Table Of ContentREUGION
IN THE
NEWS
RELIGION
IN THE
NEWS
Faith
and
Journalism
in
American
Public
Discourse
Stewart M. Hoover
SAGE Publications
International Educational and Professional Publisher
Thousand Oaks London New Delhi
Copyright © 1998 by Stewart M. Hoover
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hoover, Stewart M.
Religion in the news: Faith and journalism in American public
discourse / by Stewart M. Hoover,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-7619-1677-6 (acid-free paper)
ISBN 0-7619-1678-4 (pbk.: acid-free paper)
1. Mass media—Religious aspects. 2. Journalism, Religious. 1. Title.
P94 .H657 1998
302.23Ό973—ddc21 98-9072
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
98 99 00 01 02 03 04 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acquisition Editor: Margaret H. Seawell
Editorial Assistant: Rende Piernot
Copy Editor: Joyce Kuhn
Production Editor: Astrid Virding
Editorial Assistant: Denise Santoyo
Typesetter/Designer: Christina M. Hill
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
1. Religion in the News 1
2. Approaches to Understanding 18
3. Discourses of Contemporary Religion 33
4. The Source of the Problem? 52
5. Looking at Religion 67
6. Reading and Watching Religion 97
7. The Audience for Religion 114
8. Religion and the Media in Conflict 139
9. Religion and Broadcasting 154
10. The Challenge of Standards 193
11. To Be the Discourse or Merely to Cover It 205
Index 221
About the Author 233
PREFACE
T
his book comes at a time when it is far more common to raise questions
about religion in the media than was the case when I first began looking
into them. In an era when television programs with religious themes are
among the highest rated on the air, when public broadcasting stations use
religious and quasi-religious headliners to help raise money during their
pledge weeks, and when major newspapers and news magazines run religion
cover stories at times other than Easter and Christmas, it seems almost too
obvious a step to write a book about religion journalism.
When this project began, however, things were very different. Religion
was much less present in journalistic and entertainment content. It is prob
ably the case, moreover, that things have not really changed all that much. It
is entirely possible that the trends we see around us now are more ephemeral
than permanent. Certainly, the sorts of things I have found during my
investigations (and that now appear in this book) would lead me to suspect
that whatever high-water mark of religion-in-the-media we might have
viii RELIGION IN THE NEWS
achieved at the late midpoint of the decade of the 1990s, there are very good
reasons why we may backslide at some point.
What will not be undone, however, is the increasingly sophisticate d
discourse that has begun to develop about these issues. This discourse has
both scholarly and popular voices. Important new books and research articles
are appearing all the time, conferences are being planned and carried out,
and an ever-growing network of people inside and outside the academic
community are beginning to take the intersectio n between religion and the
media more seriously.
As this discourse has developed, it is important to see that it has had some
distinct concerns within it. There are the questions of religion's use of media.
Studies of televangelism fit into this category. Then there are questions of
the use of religion by the media. This book is an example of this latter focus.
Other studies have looked at the construction of religious symbolism in
entertainment or leisure media, and this is, of course, an important task, too.
Each of these foci has proved to be exceedingl y rich and interesting, particu
larly as new theoretical and methodological perspectives have been brought
to bear.
However, there is a whole package of issues that moves beyond these
questions. As a logical extension of the tentative speculations in this book
about the nature of contemporary religious practice and its potential to center
on popular arts, popular culture, and the media, there is an emerging focus
on the religious practice of the media age per se. That is to say that in addition
to understanding what happens in the construction of media texts we must
also understand what audiences do with those texts. An emerging scholarship
of religion in the media age is coming to stand beside the other areas of
emphasis.
In short, there is a great deal more to be done. The intent of this book is
to center itself in one of the many fields of inquiry now beginning to address
the nexus of media, religion, and culture.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
S
ome of the research that supports this book's arguments began nearly 10
years ago. It thus stretches back across a number of institutional loca
tions and has benefited from a long and complex network of collegial and
informative relationships. Each of these institutions and each of these col
leagues deserves credit for having played a role in this product. Any value in
it is to their credit. Any defects are mine.
Most recently, the project has benefited from a concerted time of study and
reflection made possible by my university and the resources and excellent
scholarly atmospheres at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the
Social Sciences (SCASSS) and the faculty of Sociology of Religion at the
University of Uppsala, both in Uppsala, Sweden. I particularly want to
recognize the directors of the SCASSS, Bjorn Wittrock, Barbro Klein, Goran
Therborn, and Bo Gustafsson, and, of course, the staff. At the University of
Uppsala, thanks are due Dean Carl-Reinhold Brakenhielm of the Faculty of
Theology, Professor Thorleif Pettersson, and Dr. Alf Linderman.
IX
