"Anthropologische Wende" in der kirchlichen Soziallehre zur Massenkommunikation

Abstract

Ethische Fragestellungen hat es mit der Entwicklung der Massenmedien in diesem Jahrhundert immer gegeben. Allerdings sind diese Fragen zu verschiedenen Zeiten in unterschiedlicher Intensität und Klarheit gestellt worden. Was Journalisten können, dürfen und sollen, was Massenmedien bewirken, verhindern und verschleiern: dies sind Fragen, die die öffentliche Diskussion eigentlich in gleichbleibender Weise in den letzten Jahren interessiert haben. Allerdings ging man -als diese Fragen kaum gestellt waren- sehr schnell wieder zur journalistischen Alltagspraxis über. Philosophische oder gar theologische Grundlegungen interessierten in der öffentlichen Diskussion kaum jemanden. Eine Ethik des Journalismus beziehungsweise der Massenkommunikation blieb so letztlich nur fromme Wunschvorstellung oder akademische Forderung in Seminaren, auf Tagungen und Kongressen. (...) 

English 

Already shortly after his election, Pope John Paul II became very popular indeed. He was called "Media Pope" or a "T.V. star", and like none of his predecessors, he became a weil searched subject for reporting. But also the Churches teaching on social communications received new elements through him. He bases his considerations especially on the teachings of Pius XII and Paul VI, on the Council document, and furtherdevelops the basic lines ofthe Pastoral Instruction "Communio et Progressio", but he also adds completely new elements. So he points to the cultural obligation of the media, the creation of a new communications order, a Christian pluralism as the basis for Church communication, and he especially develops an "anthropology of the public". This latter revolutionary new idea can be called an "anthropological change" in the social teachings of the Popes. The Pope puts man hirnself in the middle of his ethical considerations of mass communication in modern society, and the conditions and possibilities of his existence within the public. The reasoning for such an ethic of mass communication is considered in this contribution, which finally asks whether the ideas of John Paulll contain elements for an "anthropology of the public" as a possible precondition for a "theology of mass communication".