Habits of the High-Tech Heart by Quentin J. Schultze
Author:Quentin J. Schultze
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781441206862
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Conclusion
Journalist Chip Scanlan wonders if digital technologies are necessarily a blessing for news reporting. “Journalism has come a long way from the days when a reporter needed little more than a pencil, paper and telephone,” he observes. Cell phones, laptop computers, and personal digital assistants are common among reporters. Moreover, journalists increasingly depend on the Web and email to collect story information and communicate with sources. But Scanlan also wonders if technologies’ power to remove “obstacles of time and distance” creates “an unwelcome buffer between the reporter and the public.” Too many stories already are “reported by telephone,” he argues. They “lack texture, completeness and accuracy that only person-to-person encounters can bring.” Although many young reporters find such personal contacts “awkward and uncomfortable,” adds Scanlan, they remain “the lifeblood of good journalism.” He concludes that the “most essential tools for a journalist aren’t dependent on a computer chip, but a reporter’s mind and heart. They are the very human qualities of curiosity, integrity and empathy.”[81] Without such habits of mind and heart, journalism itself slips into cold and frenzied messaging that lacks virtue.[82]
High-speed messaging and informational databases do not necessarily improve human communication. Along with such technological achievements we have re-adopted inauthenticity, which acutely undermines relationships and stymies our attempts to be moral persons. Inauthenticity devalues the content of our language, rendering it either purely instrumental or vacuously relative and confusing. We lose the dignity of speech as a means of upholding shared understandings and embracing community. We also replace virtuous living with technological savvy. We find it increasingly difficult to practice what we preach because we are not sure what we believe, let alone what we should present as our beliefs. Only the efficacy of technique seems to be a viable means of upholding our value as persons. Valovic says that “not only are many of the values of digital culture not ‘religious’ but they might well be described as ethically challenged.” He suggests that “the new technocrats” are “interested in nothing less ambitious than reinventing society in their own image. To a large extent, they see certain anchors of traditional culture as standing in the way of their vision of a new society.”[83]
In the information age, we still need symbol brokers who are skilled at interpreting human life for different groups. Michael Oreskes rightly points out that the more glutted we are with information, the more vitally we need people who can help us separate the wheat from the chaff.[84] If symbol brokers act responsibly, they can help us recover the authenticity of personhood and the broader integrity of life. We depend on our storytellers, for instance, to grasp the inherent meaning and purpose of our existence. They can reveal our common humanity and our shared brokenness. Journalists, novelists, and playwrights are particularly important. Priests and prophets are no less critical to our social well-being today than they were in religious history. We also need oral storytellers—such as humorists, balladeers, and narrators—who can work within the live moments of our daily routines to resuscitate moral meaning in the midst of our instrumental endeavors.
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