Guy Brandon on Social Media

The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online, this one by Guy Brandon:

Guy Brandon, ‘The Medium is the Message: the Spiritual Impacts of Social Media’, Cambridge Papers 25, 3 (September 2016).

Here is the summary:

‘The internet, smartphones, social media, instant messaging and other related technologies have had a dramatic impact on the way we communicate over the last 20 years, and therefore fundamentally how we relate to one another. Since we are relational beings, made in the image of a relational God, these far-reaching changes have innate spiritual significance. The pervasive nature of communications technologies means it is often hard to gauge their true effects on us, but exploring and understanding the implications for our lives and relationships is vital if their use is to be meaningfully aligned with our faith.’

Mission Frontiers 36, 3 (May-June 2014)

The May-June 2014 issue of Mission Frontiers, published by the U.S. Center for World Mission, contains a number of articles under the heading ‘From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg’.

‘In the middle of the last decade, we witnessed the embryonic releases of social media and networks, and we are now participating in the maturing digital social networks. The Zuckerberg generation and its apps have cajoled, encouraged, and tethered us into a narcissistic, instantaneous, conversational environment. From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg, the global resurgence of orality has arrived with vigor, and has tectonic implications for our stewardship of the gospel for this century.’

Individual articles can be accessed from here, and the whole issue (12.6 MB) can be downloaded as a pdf here.