by Rose Lugo, Ed.D.
In the past eight decades, the Church has issued several documents urging Catholic educators to engage students in the understanding of media messages from a Christian perspective: Vigilanti Cura (1936); Miranda Prorsus (1957); Inter Mirifica (1963); Humanae Vitae, (1968); Communio et Progressio (1971); Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975); Aetatis Novae (1992); and The Rapid Development (2005) have directly addressed pastoral concerns regarding media. Therefore, it is important to engage the Church to enable creative solutions for forming parents, students, teachers, lay and religious leaders in faith-based media literacy.
Media literacy scholars have pointed out that for many poor students and students from non-dominant groups, the school and the media are their main channels to acquire a grasp of public culture. The idea that the poor mainly learn the world through the media and the school makes media literacy a social justice issue, therefore integrating faith-based media literacy into home life, academic curricula, and parish communities is crucial for addressing this pressing social justice issue of our day. Catholic Social Teaching provides a prolific framework to dismantle media messages and uphold Juddeo-Christian values in media consumers, especially children who are most impressionable and vulnerable.
Parents, educators, and Church leaders must claim their role as main facilitators to promote critical media literacy. As early as 1971, Pope Paul VI recognized the social justice implications of passive and mindless media consumption in his encyclical Communio et Progressio, in which he made training media recipients in Christian principles as one of the Church’s most pressing tasks, and deemed it to be a service to social communications, concluding that well-trained media recipients would be able to meaningfully engage the media and demand high-quality content in mass communications.
The pastoral instruction document urged Catholic schools and Catholic organizations everywhere not to ignore their duty in this regard, “schools and institutions will take care to teach young people not only to be good Christians when they are recipients but also to be active in using all the aids to communication that lie within the media” (Paul VI, 1971, para. 107). The document goes on to state that only then young students will be true citizens of the age of social communication.
The Catholic view that implies that the inclusion of media instruction is needed to avoid social exclusion was likewise defended by media scholars over 20 years later, in the digital technology age. Secular scholars put forth a strong argument that acquiring digital media literacy and being able to benefit from using digital media competently is one of the ways to achieve social inclusion. More recently, scholars have defended that by teaching children media literacy skills, educators provide students with life-long learning skills that will be needed in the 21st century. (See Tenorio de Azevedo, 2015).
It is debatable whether the Church was pivotal in setting the tone for the research on the social justice implications of social exclusion through inadequate media awareness, but it is undeniable that the concerns raised by the Vatican more than 80 years ago, in 1936, are now more relevant than ever due to the proliferation of media consumption, especially among children.
After prayerful consideration, this September 4, feast of my patroness Saint Rosalia of Palermo, I am publicly launching Rose Lugo News, a media literacy education ministry. This apostolic work lives at the intersection of faith and media. I am welcoming all those who feel called to join the mission to deconstruct mainstream media messages to help the faithful understand, engage, and produce media through the framework of Juddeo-Christian values. My vision is to equip our Church leaders for guiding others in connecting their media usage with their faith. If you are interested in learning more about this work, please sign up to receive updates and connect with me on social media @roselugonews.
Rose Lugo, Ed.D. 