With the sun on their backs on Dec. 7, 1972, the crew of Apollo 17 shot the earth. Their photograph, “Blue Marble,” was probably the maximumilluminated symbolof Earth up to now, putting earlier black-and-white weather satellite images to shame. just one0 years earlier, media theorist Marshall McLuhan had coined the phrase "global village," relating to a future globalunited through improved communication technologies. “Blue Marble” looked as if it would prove McLuhan's theory in full color.
Such utopian visions predated McLuhan. Orson Pratt, certainly one of early Mormonism’s foremaximumauthors and publishers, exultantly wrote from England that in 1850 that duringcreasing ease and speed of travel had “almaximumunited the 2 continents into at least one.” Technological developments enabled Isaiah’s prophesied “fastmessengers” to collect the elect to Zion.
“The extensive flowof the broadcast word,” Pratt declared, “has also given an impetus to the rolling of the greatwheel of salvation.”
The gospel would turn the los angelestter-day global village into the dominion of God in the world. Radio and televisionmultiplied channels of communication beyond Pratt’s telegraphic horizon. a fewfreshmedia theorists echo Pratt’s excitement. Cutting-edge technologies have “spread out new methodsof having and exchanging information, destroying geographical and political boundaries within the process."
This utopian dream of an international united through media seems less probcapable ofday. Our developing technologies embody the improbskillat the same time because the y challenge it.
think aboutthe detail provided by “Google Earth,” pcsoftware that makes "Blue Marble" appear to be the work of an impressionist. With lightning speed we will be able to zoom in to identifys all over the place Earth's surface, stunningly close enough to peer a pack of African elephants at the move. we will be able to peer the highest of the problemhorn (at Disneyland or Switzerland) in seconds. As we zoom closer, the arena's fragmentation becomes transparentagain.
The global village depicted by "Blue Marble" is seen through Google Earth because the globe of villages. the web, a device providing more international commerce of thought than any technology in history, too may result in fragmentation and boundary creation.
Professor Feisal G. Mohamed of Texas Tech University has noted how advancements in digital media don't have anyt “put an finishto parochialism,” as McLuhan anticipated. Instead, “on the contrary has occurred.”
Mohammed observe: “(W)e live in a cacophony of hidebound parochialisms where individuals seek association only with those to whom they relate by the use of primordial intuition. … The liberal state, with its dependence on rational association, is dissolving right into a spread of masses united by the parochialisms of ‘religion’ and ‘culture.’”
this type of phenomenon can also be observed among Americans who, divided along political party lines, can hunt down news sources catering on to their very own prejudices. As Mormon websites and blogs were multiplying and replenishing the webfor greater than a decade, a comparatively tightknit community has emerged. New venues offera spot for marginal voices, be they “liberal” or “conservative,” “active” or “inactive,” or anythingelse entirely.
The gut interpretation of all that is the netis bringing more Mormons together and making a decent community spanning several continents. Global Mormonism may also be viewed as a “globe of Mormonisms” with new boundaries emerging between people concerningwhat it means to be Mormon.
Blogs offerplaces for individuals to return together — usuallyto appease a way of isolation by hoemployinga community more suited for at least one’s organicproclivities, usuallyto find a community that feels more like home than those in closer geographical proximity. These two constructs — the "Blue Marble" and Google Earth — constitutetwo how you am i able tomagine new media’s effect on community: its potential to sweepine or divide us, for smartor ill.
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