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The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ ReviewI just finished reading The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ yesterday, and I think this book is a terrific primer for Christians hoping to better understand new media. The breadth of topics covered in the book virtually ensures that just about anyone who reads it will find something relevant to their lives and ministries, while few will find that every chapter is relevant to them. As somewhat of a new media newbie, I found the book to be very helpful. Also, as a pastor, the book helped me understand various ways to integrate new media into my work in ministry.The book is broken into two sections, and from there into a total of 15 chapters written by several different authors. The first section is called The Landscape of the New Media. It outlines the current state of new media, forecasts about its future, warns of the potential dangers of embracing it uncritically, and then offers some beginners some tips on entering the world(s) of blogging and podcasting.
I began reading this book expecting it to be one big commercial for new media, but was pleasantly surprised by how balanced it was. Several chapters emphasized the importance of embracing the new media world discerningly (particularly Matthew Lee Anderson's chapter on the dangers of uncritically embracing new media), and the overall message of the book seemed to be that Christians must engage the new media world, but that they must do so with caution.
Chapters 4 and 5 of the book basically provide everything that a new media greenhorn needs to gain a basic understanding of blogging and podcasting. Despite the massive popularity of both blogs and podcasts, they remain a mystery to many (especially many in the church world). These chapters did an excellent job of showing how to get started blogging and podcasting. In addition to showing how to set up blogs and podcasts, the chapters also provided some tips on producing high quality content. The authors of these chapters also effectively made the point that Christians should be engaged in blogging and podcasting.
The second section of the book is called Engaging New Media and deals with several different potential implications and applications of new media. The chapter of theological blogging shows how the existence of blogs has provided a new forum for discussing and debating theology. This can have both positive and negative implications for theological discourse, and thus must be used with care. Tod Bolsinger's chapter Blogging as Microwave Community discusses the various ways that blogging can aid Christian community. Bolsinger does a good job of showing how blogs can facilitate Christian community without being a replacement for it.
The two most helpful chapters for pastors were Mark D. Roberts' chapter Pastors and the New Media, and Rhett Smith's chapter Navigating the Evolving World of Youth Ministry in the Facebook-MySpace Generation. Both Roberts and Smith write from their experience with new media and do a good job of showing the pastoral usefulness. Roberts writes from a senior pastor's perspective while Smith writes from a stutdent ministry perspective. If you're a pastor or ministry leader and you've only got time to read a few chapters out of this book, make sure you read these ones. The reality is that as new media becomes more and more mainstream people will be spending more and more of their lives online, thus it will be increasingly important for churches to have a sophisticated online presence that they can utilize to effectively communicate online.
The rest of the book discusses the effect that new media will have on everything from apologetics to politics to bioethics to social justice to academia. Several of these fields are substantially different now than they were five years ago thanks to new media, and the transformation is far from over. New media has and will continue to effect the way we get our news, the way we get our education, and even the way we advocate for causes we believe in. It is fascinating to consider the access to power that exists for ordinary individuals thanks to new media. While big media stalwarts still wield significant influence, ordinary people are more free to express their opinions, question authority, and otherwise assert themselves online than ever before.
As I said, The New Media Frontier is a great primer on new media. While I found some chapters to be more practically helpful than others, I believe this entire book is worth reading because new media is not going away any time soon. The better the church understands new media the better it can use the tools of new mediia for effective proclamation of the gospel. Whether you are a church pastor looking to utilize new media in your ministry or a lay person who is simply interesting on better understanding the state of online communication, I highly recommend giving this book a read.The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ Overview
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