wfn.org | More than 100 Sites Participate in NCCCUSA

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org]

Over 100 Sites Tune in to NCCCUSA Media Values Teleconference
Media Values Teleconference
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A.
Internet: c/o carol_fouke.parti@ecunet.org

Contact: Wendy S. McDowell, NCC, 212-870-2227 or 
Mary Byrne Hoffmann, NCC Program Consultant, 914-
358-0624; Fax 914-358-0679
NCC5/9/97 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 9 ---- In the midst of 
prime time on May 6, a national teleconference seen 
at more than 100 sites encouraged viewers to 
critique the 16,000 media messages they each receive 
every day and to recognize the values transmitted in 
all these messages.  The satellite teleconference, 
"Family, Community and Media Values," was sponsored 
by the National Council of Churches (NCC) and kicks 
off the NCC's Media Awareness Year.

 "The purpose of the Media Awareness Year is to 
introduce the concepts and skills of media literacy 
into local congregations and communities," said Mary 
Byrne Hoffmann, executive producer of the 
teleconference and Program Consultant for the NCC.  
"But calling it a year is really a misnomer.  It is 
a campaign that can happen anytime and in any local 
group," she explained.  "This is something we would 
really like to carry through the millenium and there 
seems to be a lot of support for that."

"Probably the best thing that came out of the 
teleconference was that both participants and people 
who viewed it have determined we need more than one 
teleconference to deal with the complexities of 
living in a media culture," Ms. Hoffmann added.  "So 
this teleconference has become one in a series.  
Already, we have planned one in the fall about news, 
and ideally we would like to have three to five, the 
content of which would be largely determined by 
viewers."

Ms. Hoffmann also commented that the level and 
content of participation in the teleconference 
"indicated that there is energy out there wanting to 
go beyond deconstructing and analyzing the media to 
doing something.  The interest is not academic but 
activist."

Participants gathered at 107 sites in 33 states 
and Canada, including churches (Roman Catholic and 
Protestant), schools, colleges, hospitals and drug 
treatment centers.  The teleconference was broken 
down into five sections: Overview of Media Literacy; 
The Role of the Parent, Teacher, Preacher; Media and 
Commercialism; Media and Substance Abuse; and 
Practical Ideas for Family and Community Solutions.  
The Rev. Arthur Cribbs, Jr., Executive Director of 
the Office of Communication, United Church of 
Christ, hosted the teleconference.

 Expert panelists discussed media values and 
modeled ways to discover "the message within the 
message."  Media values were described as the way 
news "defines and prioritizes the public debate," 
according to Garlinda Burton, Editor for the United 
Methodist magazine Interpreter as well as the way 
"lifestyles and relationships" are transmitted in 
commercials and sitcoms, as described by Edward 
Murray, Executive Vice President of Oblate Media.

 Participants also stressed that the United 
States through the media is the major exporter of 
values.  Rev. John Pungente, SJ, Director of the 
Jesuit Communication Project in Toronto, Ontario, 
encouraged media producers and viewers to respect 
cultural diversity and challenge the dominance of 
world culture by the U.S.

 "One way to address these problems is in the 
original philosophy of the FCC code which said that 
all media should be serving in the public good," Mr. 
Murray commented.

Because of the interactive format of the 
satellite teleconference, callers from across the 
nation were able to call in with comments and 
questions.  By midway into the show, callers were 
illustrating the very skills they had been 
encouraged to develop by questioning what they had 
seen and heard.  "People were actually 
deconstructing the teleconference," Ms. Hoffman 
said.

 A caller from Kansas City asked about the 
harmful effect of violent images on children.  David 
Walsh, Founder and Executive Director of the 
National Institute on Media and the Family, said the 
most harmful effect of these images is that they 
have nourished a culture of disrespect.  "We've gone 
from `have a nice day' to `make my day,'" Mr. Walsh 
said.

 A caller from Hamilton, Canada challenged the 
notion that media values are our values.  "By and 
large, media values are corporate values, and 
corporate values exclude a lot of people," he said.

Mr. Walsh responded that there is a "both/and" 
going in with media.  "On the one hand, media 
producers say they are `giving people what they 
want,' but what they produce also creates an 
appetite," he said.  Ms. Burton said corporate 
values do reflect many peoples' values, because 
people are desiring "the nice house and the nice 
car."

 Later in the show, Elizabeth Thoman, CHM, 
Director of the Center for Media Literacy in Los 
Angeles, encouraged people not to build a "circle of 
blame" around these issues but to build a "circle of 
responsibility."  "We as consumers need to be 
informed and at the same time we need to hold 
industry accountable," she said.  "Media 
corporations must also be good citizens."

 In response to negative and violent images, Ms. 
Thoman encouraged churches and community 
organizations to be "proactive" in telling the good 
stories.  "Write, call and talk about what you see 
in the media," Mr. Murray also stressed.  "It really 
does matter."

 A set of panelists then discussed the 
glamorization, normalization and desensitization of 
alchohol and drug use in the media.  A caller who 
works as a drug counselor in Harlem identified what 
he sees as "media industrial colonialization" of 
poor communities by those with power.  "There are 
not two sides in this debate, there is a top and a 
bottom," he said.  Another caller pointed to the 
efforts of the tobacco and hard liquor industries to 
get advertisements back on the air.  "We thought we 
had won those battles in the 50s, but now we're 
having to fight them again," he said.  He suggested 
that one place to challenge media would be to try to 
extend the prohibition to beer ads.

 All the panelists stressed that media literacy 
is a grassroots movement that starts at the local 
level.  "All the parents of a community, not just 
the people with children, need to start talking," 
said Fred Garcia, a Senior Advisor to the United 
States Department of Justice on substance abuse 
prevention. Ms. Thoman expressed concern that kids 
have the chance to tell their own stories and 
identify their own dreams and visions rather than 
only be recipients.

 The teleconference concluded with two people 
modeling local media literacy strategies.  Gail Hunt 
Violette, Director of Telecommunications for the 
Diocese of Charlotte, N.C. convinced the Diocese in 
1989 to make media literacy a priority.  She has 
developed educational programs, produced videos and 
designed a successful weekend retreat program, "The 
Gospel According to Media."

 Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, an educator and author 
of Families Valued (Friendship Press) who lives in 
Minneapolis, described the intentional community in 
which he lives which places a priority on raising 
"healthy, responsible children."  He described a 
model in which children are given time and seen as 
central to their parents' lives and yet are taught 
to see beyond themselves and give to others with 
their valuable skills.

 Ms. Hoffmann said it was these kind of 
practical suggestions that caused excitement at the 
local sites.  "People are keen on getting 
solutions."  She said the teleconference 
participants themselves simulated the very action 
they were hoping would happen at local sites.  "They 
came away as a group with new initiatives and 
strategies," she said.

 Participants at local sites also engaged in 
discussions following the teleconference where they 
shared ideas and networked.

"After this beginning overview, now is the time 
for local sites and for us as organizers, through 
resources and additional teleconferences, to talk 
about the derivative issues," Ms. Hoffmann said.  
"We need to explore what exactly is the price of 
living in the media culture, both the price of 
exploitation and the price of responsibility."

 "More and more people are coming to realize 
that in order to understand ourselves, our cultures 
and in order to pass our values on, we need to 
understand the media culture," Ms. Hoffman said.  
"This is clearly something at this time that has a 
life of its own."

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