The Perfect Storm - Part 1

Wikipedia’s encyclopedia says that a perfect storm is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically.
When a series of events came together at the right time and place in our nation’s history, we created a perfect storm, which caused media to be transformed into a force capable of creating a media culture. What rare combination of circumstances has made the media a significant and powerful force in our culture? When did television, movies and other forms of media stop being entertainment and become a media culture capable of shaping our beliefs, attitudes and behaviors?

The modern media culture developed over four distinct time periods starting with the development of the film industry in the early part of the 20th Century continuing to the creation of the digital age in the late 1990s. The story behind the perfect storm is also interwoven with the so-called mythical American Dream. To understand the perfect storm and how we are influenced by today’s media, we must understand how the American Dream has been manipulated.

The U.S. Attitudes on the American Dream, a recent survey by the Xavier University Institute for Politics, states that 60% of Americans believe it will be more difficult for them to achieve the American Dream than for their parents. Sixty-eight percent of Americans say it will be even more difficult for their children to achieve the American Dream.

So what is the American Dream and how is it tied to the media culture? More importantly, how has it changed the face of Christianity over the past few years? According to this survey, most white, middle class Americans see the American Dream in terms of financial security. African Americans tend to see it as wealth. Only 8% of those surveyed viewed it as a sense of happiness. Mike Ford, founding director of Xavier University Institute, says the American Dream “is a time-honored core belief that we have for ourselves as Americans--that the next generation will have it better than we did.” If Ford is right, that means the American Dream is always a moving target. It will continue to grow and expand