Online misogyny is currently hitting the headlines, with prominent women columnists testifying to an unrelenting tide of sexually motivated aggression. It’s a narrative with which I have an enormous amount of sympathy, for as a female blogger I find that my comments box fills up with remarks of a sexually abusive nature with alarming alacrity. Read more
Get tweeting now! Why on earth would a church be terrified of using the new media? As Brandon Vogt, author of The Church and New Media says, if biblical stories have used pillars of fire, bright stars, burning bushes and a talking donkey to get the point across surely blogging, Facebook and Twitter are tame Read more
“Because I said so” doesn’t cut it in social media, a fact regretted by parents and leaders who for ages have resorted to the phrase when exasperated with the petulant “But …” and plaintive “Why?” “The social media phenomenon offers both challenge and opportunity for the church. Social media reaches people – millions are on Read more
There are those that say the social media will break down barriers and bring people together but research reveals racism in comments made online. Analysis of more than 1,000 online responses to videos featuring infamous New Zealand race furores involving Paul Henry and Hone Harawira are “disturbing” and illustrative of a “dark underbelly” in New Zealand Read more
The Vatican Insider reports that tired and weary Pope Paul VI gave serious thoughts to stepping down when he turned 80. Paul VI had gone as far as working out how the retirement would happen, sharing the process with his most trusted aide, Archbishop Giovanni Benelli, whom he was about to appoint as archbishop of Read more
Facebook is letting expectant parents add their unborn children to their personal profiles. Among the regular family options the profile now allows the option “Expected: Child” and can even add a name and the expected date of birth. A Facebook spokesperson said, “Facebook started providing the option to add an ‘Expected: Child’ as a way Read more
Matthew Warner sees a problem with the way that the Catholic Church can view new media. He believes that the Church is “out of control” in the sense that the Church is no longer able to control its message as once it was able to do. He says “They are out of control of their Read more