Power of Media: Secular Challenge & A Christian Response [Full Text]

By Elna Boesak
  
 [Full Text]
  
Biographical note: Mrs. Elna Boesak is a South African TV
journalist and documentarian with a career spanning 25 years. She is
also a researcher with 15 years experience investigating the media and
globalization.

I am very honored not only to be here and share in the deliberations
but also to share some of my thoughts on the what I think is one of the
most crucial questions not for our time, because in the United States
and Europe this has been an issue that people have been battling with
for a very, very long time.
 
Also in academic circles, in terms of journalism training and
journalism theory, these are profound questions that are asked every
day about the relationship between the media and civil society and the
media’s impact on society. So thank you very much for the opportunity
to speak…
 
I am speaking really today with three hats on, and I need to make this very clear.
 
First, I am speaking as a Christian believer who is convinced that
we as Christian believers we should engage the issues around us, and a
believer who has come to understand how complex and complicated it is
to live and work and bear witness in the world we live in.
 
I am also speaking, secondly, as a journalist of 25 years. And for
any of you who thought when I walked in, “I don’t know her,” good for
you. For those when I walked in said “Oh, there goes Alan Boesak’s
white wife,” now now. And then for those who do not know I’ve been a
journalist and the work I’ve done, I do have copies of my CV, and I’ll
tell you why because I think it’s interesting to see what I did over 25
years. And many of those issues I can go back to and produce again
today — exactly on the same issues.
 
But (my third had is that of) a journalist who has come to
understand over 25 years of working in the field and 15 years of
intense research on the role of the globalized media everywhere and how
incredibly crucial this question is that’s been placed on the agenda.
And I came with that thought…and I am so very happy that we’ve created
a stage where the church and academicians and practitioners understand
that we need to not only talk once about this but we need to continue
talking about this every way we can because this is a very important
issue…
 
Allow me to start with a premise on which I hope to shed more light
as I go along in my paper. And this is my premise…and it’s probably
going to create a lovely dialog because I know that many of these
issues are critical of the media but so also of the church and all of
us. So I am not standing here as an aversion to anybody. I am standing
here grappling with the issues with all these hats on.