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Posted: February 1
(Rome) For the past few years I have been telling Jesuits about the implications of the new digital technology used in photographs, video and audio. In past few weeks the newspaper has been full of stories that underscore how big an opportunity Jesuits and friends now have, provided that the recognize it as an opportunity and do something.
Google grabbed many headlines last month when they announced their new video store which would sell any producer’s work, not just television broadcasters’programs, as Apple has started doing on its iTunes store. Yahoo is involved in a similar venture, described in the article on the Jescom Notes page. These new ventures are evidence of a tectonic shift to providing television and video content via the internet, rather than cable and satellite. The rapid spread of broadband, wireless technology and cheap media storage makes this development possible. Companies such as Google and Yahoo, already the most popular gateways to the internet, could take a central role in helping people find and view programs.
Another article in the International Herald Tribune from January 24 talked about “RadioDJ” from Vodaphone, a European cell-phone company. This innovative service takes advantages of the technology of third-generation mobile phone networks to bring people music via their cell phone. Strictly speaking, it is not radio nor mass media nor broadcast. Listeners have to pay for a subscription to the service, much like digital radio. RadioDJ’s unique advantage is that the listener can train the music service to personalize the song offerings. So instead of being forced to choose between the limited formats such as Easy Listening or Rock or Adult Contemporary, etc. users can train the service by pushing a “like” or “dislike” button after each song they hear. Subscribers will also be able to purchase music, so the new service also encroaches on iTunes and other internet-based products. But people carry their phones with them so the music isn’t chained to the computer.
This expansion of the cell phone reminds me of another story I read about Bill Gates’ response to the “$100 laptop” computer which Nicholas Negraponte at MIT is trying to create for the developing world. Gates’ response is that the phone provides a better platform for expanding computing to those who don’t now have a computer. All you need, says the Microsoft founder, is a keyboard and a connection to a television monitor.
Whichever maven is correct, I am thrilled to see the new possibilities that are opening. Content does not have to be restricted to a few distribution channels, such as television broadcast networks or radio stations. Internet connection does not have to be limited to those who own a conventional computer. What that means is that Jesuits have more ways to get out their programs now than ever before.
Father Philip Heng, at the novitiate in Singapore, uses a simple list-serve to distribute a daily spiritual reflection to thousands of people. Jesuit Communications in the Philippines contacts over 100,000 people per day who subscribe to a daily spiritual message by SMS texting to their phones. Another Jesuit is working on daily prayer in MP3 audio format that people can download and listen on their iPods or other audio devices on their way to and from work. All the possibilities make me giddy.
All I have to do is go back in time to the internship I did at Paramount Studios in Hollywood when I was studying philosophy. A Jesuit arranged for me to spend part of the summer on the “Mission: Impossible” TV show. It was a great experience and I learned a lot, mostly from the craftsmen like the lighting people who spent more time with me than the high-level folks who did the show. The producers took a great pride in the show which they shot on film, aiming for the production values of movies. The show had the longest shooting schedule of any TV program at the time, and I was really fortunate to be there.
The main lesson I took away, however, was that Jesuits were not going to be able to do anything like that. The fact that my first assignment after university studies was to teach in Belize, then a small British colony in Central America, where there was not even a television station, let alone film making. Even though money was limited, I was able to do things in theater and on the one and only radio station that Belize then had.
No wonder all these technological innovations are exciting. We don’t have to even want to be Paramount any more. Now the limitation is our imagination and our daring to jump into any one of these new ways of delivering the solid message springing from our Ignatian spiritual heritage and our contemporary sense of the justice that faith demands. What are we waiting for?
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