I got interested in this book because its "call us to embrace the radical ministry of peacemaking in response to our destructive online world." is very much been on my heart and at the back and sometimes the forefront of my mind for two or three years. To the point of trying to find others to work with in research and perhaps action. And peacemaking has been a core image in beginning to think about a Christian response. My concern has arisen mostly since the Brexit debate in the UK and I became aware of how polarised, hateful, uncompromising, spiteful, it could be. It was shocking to see and to be on the receiving end of trigger-seeking, mocking and reason-deflecting messages. When I used to play football (soccer) we had saying, "play the ball not the man". These trolls and bots were definitely in the other camp: "play the man, forget the ball". As I investigated further, it became evident that the business models, the way that the algorithms work to amplify the most basely emotive tweets and posts and the weaponisation of that by troll and bot farms aiming to sow dissent by disinformation and winding people up with ever greater degrees of hatred and contempt.
So I got to wondering what blessed peacemaking looks like amid all of that.. What is the calling of Christ-followers on social media? I've begun to experiment on Twitter with trying to engage differently, more humbly, asking questions, remembering that sometimes there are humans behind the words and expressions. At least sometimes I have succeeded to some degree. In doing this I've learnt from the failures and the pockets of relative 'success'. I've learnt about my own affectivity in relation to trolling, and about my own triggers.
As the author writes and with which I resonate:
I’m tired of the fighting. I’m tired of being afraid of the fighting. I no longer desire to engage in fruitless heated discussions and meaningless contentious de bates that don’t have a redemptive or transformative purpose. I want my best energy directed toward Christ-centered, truth- advancing, life-affirming, grace-filled, reconciling communi cation. I want to be a Christ-motivated peacemaker.
So, that's what I came to this book with, seeking perspectives and ideas to underpin action and peacemaking presence. Does it help me/us?
I've been finding that it draws on a good range of thinkers and writers to situate our thinking about social media in wider cultural and psychological perspectives, and I think that this is helpful. There have been times when I've thought that the author was taking a rather negative view and not understanding the way that people actually use and deploy social media out of our God-given humanity but then quite often the more (shall I call it?-) appreciative case is made. This saves it from simply being a call to join a moral panic and begins to make it useful.
I found it useful too that at the end of each chapter there are suggestions for experiments with social media and some of them are quite challenging at the level of personal formation -but then, that's important. I would commend this book as a way to help ourselves become digital peacemakers and I am considering using it with study groups. I'd say that the level is not simplistic or overly 'popular' but it should be accessible to anyone who is willing to think and to take seriously the insights of scholars of culture.
Occasionally, I think that the critical ideas relating to discarnation etc were overplayed. For example, I'm not sure I'm convinced by the idea that social media separates our communications and intentions from ourselves (p.61). I think perhaps that social media extends, stretches, our attachment to what we 'say' through time and space. It thins it out. But the fact that we can feel in our guts the concerns about how what we post is received and responded to suggests that separation is not taking place. We are projecting ourselves, admittedly in an attenuated form, but we are invested. I think we may be in danger if we pursue the 'separation' thesis too strongly, of losing sight of the similarities between spoken wording and visually based wording. They both involve us concentrating some thoughts into a narrow medium and 'expelling' them to be received by others vai air or light. In that sense both are alienated from us physically. However, we do keep the connection emotionally, we continue to identify with our communication.
That said, I do think that the proposition that social media tends to involve self-expression rather than other-focus/concern is probably true. I'd see this as an effect relating to the affordances of the media in relation to the psycho-cultural hinterland of many users. And, of course, once a critical mass is reached, it creates a set of cultural expectations whereby more other-directed, learning-focussed communications are not well received.
I liked, on p.62 the comment that we post in a way like advertisers of products and services. And I think there is something important to that in foregrounding the expressivist culture of much of social media. However, I think that it is also important to notice that advertisers seek to post in ways similar to socmed users.
Quotes I found helpful or thought-provoking
press my attitude or the intentbehind my communication. I would gladly use an “I’m not angry” font or a “This is a sincere reply” filter or an “I’m honestly trying not to fight with you” typeface or an “I don’t know why you’re so angry at me right now, but I’m not angry with you and I’m sincerely trying my best to find a way to communicate in a way that doesn’t make things worse” emoji. As of yet, that technology is unavailable and a smiley emoji isn’t a sufficient substitute for in-person, in-flesh communication (p.59)
#PostingPeace
