Mennonite Weekly Review

On my desk is Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith by Shane Hipps (Zondervan, 2009, 208 pages).

Lewis

Hipps, a Mennonite pastor in Glendale, Ariz., had previously broken ground with media analysis in The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. His new book — less technical, more practical — is geared for a broader readership.

Hipps repeats the wisdom of his favorite media scholar, Marshall McLuhan, in order to drive home his main presupposition: it is not media content that affects us the most but media format. And that is precisely why the media has a hidden power over us; we are not aware of how, according to McLuhan, “the medium is the message.”

Hipps, with a former career in advertising, is not anti-media. It’s a question of understanding media so that we can use it properly rather than be used by it. His book is “about training our eyes to see things we usually overlook.” To make this point, he includes a Magic Eye poster imbedded with a hidden 3-D picture.

Pixels, the tiny dots of light that make up media screens, are the primal elements of today’s visual media. One could also add electronic frequencies to this microrealm we take for granted.

As media technology has changed, we have changed, according to Hipps (and McLuhan). Like the verse about idols, “We become what we behold.”

This means nothing is neutral. Print media pushed us into linear, left-brain ways of thinking; today’s image culture pushes us into right-brain regions where our imagination, ironically, is eroded through over-stimulation.

Helpful illustrations are in abundance. A Nextel ad presents a 10-second wedding performed with the aid of cell phones. Does this ad indirectly shed light on the cost of new technologies on human relationships? Virtual communities appear to bring about greater connectivity between people, but does the very format of Internet or e-mail communication also increase separation between people?

Getting quick access to the world’s tragic news appears to be a plus, but does the speed and quantity of presentation affect our empathetic responses? Does it prompt us toward response?

These are the sort of questions Hipps raises about the underlying effects of media consumption.