As a Star Teams member, you will have the opportunity to help inform people about Catholic New Media and SQPN. The terms “old” and “new” media can be misleading. Here are some helpful definitions to guide you.
Old or traditional media are what the vast majority of the public is familiar with. These include printed materials (books, pamphlets, newspapers, etc.), radio, television, and film.
New media are those forms of communication that have typically been created since the advent of the internet. These include audio and video shows that are accessed via a computer or portable mp3 player (i.e. podcasts). They also include web logs (“blogs”), social networking systems, such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and many more.
Why Is This Important?
Pope John Paul II called all Catholics to become part of a “new evangelization,” the work of a new generation of missionaries to reach out to an increasingly secular world. A large and important part of this new mission field is the online world where much of the world’s youth go for social interaction, communication, information, and support. To be successful in the new evangelization, the Catholic Church, through organizations like SQPN, needs to express its moral and ethical voice in the online world.
