Community through free communication

Abstract

Since the end of Vatican 11 the Church has been observing the Sunday after the Feast of the Ascension as World Day of Social Communications, in order to draw the attention of all Christians to the fact that the mass media are truly gifts of God and as such should be made use of for the good of man not only as an individual but especially as a member of society. Hence the necessity of placing the media at the service of responsible human freedom, to ensure free and responsible communication resulting in the building up of a true community on both the civil and the family levels. One of the many grave problems - philosophical, sociological, theological and pastoral - raised by the mass media themselves such as they have developed in our days concerns the need of placing these media at the service of man rather than subjecting man to the media; thus "man as such would not regress and be degraded in his humanity, but truly become a better person, more fully aware of his dignity and more responsible".