Thinking Critically About the Media We Use

After a full day of sealing my driveway, I sat down to write an article for Children’s Ministry Magazine about the rise of the curriculum that centerpiece video clips. After a few hours, I was reminded that Christians tend to focus on evaluating the content of the medium and not the medium itself. For example, we’ve built a cottage industry that screens DVD’s and movies for moral content. However, we’re less critical when it comes to evaluating how the medium changes how we think.

Enter Marshall McLuhan, a Christian thinker and a social scientist. He’s been called the High Priest of Pop Culture and coined countless phrases that we use today… “global village”, “the medium is the message”, and “media.”

McLuhan taught us to realize that a technology enchances or “extends” a part of the human body. The automobile is an extention of the foot. But every extension comes with an “amputation”– something becomes obselete. The automobile made the “walking culture” a think of the past.

Video presentations are an extension of the ears and ears. However, they “amputate” the mouth, hands, and feet. This is catastrophic in a learning environment. Children only remember 20% of what they hear and see, but up to 90% of they do and teach.

We need to use video very judiciously in our classrooms, in quick bite-sized pieces. Videos clips must be critically used to launch active-learning exercizes but never to carry the frieght of learning.  

I commend McLuhan someone with whom the church needs to renew it’s aquaintance. Click here to get started.