Chapter 13 is covered by John Dyer as part of our Group Blogging Project discussing the book Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps. If you need a quick overview to what Flickering Pixels is about, please go here.

Cause when they own the information, they can bend it all they want.
– John Mayer

How to Misunderstand Shane Hipps

In this chapter, Hipps discusses text messaging and how it makes young people into deviants. He says that teens use text messaging to send all kinds of coded messages about sex and drugs that their parents can’t understand. This is in contrast to the good old days when adults had all the power since they were the ones who knew how to read complex books.

I disagree with Hipps because text messaging is pretty much the same as all other forms of communication – they can be used for good or used for bad.  Some people, teenagers especially, will tend to find bad things to do with them, but they can also by used for good. Ultimately though, these technologies have no influence on society.

Furthermore, for every article that says texting separates parents and teens, another suggests that it brings them too close. If parents really need help, they can consult LG’s new tool LG DTXTR to decode the messages.

A Second Look at the Chapter

Of course, this chapter is not really about text messaging. Text messaging is merely Hipps’ example of how a technology can change access to information and, in turn, the change in access to information changes who has power.

Take for example the recent use of Twitter and other social networks in the Iranian protests. Twitter changed information access and thus had an effect on power structures. The same thing happened in the church when the printing press was invented – lay people suddenly had access to the Scriptures (information) and the Roman church lost its authority (power).

This is what “The Medium is the Message” means. It’s not just that technology (the medium) can alter how people perceive the words (the message), but that the technology itself alters society in monumental ways and that impact becomes the message. The “message” of the printing press was not just the words printed on pages, but the new truth that information could not be controlled. The impact (message) of the Internet (and text messaging as Hipps points) presents us with a further shift in power structures. This is true in Iran, and it’s true in households with teenagers.

Information Power and Love

As an IT person at a ministry and one with technical knowledge, I have quite a bit of power due to my control of information. So I have to ask myself: Are there areas in my life where I wield power over information and thus power in relationships? Am I always the guy with the fancy phone or computer? Do I know something others don’t via my technology? Are there areas in which I am tempted to abuse that power? Are there ways I can love others by sharing with them what I know and how I know it? Can my church community empower the broader culture by giving them information access? Is the information I communicate with my power Gospel-centered?

[Image from John]

To set the stage for the ChurchCrunch blog tour of Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels, we thought it might be helpful to introduce Shane Hipps and the subject he’s been writing and speaking about. For fun, let’s do them in reverse order:

What He’s Talking About

Have you ever heard someone say, “90% of communication is tone of voice”?

Well, over the last 100 years people started thinking that if our words could be shaped and reinterpreted based on body language, maybe technologies like TV, radio, and even writing also shape the way we think and interact.

Marshall McLuhan was one of the first well known thinkers in this area which came to be called “media ecology.” However, his popularity died down in the late 1960s and even in his heyday, the Church didn’t really take much interest in his ideas.

About Shane Hipps

In Flickering Pixels, Hipps is attempting to take media ecology out of the academic world and use it to show us how technology impacts the way we see the world and our faith.

Hipps is in a unique position to do this because he used to work in Porche’s advertising department and now is a pastor of a Mennonite church. This means he’s neither just some guy who doesn’t really understand media nor a person who’s never done any real ministry.

What’s the Big Deal?

Hipps is concerned that most of us don’t understand the enormous influence technology has on our lives. Rather than tell us to run away and turn it all off, he wants to help the Church understand it. He writes, “we are only puppets of our technology if we remain asleep; Flickering Pixels will wake us up.”

Hopefully, reading Flickering Pixels and talking about it together we can all help wake each other up!

[Image from B_Tal]