Educate and regulate

Today the Church is celebrating World Communications Day. The Pope's message proposed the theme "The Media in the Family: a Risk and a Richness".

There is no need to point to the important place that the media occupy in contemporary societies. Audience surveys conducted in Malta show that around 98 per cent say that they watch TV regularly while around 75 per cent say the same for radio listening. Newspapers score less than 50 per cent. Almost one in four of the Maltese listen to two hours of radio transmissions. That amounts to 30 days a year!

Just over ten per cent listen to four hours a day which adds up to 60 days a year. Just over one third of the Maltese watch TV for two hours a day or 30 days a year. Thirteen per cent watch it four hours a day or 60 days a year!

Quite naturally all this watching and listening presents the good, the bad and the ugly. The Pope addresses the different aspects of media usage in his message.

Today's global reach of mass media offers virtually unlimited opportunities for families in terms of education, cultural expansion and even spiritual growth, he said, noting that sometimes the media treat the family with intelligence and perception. They show married couples and children as they deal with challenges and conflicts, all the while trying to separate right from wrong and "true love from its counterfeits", he said.

"On the other hand, the family and family life are all too often inadequately portrayed in the media," he said.

"Infidelity, sexual activity outside marriage, and the absence of a moral and spiritual vision of the marriage covenant are depicted uncritically, while positive support is at times given to divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. Such portrayals, by promoting causes inimical to marriage and the family, are detrimental to the common good of society," the papal message said.

The Pope called for "practical initiatives" to offset this image of the family. Professional communicators should show courage in resisting commercial pressures or the demands of secular ideologies, he said.

Civil authorities also have a key role, he said. "Without resorting to censorship, it is imperative that public authorities set in place regulatory policies and procedures to ensure that the media do not act against the good of the family. Family representatives should be part of this policy-making," he said. A very important initiative that can be taken is the inclusion in school syllabi of programmes of media education. Media education helps students to be able to read media messages and have a good framework of interpretation.

The Church in Malta was in the forefront of this initiative. In the beginning of the Eighties the Church, through the work of the Media Centre, initiated a programme of media education in Church schools.

Today, almost a quarter of a century later, this programme is still being administered in most schools. Last October a new textbook for Form 1 of secondary level was published. A book for Form 2 will be published later this year.

The Pope emphasises the importance of parents as the primary and most important educators of their children and the first to teach them about the media. "They are called to train their offspring in the moderate, critical, watchful and prudent use of the media in the home. When parents do that consistently and well, family life is greatly enriched," he adds.

"Even very young children can be taught important lessons about the media: that they are produced by people anxious to communicate messages; that these are often messages to do something - to buy a product, to engage in dubious behaviour - that is not in the child's best interests or in accord with moral truth," the Pope states.

In a word, he contends that parents must explain to children that they "should not uncritically accept or imitate what they find in the media".

With the second principle, the Pope reminds parents that they "need to regulate the use of the media at home".

"This would include planning and scheduling media use, strictly limiting the time children devote to media, making entertainment a family experience, putting some media entirely off limits, and periodically excluding all of them for the sake of other family activities," John Paul II writes.

He acknowledges that for these principles to be effective, parents must give "good example to their children by their own thoughtful and selective use of media".

In this connection, the Pope suggests that it might be "helpful to join with other families to study and discuss the problems and opportunities presented by the use of the media".

"Families," he adds, "should be outspoken in telling producers, advertisers and public authorities what they like and dislike."

This mobilisation of media users in general and parents in particular, is an area in which the Church in Malta has not been active enough. One augurs that the Pope's message will provide the necessary stimulus for some Church organisation to take the initiative in the area.