Ninetyandnine's Apostolic Media Survey
This week Ninetyandnine released a new cover: "The State of the Apostolic Nation—Media Consumption: Consuming Media or Consumed by Media?"
The media survey polled Apostolics over the last two weeks and offers a look at the trends of our media intake. Commentary is offered on what these trends potentially say about the Apostolic nation.
Media Prejudices
One thing I always find interesting is our biases toward certain media. For example, 69% of Apostolics surveyed either don't watch television at all or watch less than one hour per day. That's wonderful, and I certainly respect anyone's convictions about tv and/or submission to their pastor/organization's guidelines. But 66% of Apostolics surveyed spend over an hour each day surfing the Internet for pleasure (not including e-mail or work use I assume).
I see a huge discrepancy here, and I can't help but think it's because tv has traditionally been branded with a label that has evolved into mythic proportions while new technology is not yet understood or addressed. Isn't it the message of media and not the technology that we are concerned with? If we don't develop convictions about the message conveyed via media, it won't matter which medium we ban. Guidelines can't be developed quickly enough to cover all the technology devices introduced to the market every x number of seconds. Convictions about the message can.
Blast from the Past
If you look back at the archived media survey from 2001, results to commonly polled questions haven't skyrocketed anywhere. (Although the five year difference in the surveys is evident by the new technologies that have been recently introduced and are hence missing from the 2001 survey.) Does the consistency of survey results mean we're holding the line when it comes to our convictions about media intake? Does that disprove the oft-voiced doomsday message that even the church is slipping with the passage of time? Or, again, is our media consumption changing to new forms we have yet to address?
The media survey polled Apostolics over the last two weeks and offers a look at the trends of our media intake. Commentary is offered on what these trends potentially say about the Apostolic nation.
Media Prejudices
One thing I always find interesting is our biases toward certain media. For example, 69% of Apostolics surveyed either don't watch television at all or watch less than one hour per day. That's wonderful, and I certainly respect anyone's convictions about tv and/or submission to their pastor/organization's guidelines. But 66% of Apostolics surveyed spend over an hour each day surfing the Internet for pleasure (not including e-mail or work use I assume).
I see a huge discrepancy here, and I can't help but think it's because tv has traditionally been branded with a label that has evolved into mythic proportions while new technology is not yet understood or addressed. Isn't it the message of media and not the technology that we are concerned with? If we don't develop convictions about the message conveyed via media, it won't matter which medium we ban. Guidelines can't be developed quickly enough to cover all the technology devices introduced to the market every x number of seconds. Convictions about the message can.
Blast from the Past
If you look back at the archived media survey from 2001, results to commonly polled questions haven't skyrocketed anywhere. (Although the five year difference in the surveys is evident by the new technologies that have been recently introduced and are hence missing from the 2001 survey.) Does the consistency of survey results mean we're holding the line when it comes to our convictions about media intake? Does that disprove the oft-voiced doomsday message that even the church is slipping with the passage of time? Or, again, is our media consumption changing to new forms we have yet to address?
posted by Lee Ann @ 4:35 AM
3 Comments:
At 5:41 PM,
Anonymous said…
These are all great questions Lee Ann. I was also intrigued by the similarities between 2001 & 2006.
At 6:29 AM,
stu said…
stu the UN-ANONYMOUS says: T.V. is more than a media source. It is primarily an advertising tool. For every hour of programming there are 20 minutes worth of commercial ads. Even though subliminal ads were banned, there is still the inundation with constant images of what to buy and why YOU TOO should buy [stuff].
At 10:53 AM,
Wesley said…
Re: Stu's comment.
A study was done recently that showed that the retail consumption went up significantly and linearly with TV viewing. I don't remember what the amount was, but it seems like it was ($1500/year)/hour of TV per week. That ought to be good reason to not watch it.
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