Institute of Social Communication

Permanent URI for this community

http://192.168.4.170:4000/handle/20.500.12342/177

Welcome to Institute of Social Communication Sub-community

Browse

Browsing Institute of Social Communication by Author "Inonge, Kelidy mutukwa"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Sharing Faith through Television with 'File Catholic Youth of Good Shepherd Parish of Lusaka Archdiocese
    (Tangaza University College, 2007) Inonge, Kelidy mutukwa
    It would appear that communication and various forms of media have always been part and parcel of the human person's existence. Classical Greek literature attests to the intense study of Rhetoric, Poetry and art witnessed in that epoch. However, today, the media are more established and pervasive and form an essential component of our society. Also the internet has become an extremely dominant part of our lives and culture. The media, especially television as a medium of communication, serve as sources of entertainment, education and information for different people in their age groups. The youth in particular are avid users of various forms of media. In many families, it is the youth who know more about television and more likely than not will persuade the family on the type of television that the family should purchase. Communication makes demands on our time, or on our culture. It is not uncommon for the youth to spend many hours in front of television. McQuail writing about subculture and audience, in his book Mass Communication Theory, notes that the youth have their own way of using the media and this can be deduced from the content of what they watch, listen to or read. He observes that in most cases, the youth will subtly demonstrate their distance from official school values and the values of their parents' generation by the kind of music that they listen to or watch.' For young people bordering on adolescence, television has been likened to a modern grandparent that sits in front of them telling stories of life. It is at the same time a school that provides education and the youth are very much willing to learn from this school. Television also acts as a peer group from which the youth adapt to different life styles. This means that television today stands out as a major agent of socialization which is teaching, shaping and moulding the young people. It is these same youth that the Christian Church and in particular, the Catholic Church will consider as the Church of tomorrow. Cardinal Joachim Meisner puts it more aptly when he says, the youth are "the future of the Church and the future of the world."2 For Ralph Stewart IV and Stephanie Simic, "the youth are the Church of the present as well as the Church of future."3 In the tone of the Eastern African Bishops "the youth constitute a treasure of human resources.' The Church's interest, acknowledgement, and hope in the youth is more than just an appraisal but a call for all concerned and involved in sharing faith with the young people to pay particular attention to the emerging challenges for youth evangelization. The call is for the whole Church to concern itself with growth in faith and welfare of youth.