Head Critic: Greg Wurm, WCC
lds.org is the official website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The site is mainly directed to members of the Church, presenting messages from Church leaders, Web groups for local congregations and providing resources for those studying the gospel or preparing lessons. We will also look at the site in connection with it's official Facebook page.
LINK TO REPORT CARD
Plato
According to Plato, a good social website should draw people in to become one with the website. The purpose of lds.org goes further though. It not only draws people in to become one with the website, but to become one with the church and ultimately, to become one with God.
Plato believed everyone, with the right guidance, can interact with others and learn the truth. A good social website should include everyone. A LDS scripture, from the Book of Mormon emphasizes that the church seeks to "inviteth all" (2 Nephi 26:33). Lds.org and its subsidiary websites can be found in many different languages thus reaching a more broad audience.
Easy to Understand
Plato believed we can all get a glimpse of the truth. It is accessible to us. Another LDS doctrine is that the Lord "...doeth nothing, save it be plain unto the children of men" (2 Nephi 26:33) Plato would agree with this. He thinks that social websites should be easy to understand or at least easy to start understanding as you grow in knowledge you subsequently grow in your capacity to keep understanding. The church is structured like this and its websites work like this as well. It sticks to the core doctrines and then once you understand those, you can search for deeper things through your own study.
Enticing Opportunity for Open Discussion
Plato was troubled by writing, because relying on it could keep us back from live discussions. So he wrote dialogues, which were read at dinner parties and drew people into live discussions. One of the first things it says on the church's landing page for their social media website is "Join the conversation." Social websites should not assume people will start to openly start discussing these things, just as was the case with Plato's dialogs. Sometimes you must implicitly invite people to participate and "join the conversation."
Aristotle
Aristotle believed that only through action could one actualize their potentialities. Lds.org invites people to do this by inviting them to set and work towards accomplishing good and righteous goals. #ChangeForGood But, though the website can invite people to act, users must ultimately be willing to act actually act if their are truly to accomplish their goals.
Sharable in Stages (movie trailers/teasers)
Aristotle believed that content should be sharable in stages, meaning that sometimes a short expert should be used to grab people's attention before getting them to read or watch the whole thing. Lds.org does this with their Video Highlights of General Conference talks: Example: Boyd K. Packer "The Reason for Our Hope"
My question would be, 'Who picks the highlights?' The speaker or some guy in the marketing department? Maybe there is a way to customize this process. I talk more about what this means in the video, but here is an example of what I mean from a recent BYU Devotional.
Moderns: Hume and Kant
The moderns were always trying how to know what was good. They gave 3 Ways:
1. What the masses like
2. What your friends like
3. What the experts like
Lds.org incorporates some of these types, but maybe they could add more... such as Most viewed? (see what I mean in the video)
Make it your way
The moderns knew that some people like a site not on how beautiful it was, but on how beautiful they could make it. A way lds.org does this is through study mode where you can mark the scriptures with different colors in your own way.
Standards
The moderns were all about making standards and lds.org has made some of these similar standards for video's made by members that can be submitted to the church for use. Video Standards
My only advice would be to make sure they implement these same standards in their videos they make. (See the video for a bad example of how not to do it- too small words)
Hegel
Historical DialecticHegel believed that history progressed dialectically or from the synthesis of two opposing forces. In terms of lds.org, and the organization it represents, much of what it has to offer the world is opposite of what the world wants. It is antithetical to the world and that is a good thing. But, from what I argue in the video, it is only antithetical in terms of the content and not the form. Or, in the messages it shares and not the mediums it uses.
The Medium is the Message
Marshall McLuhan was a non-dualist, like Hegel, who thought that you couldn't separate the medium from the message. He is famous for saying and coining the phrase, "The medium is the message." Lds.org attempts to set the trend in terms of it's messages, but merely follows the trend in terms of its mediums. Maybe there is a way they could teach their message of Love of God and of all mankind better than through the sometime isolating medium of social media. Maybe it can provide training to it's members on how to use social media correctly. How to avoid, as one of their leaders Elder Bednar said, living of the world, but not in it when we are supposed to live in it, but not of it.
Kierkegaard & Nietzsche
Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were Post-modernists. Though they shared this in common, they both had different approaches and different belief systems theologically. Kierkegaard is known as the quintessential Christian philosopher and Nietzsche is famous for saying "God is Dead" and wrote a book called, "The Anti-Christ." But, they both believed in the power of the individual to change the culture.Kierkegaard focused on helping people's weaknesses become weaker. He did this by the concept of mediating teaching which is getting on people's level and then lifting them from there. The 3 spheres of moral progress were the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious.
Nietzsche focused on helping people's strengths become stronger. The people who did this were the uber-mench's or over-men who were the exemplars of culture. The didn't get down on people's level, but marches fearlessly ahead.
Dewey and Heidegger
Heidegger believed that though making a choice is the death of certain possibilities, it allows for the birth of new ones. This video is a critique of a recent shift in strategy by lds.org to focus on a broader audience instead of the traditional one it has been built by and for previously. This, I believe, is an improvement, but at the same time as a decision is made to broaden, one must at the same time think about how they can bring it all in again. How to get more focused. Hopefully the broadening is a way to reach everyone with different needs and wants, but that it can eventually lead people to a more unified place where a narrower message could suffice.
Main Points to Consider for lds.org
- Should the Church's media efforts merely reflect the culture or try and shape it. (Medium)
- It is on its own is a culture.
- Cannot just replace entertainment with Christian entertainment
- Entertainment is not bad on its own, but it is bad when "entertainment is the natural format for the representation of all experience" (Amusing Ourselves to Death).
- Make social media websites easier to find from the home page of lds.org
- Could lds.org be a social website?
- Make the Create.lds.org site more well known and invite members to participate more in the creation of content.
- Crowd source content creation (Johnny Cash & Eric Whittaker).
- Living lives mediated through screens is living a pre-earth post-resurrection life. Invite people to connect offline. (Local Social Networks: inter-ward/inter-stake)
- Connect to BYU -one of the church's institutions
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