THE ROLE AND FUNCTION OF THE MEDIA IN THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH (WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO AFRICA) (INCARNATION, MULTI-MEDIA, WORLD VIEW, BROADCASTING, COMMUNICATION)

The role and function of Christian media communication are located within the twofold framework of the human communication process in culture and society and the Christian communication process. By overlapping and complementing one another, these two communication processes provide the conceptual framework for Christian media communication: to participate incarnationally in the human process of communication.;Incarnational involvement in the human communication process implies participation in an ambiguous process of commmunication where the media have the potential for being instruments of both reconciliation and exploitation. This challenges Christian media communication to wrestle with the question of media structure, function and content in the pursuit of a new international information order.;Recognizing the relation between communication and incorporation, and the complexity of church growth, media communication may contribute towards the creation of receptivity to the Christian message, thus functioning as preparatio evangelica within an overall network of Christian communication.;Therefore, the major aim of this dissertation is to explore the cultural, sociological and theological/missiological basis for a use of media as supporting and improving the already existing communication within culture, society and Church. We also wish to establish interactional and meaning-centered models of communication; to explore some of the biblical models of communication with particular regard to their incarnational character; to view the Church as an incarnational model of communication; to evaluate the role and function of the media within the human/socio-cultural and biblical models of communication; and to develop a strategy for Christian employment of the media within an ecumenical framework.;Since God's approach to communication confirms his use and redemption of our patterns of communication, Christian media communication is to model God's incarnational way of communicating by relating to actual history and culture and to the questions of the audience in a dialogic fashion, respecting the basic communication principles of common frame of reference, credibility, specificity and self-discovery. It must aim at cultural relevancy and contextual dialogue, must focus on the entire human being and present God in the midst of human and public life.