The Netherlands: Society, Media

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The NetherlandsSociety, Media the Church

• Fifth Professional Seminar for Church
  Communications Offices
• Pontificia Università della Santa Croce
• 27th of april 2006

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Dutch society (1)

• 16 million inhibitants
• Randstad versus other provinces
• Americanisation of the economy
• Central right government
• Murder of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh

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Dutch society (2)

• Assylum/ integration of foreigners one of the
  leading political themes
• As you all know strong on liberal values
  (homosexuality, euthanasia, drugs, prostitution)

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Religion (1)

• Dominant secular society, but kind of religious
  intuition remains present
• The image of a protestant nation, but catholic
  church by far the largest (4.5 million vs 2.5
  million Reformed Church)
• Mainstream Reformed Church in decline, growth of
  orthodox-protestant and evangelical movements

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Religion (2)

• Islam is growing fast (800.000-1 million), but
  lack of clarity in leadership
• Hardly known number of foreign christians also
  increasing strong (Rotterdam)
• Church versus State hot political issue (mainly
  because of radical muslim movements)

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Catholic Church (1)

• From one of the strongest catholic provinces in
  the world to the lowest
• Seven percent of catholics attend Sunday mass
  (95 in the beginning of 20th cent)
• Lack of vocations (esp. religious life)
• Large number of lay pastoral assistents
• Financial organisational problems

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Catholic Church (2)

• Orthodox leadership versus dominant liberal flock
  clerus
• But the hot polarisation has ended
• Looking for new inititiatives (small christian
  communities, Alpha course, etc)
• New movements welcome, strong in quality but low
  in number

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Media (1)

• Explosion of tv-broadcasters in the last two
  decades
• Radio more and more a jukebox
• Internet strong and still booming
• Watching tv on internet increasing fast
• Newspapers structural in decline

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Media (2)

• No catholic daily newspaper
• One semi-large general christian newspaper, two
  small orthodox-protestant newspapers
• Two more or less catholic magazines with a small
  audience no real popular family style magazine

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Media Religion (1)

• New generation of journalists from specialists
  with own agenda to generalists without knowledge
• Islam has given new attention to public role of
  religion
• Catholic church leadership leading in image of
  christianity

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Media Religion (2)

• Death of John Paul II turning point in media
  attention for catholic church
• Bishops active on medical-ethical and social
  issues
• Media attention strong on folkloristic and
  surprising news, low in serious matters

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Church Communication (1)

• Professional quality (information bulletin
  Bconference, diocesan magazines, etc.)
• Communication office Bishopsconference 4
  professionals
• Communication offices dioceses 1-3
• Internet ok on national and diocesan level,
  moderate weak in parishes
• Electonical communication with parishes in
  development

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Church Communication (2)

• Internal communication impossible without using
  external channels
• Weak in measuring results of communication
• Weak in focussing on a few issues
• Difficult to broathen the catholic voice to
  others than the bishops

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RKK-zendtijd (1)

• Unique in the world
• State sponsored/ budget EUR 7 mio
• 56 hrs Television, nearly 200 hrs Radio and a
  very well developed website
• From a service to catholics to an instrument for
  evangelisation
• www.katholieknederland.nl develops into an
  independant broadcaster

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RKK-zendtijd (2)

• Television strong in emotion, weak in content
• Radio strong in content, weak in outreach
• Internet possibilities without a limit, but
  danger of becoming a narrowcaster

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RKK-zendtijd (3)

• God voor
• Afzien
• Childtelevision
• Videocasting on Internet

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Having Fun!

• Campaign style of communications
• Tests on internet
• Sms mobile service Lent
• Benedetto shirts during WYD
• Podcasting priest
• Daily mass by the Cardinal

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And a campaign that didnt make it
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Thoughts on the future

• Internet Mobile Phone the most important
  killer applications
• Church communications has to be cross medial
• Need for courage to explore new ways (games!) and
  strategies

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Anselm Grun osb

• The most important challenge for a succesfull
  organisation
• in our times is
• how to organize creativity