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Posting peace -digital peacemaking

I got interested in this book because its "call us to embrace the radical ministry of peacemaking in response to our destructive online world." is very much been on my heart and at the back and sometimes the forefront of my mind for two or three years. To the point of trying to find others to work with in research and perhaps action. And peacemaking has been a core image in beginning to think about a Christian response. My concern has arisen mostly since the Brexit debate in the UK and I became aware of how polarised, hateful, uncompromising, spiteful, it could be. It was shocking to see and to be on the receiving end of trigger-seeking, mocking and reason-deflecting messages. When I used to play football (soccer) we had saying, "play the ball not the man". These trolls and bots were definitely in the other camp: "play the man, forget the ball". As I investigated further, it became evident that the business models, the way that the algorithms work to amplify the most basely emotive tweets and posts and the weaponisation of that by troll and bot farms aiming to sow dissent by disinformation and winding people up with ever greater degrees of hatred and contempt.
So I got to wondering what blessed peacemaking looks like amid all of that.. What is the calling of Christ-followers on Social media? I've begun to experiment on Twitter with trying to engage differently, more humbly, asking questions, remembering that sometimes there are humans behind the words and expressions. At least sometimes I have succeeded to some degree. In doing this I've learnt from the failures and the pockets of relative 'success'. I've learnt about my own affectivity in relation to trolling, and about my own triggers.

As the author writes and with which I resonate:

I’m tired of the fighting. I’m tired of being afraid of the fighting. I no longer desire to engage in fruitless heated discussions and meaningless contentious debates that don’t have a redemptive or transformative purpose. I want my best energy directed toward Christ-centered, truth-advancing, life-affirming, grace-filled, reconciling communication. I want to be a Christ-motivated peacemaker.

So, that's what I came to this book with, seeking perspectives and ideas to underpin action and peacemaking presence. Does it help me/us?

I've been finding that it draws on a good range of thinkers and writers to situate our thinking about social media in wider cultural and psychological perspectives, and I think that this is helpful. There have been times when I've thought that the author was taking a rather negative view and not understanding the way that people actually use and deploy social media out of our God-given humanity but then quite often the more (shall I call it?-) appreciative case is made. This saves it from simply being a call to join a moral panic and begins to make it useful. 

I found it useful too that at the end of each chapter there are suggestions for experiments with social media and some of them are quite challenging at the level of personal formation -but then, that's important. I would commend this book as a way to help ourselves become digital peacemakers and I am considering using it with study groups. I'd say that the level is not simplistic or overly 'popular' but it should be accessible to anyone who is willing to think and to take seriously the insights of scholars of culture.


#PostingPeace

Posting Peace: Why Social Media Divides Us and What We Can Do About It


This post first appeared on Nouslife, please read the originial post: here

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Posting peace -digital peacemaking

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