Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Using the electronic medium

Again, the Jesuits must be complimented on their excellent websites.

Among their electronic information is, AMDG Express Jesuit Newsletter, which is a weekly newsletter produced in Dublin.

It is available on request. It arrives on time with up-to-the-minute interesting articles and reports.

Why can they produce such attractive, informative and challenging electronic material while the Dominicans offer poor, pedestrian, unattractive hit and miss cliched pious waffle?

Any chance that at the upcoming provincial chapter of the Irish Dominicans there will be some serious study/discussion about improving the province's electronic profile?

At present it is poor quality.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You seem to be mixing up several distinct, if related issues.

First is communication. What do you wish communicated? With whom do you wish to communicate? Who will represent the Dominicans in this communication? Who will coordinate the information? The Jesuits, being a centrally organised body, are experts on this. Is the elected leadership in the Dominicans capable of communicating effectively?

The international website - and most of the other provinces' websites are bloody awful. The Irish one stands out on several fronts: up to date news, availability of much material in other languages, accurate institutional information.

Second is the large variety of electronic media. I notice you praise the Jesuit websites (which all look similar), but quickly go on to talk about the AMDG newsletter. They're both electronic media - both novels and newspapers are both printed media, but just as different.

Third is the context in which the Jesuit and Dominican websites exist.

Have a look at the following websites and compare:
franciscans.ie
redemptorists.ie
augustinians.ie
svdireland.com
irishcapuchins.com (recently relaunched but very little content)
irishspiritans.ie

And then there's the Bishops' Conference Media Website catholiccommunications.ie - awful. And that's managed by the office of professional lay people.

And the Year of Vocation website yourvocation.ie - again awful, and its blog has two posts in the space of almost three months now...And the Year of Vocation is managed by a professional lay person with an enormous budget.

And about that Jesuit website again: what exactly are they trying to communicate? And with whom? I can't figure it out! Their website seems to be trying to do many things at once, so much so that it appears fussy even on the home page.

A discussion on communication - including the different electronic media - would certainly be a good idea for a religious order.

It should include the roles of blogs.

Michael Commane said...

Thank you for the helpful comment.
But again, why anonymous?

Anonymous said...

"unattractive hit and miss cliched pious waffle"....as opposed to slanderous comments about people's sexuality on a personal blog?

Well that latter is certainly a better way of preaching the Gospel.

Michael Commane said...

Slander deals with the spoken word, whereas libel concerns itself with the written word.

This blog has never referred to any aspect of the sexuality of a private person.

But this blog is conscious of a worrying trend among a group of people who prefer to work in the dark under the umbrella of anonymity.

Inappropriate secrecy and anonymity are the oxygen that allows for so much hurt and wrong-doing.

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