Catholic Media Journal

While many people think of Social Media as a fad, those of us involved in religious communication – evangelization – and education have a critical mission to bring the Truth to people wherever they are. We need to be out in the marketplace, the town square. Here’s where we’ll find our people:

Are we out there?

Jim Coyle

As Church, we have the same problem today as the disciples did nearly 2000 years ago: How do we reach people with our Message?

This is an essential question that the Church must repeatedly ask – and answer – as her mission of evangelization continues while people and societies adopt different methods of communication and culture. It’s the question Angela Santana posed and responded to in a presentation she gave earlier this week. She makes her points very well in the slides she’s shared online, critical points for the Church in our modern age:

You can follow and interact with Angela on Twitter @inspiredangela.

Jim Coyle

This is an amazing video by Francis Gardler, a graduate student at Ohio University, which is meaningful on many levels, for all of us involved in communications and education. More than other media sources, the Church has the call and responsibility to share the human condition and respond to the very real needs in our world today. I need to watch this video again – and the other videos Gardler has produced – ponder and respond. This captures what we should be doing.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll have the old-ish Facebook layout, but I’m reading and hearing bad reactions to the new design. It feels like Facebook changes its look (and mind?) every few months. By the time we users are comfortable with a new look and navigation, it seems they come out with a new one. (And occasionally there’s something like the confusion between “News Feed” and “Live Feed” which for millions of users still isn’t really resolved.)

While it may take me a little longer to find people and apps in the days and weeks following a redesign, the sudden and frequent changes can be especially disorienting for many people who have come to rely on Facebook for contact and support while they’re limited in what they can do – homebound during illness, unable to respond quickly to change, etc. Online communication and community has become a life raft for millions of people, and Facebook’s practice of frequent – and poorly announced, if at all – changes is a serious issue.

I hope that Facebook’s leaders will actively and seriously review their practices in light of users who may have temporary or permanent physical or cognitive limitations, ones that enable the these persons to be very alive and valuable members of society, able to make valuable contributions to the online community, but need stable, consistent, familiar physical and online environments. These people, their families and their friends would then be able to remain active members of the Facebook community.

From a public service and accessibility standpoint, implementing an option to keep using an older Facebook design would be a significant service to these people, and from a business standpoint would help advertisers trying to reach this audience, including families and other caregivers. Otherwise, much of this audience will be lost.

Jim Coyle

This is a project by Shelbi Linscomb, her first using Soundslides.