Administration and Marketing Society's Grand Tam Award.

In the mid-1980's, Mr. Sie served as the principal spokesperson for the cable TV industry. He has served on the FCC's Cable Technical Advisory Committee, the IEEE's Standards Subcommittee and the Board of Directors of CAB, C-Span, The Discovery Channel, QVC, Prime Time Tonight, Eldak Corporation, PRIMESTAR Partners and Faroudja Research Enterprises, Inc.

SULAK SIVARAKSA

Commercial TV is the main instrument of consumerism, which is an institutional form of greed devoting billions of hours of creativity for persuasion, seducing or blackmailing people into acquiring things, "good" status, education, security, love, etc. Its strategy is to play (consciously or not) on the fact that being inseparably part of the universe, we still think and feel that we are alienated, separate, bereft. The passion between what we are and what we think we are generates a state of (conscious or unconscious) unhappiness (in Buddhist parlance, dukkha).

Religion has traditionally presented itself as the mediator between the individual "soul," "atman," etc. and the totality (God, Brahman, Nirvana, etc.). Commercial TV as the main medium for consumerism operates as a secularists' religion, promising false happiness in this world. As an English Buddhist, David Arnott, puts it:

Advertisements and consumerism work by identifying the sense of unsatisfactoriness or lack (dukkha) we all hold at a deep level of mind with a particular and then producing an object guaranteed to satisfy that "need," resolve dukkha, provide happiness.

In this way, commercialism and consumerism sell us to ourselves- -the ultimate prostitution. And of course the satisfaction quickly wears off because this is a spurious way of dealing with dukkha, and we come back for more of the same but different.

In Buddhism one is taught to be aware of dukkha (suffering) which is based on tanha (clinging desire). This concept is central to Buddhism. It suggests that all reality is a network of causes and effects, producing various degrees of good and evil, order or disorder, and within it one can discover through discipline and eventually enlightenment the ability to bring about one's own liberation. Each one is to realize the essential non-duality of "self" and "others," the fundamental union of all life and the folly of clinging (tanha) to the self-defeating notions of me and mine. One awakens to the fact that one can live tranquilly but also embody joy, harmony and compassion.

In social terms, it conveys the sense in which the actions, words and desires of each person fit into a framework of interrelationships whereby what one does affects all. The most basic term of compassion (karuna) suggests a widening self-identification with all that lives.

In order to achieve this state, one should practice mindfulness. In order to have peace and happiness inside--not out there; then one can share the peaceful life with others.

Traditionally the first part of training the mind is to achieve tranquility which will allow us to plant seeds of peace within. The second is a technique for understanding the true nature of one's psychological constitution and of the world--an analytical method for exploring causal relations and problem-solving. It develops into an internal factor for wisdom or right understanding by fostering detachment.

The Buddha says that the foundation for real understanding is equanimity for developing self-cultivation and critical self- awareness. Understanding is different from intellectual knowledge, since is comes from both the head and the heart. It helps one to be aware, to be humble, to know one's limits. At the same time, it promotes loving kindness and compassion, allowing us to share in the suffering of others and to work to eliminate its causes.

Of course, when one tackles the cause of suffering, when one is not sure of oneself, one is afraid. One fears not to be recognized, not to be able to catch up with the Joneses. Again, when one is engulfed with greed through consumerism and advertisement, one should really cultivate mindfulness. Then greed or lust is transformed into loving kindness and compassion.

The root cause of evil is like a closed flower. The flower will bloom when the sunlight penetrates deeply into the flower. If one keeps breathing and concentrating, mindfulness will infiltrate the greed. When sunshine penetrates a flower, the flower cannot resist. It has to open itself and show its heart to the sun. If one keeps breathing on one's greed, shining one's compassion and understanding on it, one's greed will soon crack, and one will be able to look into the depths and see its roots.

Once those in the media have the time to cultivate seeds of peace within themselves and are able to synchronize their heads and their hearts, greed will not be their main motive in life--but rather contentedness and a better quality of life with less consumer goods. Once they realize this, they will use the media within their power to produce programs with spiritual and cultural values rather than to promote greed, hatred (violence) and delusion (compartmentalized or specialized technologies).

Rene Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am," which has now become the foundation stone for modern education. Hence educational institutions all over the world, including communication schools, tend to concentrate on the head and not the heart. The more research the professors do, the better they are supposed to be. In fact, the more expert you become, the more compartmentalized you are. So you dig your own grave of knowledge which need not be moral and spiritual.

Students, too, are encouraged to use their heads like bank accounts. The more they accumulate knowledge, the better they will be. The clever ones are rewarded materially and financially although they need not be generous or aware of social ills and how to get rid of them nonviolently.

With consumerism and advertising media, Descartes' dictum has now become "I buy, therefore I am." Without the power to purchase, one becomes helpless. With Buddhism, however, the basic teaching is "I breathe, therefore I am."

Communication schools should have the time for students and professors alike to conduct breathing exercises appropriately (whether one believes in any religion or not is irrelevant) because breathing is so basic that without it one dies. Yet one breathes in so much anxiety, hatred, greed and delusion. Instead one should breathe in happiness, peace, contentedness--to be aware of oneself and the oppressive or lucrative social structure--and how to overcome our own alienation. Then we can work mindfully for social liberation.

Breathing helps us to be calm, to synchronize our heads and our hearts. It brings critical self-awareness, which can be used to examine our own curriculum, our own society, nation-state, consumerism, etc. With this attitude, we will not hate the exploiters, the capitalists or the oppressors. Yet one could use one's understanding to dismantle the oppressive consumers' system and its inherent violence and greed.

If any learning institution would encourage teachers and students to develop both their hearts and their heads, they would become good friends, learning from each other, critical of each other and developing their potential to the best of their ability against greed, hatred and delusion so that meditation and learning can become mindful.

With mindfulness, one can have a real understanding of oneself and the world. With understanding comes humility and compassion, not haughty knowledge and arrogance.

The world today needs so much understanding and compassion. I believe if communication schools start something very small like meditation practice for right-mindfulness, they can certainly better prepare future media leaders to be socially responsible decision makers, so that the future will be bright, beautiful and peaceful as well as just with proper environmental balance.

ANNABELLE SREBERNY-MOHAMMADI

She is a first-generation British Jewish atheist married to an Iranian of Shi'ite Moslem background and has lived for extensive periods in Iran and the United States. Trained in History at Cambridge and Sociology at Columbia University, she taught sociology and communications in Iran through the revolutionary period of 1976- 1980 and edited an English-language journal entitled Communications and Development Review. After seven years teaching at Queens College, CUNY, Annabelle returned to Britain in 1992 to take up her current position.

Her publications include Foreign News in Twenty-Nine Countries (UNESCO, 1985), Questioning the Media (Sage, 1990; 2nd edition forthcoming), Communication, Culture and the Iranian Revolution (with A. Mohammedi, University of Minnesota Press, in press) and Globalization, Communication and a Transnational Public Sphere (co- edited with S. Braman, IAMCR/Hampton Press, forthcoming). Her current research interests include gender, media and politics; tactical media and alternative globalization, and international news coverage in a new world order.

At the end of the 20th century, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the apparent demise of radical ideologies, more and more political discourses invite participants to peel away secular identities to reveal deep-rooted religious ones. Behind the Nintendo imagery of the Gulf War, the rhetoric of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia and other conflict zones in Central Asia, South Africa, Europe, lie religious differences. The most central and problematic encounter is between the West and Islam, and many contemporary discourses seem bent on recreating "otherness."

At the same time, global media and telecommunications networks allow unparalleled instantaneous glimpses into other people's lives across the globe, while massive movements of people--as refugees, migrant workers, business people, students and tourists--creative diverse cultural contacts on an unprecedented scale. We increasingly live in a world in which there are no others.

The proliferation of different forms of media technologies worldwide has allowed hitherto unrepresented groups--women, racial and ethnic minorities, rural communities, indigenous peoples--to have direct access to message-making, often blurring the distinction between mainstream and alternative media. Satellite delivery of telecommunications has also facilitated rapid global interactivity. There is talk of an emerging global cultural ecumene, a positive outcome through shared values and aspirations, particularly based on mutual concern for a frail planet.

The rhetoric of globalization is often the language of transnational corporations which are concerned with global markets, not global movements or meaning. Satellite systems deliver Western entertainment formats into non-Western non-industrialized environments, their penetration like a cultural rape, raising fears of cultural homogenization and commercialization that create false and unsatisfiable desires.

Thus, we cannot talk simply of the "media" as some monolithic entity, for all media operate within specific regulatory frameworks, economic settings and political environments, as do their audiences.

Is television undermining religion? Even anecdotal evidence does not suggest so. I come from a context which has often boasted the "least worst television" provided by public service broadcasting, with legislation to guarantee religious programming. In Britain over the last year or so we have had on television two major debates asking if God was dead; a six-part survey on Islam, anchored by a Pakistani academic; a number of documentaries on the Holocaust; a quiz called Divine Inspiration, as well as regular broadcasting of religious services.

In many places we see the creative use of television by religious groups, the most obvious being the rise of televangelism in the United States and elsewhere, a transmutation but hardly the death of religion. Religious networks are spawning on cable and satellite systems globally.

It could also be argued that much of the impetus behind the reinvention of religious tradition in Iran, for example, was derived from a critique of the deep and rapid westernization sweeping the country under the Shah's regime--thus, in a sort of boomerang effect, western mediated culture and values actually precipitated a retraditionalization of popular Shiism.

None of this suggests that the media undermine religion. Clearly media alone cannot bear the sole brunt of our critique of the failures of modern society or the crisis of modern morality. We need to examine mediated culture in the contexts of the curricula of education, the discourses of politics, the dilemmas of economies. It is often the real violence of economic realities and repressive politics that brutalize and reinforce inequality, rather than mediated representations. There appear to be deeper crises of moral leadership and vision amongst elites than amongst most ordinary people.

At a time when more of the world's people have access to media and thus to images of both themselves and others, it is increasingly important that media reflect humane values of tolerance and respect for difference as well as facilitating freedom of expression.

There is a need to promote debate about sensible national and international media and cultural policies, a role once dynamically filled by UNESCO. We need greater diversity of media content, but that is not readily supported by purely commercial concerns.

Perhaps religious leaders can foster the emerging global ecumenism, the development of global solidarity and shared (universal?) human values, rather than the more traditional religious affiliations which divided more than united. And promote open discussion about contemporary social issues--such as the continued existence of poverty amidst plenty, the changing role of women and shape of families, sexuality in a time of AIDS--rather than repeat the old and divisive dogmas.

Gibreel Farishta, one of the central characters of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, asks aloud, "Question: What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself a kind of belief. Doubt. The human condition." (1988: 92) Perhaps we need to remain skeptical, about both the power of religion and the power of the media. And optimistic.

MICHAEL TRABER

Ethical Principles of Communication: A Christian Perspective
The mass media are not a law unto themselves. They are what they are by virtue of a series of human actions which are subject to certain ethical principles.

TRAN VAN DINH

He came from a family of Confucian scholars, Buddhist philosophers and Taoist poets. In his youth, he participated in the anti-colonial struggle against the French. Later, he became a diplomat and has served in Thailand, Burma (Minister plenipotentiary), the United Nations (observer), Argentina, Mexico (nonresident ambassador) and the United States of America (Minister Counselor, Charge d'affaires).

He resigned from public service in 1964 for an academic career. His publications include hundreds of articles and essays, two major textbooks (Independence Liberation Revolution: An Approach to the Understanding of The Third World; Communication and Diplomacy in a Changing World; both by Ablex) and two novels (No Passenger on the River; Blue Dragon White Tiger) that take place in Hue. He was also contributor (for Asia) and editorial advisor to The International Encyclopedia of Communications.

In recent years, he frequently visited Southeast Asia and Vietnam and has written an article on his native city of Hue in the November 1989 issue of the National Geographic Magazine. He co- authored an Insight Guides book on Vietnam which was translated into several languages (including German and French).

Fifteen years ago, I wrote in the Economic Review of Sri Lanka (October/November 1979) an article, "The Tube of Illusion," about the possible unhealthy effects of consumerist western television on the cultural and spiritual values of an East Asian country.

Since then, the tube of illusion has been reaching out to all corners of the world, in particular, Asia. It is being transformed into a multi-laned electronic highway following its consummated "marriage" with the telephone and the computer. The illusion of yesterday is now metamorphosed into a mediated, externally imposed "virtual reality." Fragmented news, compressed facts, exhibitionist talk shows sandwiched between infomercials, recipes for instant wealth and fame, are packaged and blended with a potpourri of violence and sex, serial killers and psychoanalyzed rapists to compete for "quality programs" and "quality time" to lure drugged viewers into reaching for the credit card and calling a 1-800 number. To provide an element of authenticity and authority, segments in news programs are proclaimed in commanding titles as "Reality Check" and "Eyes on America" amidst mutually congratulatory introductions in which TV personalities and stars praise each other's investigative scoops.

As I was born and raised in Hue, the former imperial capital of Vietnam, my cultural and spiritual values were formed and nurtured by the teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. In an article "The Edification, the Purification and Liberation of Man, or the Influence of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in East Asia," Thomas F. Fang wrote: "To the Confucians, the individual should be ceaselessly edified, to the Taoists, he should be constantly liberated, and to the Buddhists, he should be perpetually purified" (Charles A. Moore, ed. The Status of the Individual in East and West, University of Hawaii Press, 1968, p. 24).

The edification of the individual can be accomplished through a process of self-improvement within a well-defined set of relationships and responsibility between a person and his/her family, his/her nation, and the world community, the "brothers and sisters in the four seas." The liberation of the individual can be realized by the observance of The Tao (The Way of Nature) and by "non-action action," an action that does not degenerate into violence.

The purification of the individual is the result of the enlightenment to The Buddha's Four Noble Truths, namely that the source of all human sufferings lies in cravings for wealth and power. These three religions/philosophies which emerged around the 5th century B.C. in China and India formed the foundations of Vietnamese education at least since the establishment in Hanoi in 1010 of the first university, appropriately called Van Mieu (Temple of Literature). They share one common operational doctrine, The Mean or The Middle Way, to understand things, to peacefully resolve conflicts and contradictions. Basically, the Middle Way prescribes that no dogma, or its opposite dogma, can be the full and absolute truth. The relative truth in real life can be reached, according to Vietnamese wisdom, by balancing the Tinh (feeling) with the Ly (reason).

Based on my experiences in living and working in the United States during the last three decades, I can conclude that consumerist television essentially degrades the individual, chains him/her to an obsessive determination to dominate nature and man, promotes and glorifies cravings and material possessions, thus polluting his/her body and mind. In short, consumerist television stands as a major obstacle to human edification, liberation and purification.

To prevent consumerist television from taking over our reality and our communication, we should practice The Middle Way, making a clear difference between Information and Knowledge. Daniel Boorstin, the respected former Librarian of Congress, has observed: "Information, like entertainment, is something someone else provides us. But we cannot be acknowledged. We must all acquire knowledge for ourselves." (Quoted in "Daniel Boorstin: Librarian of Congress" by Mark Frankel, Express, December 1983)

The same advice was given by Buddha to his closest disciple, Ananda, prior to His demise: "Be a Light unto yourself. Do take yourself to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a torch. Look not for refuge to any besides yourselves." Lao Tsu, the founder of Taoism, warned, "Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know."For this conference to develop into a network of those who are concerned with the unhealthy effects of consumerist television on the cultural and spiritual values of peoples everywhere, the following wise counsel by Wang Yang Ming (1472-1529) is appropriate:

JEFFREY C. WEBER*

Under Mr. Weber's direction, VISN has tripled its programming schedule to 24 hours a day and has developed an innovative schedule of critically acclaimed national and international series and specials.

He shaped the early programming development of Nickelodeon, the national children's cable network. As Vice President and Executive Producer from 1983 to 1984 and as Executive Producer from 1980, he was responsible for creating the network's original program content and its distinct look.

As Producer/Director for United Methodist Communications from 1975 to 1980, Mr. Weber developed and produced more than 30 films for television and/or audio-visual distribution. He also designed and implemented marketing and distribution strategies.

Mr. Weber also has been the independent producer working on various network series, miniseries, specials and home video projects for The Disney Channel, flagship public television stations WNET-TV in New York and WGBH-TV in Boston, Henson Associates (The Muppets) and other clients. He also has held freelance production responsibilities for NBC, RAI (Italian Radio and Television) and Warner Bros. Pictures.

Programs produced by Mr. Weber have been honored with many television industry, civic and educational awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award; the Ohio State Award; five CableAce Awards for Cablecasting Excellence; two Action for Children's Television Awards; two CINE Golden Eagle Awards; Blue and Red Ribbons from the American Film Festival; Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals from the International Film TV Festival; the National Education Association Award and the National Mental Health Film Festival Award, among others.

Mr. Weber earned a B.A. from Gettysburg College in 1970 and a Master of Divinity degree from the Union Theological Seminary in 1974.

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BIOGRAPHIES AND STATEMENTS

SWAMI AGNIVESH