Reflection and Summation

Good evening, my friends. The time has come to encapsulate all we've covered and to say farewell, sadly enough. I'd like to thank you for coming with me on this journey, and we've got one more stop - the reflection and the explanation of my term paper, Psalms Behind the Screen. 

Much of what I've taken away from this semester has been minutia, adding to a generalized knowledge with specific facts. I entered this knowing much of the topics, like how the internet has affected this generation, for instance. I've had first hand experience with the generational divide, being an elder millennial and on the cusp of a digital immigrant. Modernizing hasn't been easy for me. For instance, last semester I took Broadcast Graphics, which taught me After Effects, an Adobe product that created moving graphics. This was brand new - I had been using Photoshop CS2 for 15 years, and here's this whole new world. Anyone would have a hard time, and without the dedication and elasticity to devote myself to learning it, I would have been completely lost. I feel like I understand the digital immigrants - I get how much this world could confuse and scare someone who was unfamiliar, and I challenge you to employ some patience and empathy. 

Much has happened in the realm of the internet during this semester, including Ukraine, called the TikTok war. We've watched a war happen live, in short clips of real time from real people, and I genuinely believe it has changed the face of how we wage war. Blockchain technology has crowned as the NFT market has changed how we understand money in a truly international sense, and it is currently collapsing again. Machine learning has made leaps and bounds, and is continuing to grow at an exponential rate. The announcement of the Meta verse from Facebook revealed a new dream to normalize augmented reality. We are truly riding a tiger into the future, and are struggling with the reins.

From my own personal perspective, I took this class because it was part of my Certificate of Media Ministry. I chose for my term paper to discuss the rise of NRMs and their connection to the internet. 

Abstract:

The landscape of religion in America is experiencing a dramatic upheaval. While the projections of these changes have been around for some time, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown them into sharp relief. This paper focuses on three prongs of research – that there has been a decline in traditional church membership since the advent of the internet, that exposure to diversity tends to codify ethical codes, and that there has been a surge of membership in New Religious Movements (NRMs) and their online presence. The central argument is that the ease of exposure to multiple perspectives provided by digital interaction has stimulated the growth of NRMs both on- and off-line and that this growth may have been concealed due to surrounding cultural circumstance, particularly for the younger generations.  The sequence of information seems to form a coherent timeline, connecting the decline of traditional faith with the diversity and pluralism provided by online spaces leading into the rise of modern and innovative faiths.




There have been really hard topics this semester, that hit me in ways I wasn't expecting. I hope I've been enlightening and entertaining. I wish you the best in your future journeys, and all the best things. 

I'm leaving you with a big thank you from a bunch of cute pets - I tried to choose one pet to end with and decided on all of them. 

Farewell, my friend.

I'll be in tow!



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