Religion and Media 2018 Abstracts
Framing the death of Cardinal Law • Giselle A Auger, Rhode Island College • Antecedent conditions played a significant role in the framing of Cardinal Law’s death. Ninety-six percent of articles provided dominant meaning by association with the 2002 Spotlight scandal, Law’s resignation, or his controversial reappointment to a prestigious parish in Rome. Despite the inherent newsworthiness of his death 29 % of media limited publication of the news of his death to news briefs or obituary.
True Believers, Poseurs, and Becoming “Woke”: Portrayals of Religion in Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black” • Erika Engstrom, UNLV; Joseph Valenzano • This paper examines the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” and how it portrays religious ideology. A textual analysis of the first four seasons show was conducted, resulting in the detection of four central themes: (1) the use of religion as part of character identity; (2) the divisive nature of religious identification; (3) fakery associated with the use of religion for personal gain; and (4) stories of redemption and personal growth.
In the world, not of it: Exploring Evangelical Christian women’s negotiation of meaning within a shared community • Jennifer Huemmer, Ithaca College • This study examines the meaning-making and communication processes that occur among Evangelical Christian women in a shared community. I conducted a participant-observation of a women-only Bible study in West Texas. The study revealed that important meanings were constructed about the “them” of the world and the “us” of the church and that these meanings informed the women’s strategies for interacting with “others” as well as their expectations that they would experience hostility from “others.”
The God card: Strategic employment of religious language in U.S. presidential discourse • Ceri Hughes, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The United States, despite official separation of church and state, is a country dominated politically by Christianity. This is evident in the almost unbroken ranks of Christians elected to the presidency. This research adds further data and metrics to the fallacy of Jefferson’s Wall, and finds further evidence of strategic employment of religious language. Content analysis of 106 “high-state” addresses plus 342 “minor-state” addresses from Roosevelt to Trump provides evidence to illustrate how use of both overt and covert religious language escalated following the Reagan presidency. Rather surprisingly, the final data point of this trend – Trump – has the highest rate of use of such language. Twitter evidence also illustrates a change in level of use of such language from citizen to candidate to President Trump.
Religion and the Media: A Study of Student Perception of Media Bias in Georgia • Elizabeth Johnson-Young, University of Mary Washington; Alexander Clegg, University of Washington; John Guidon, University of Mary Washington • Georgia is fighting to make the step from developing to developed and the influence of the Georgian Orthodox Church has been an identified barricade for European Union leadership to accept Georgia into the supranational organization. This research investigates the relationship between religiosity and the perception of media bias among college students in Tbilisi, Georgia. It was hypothesized that the relationship between religiosity and perception of media bias would be negative, as measured by survey administered to the students. This paper demonstrates that the more religious a student is, the less likely he or she will recognize a media bias towards the Georgian Orthodox Church. Similarly, students who are more religious both use and trust domestic news sources than those who are less religious. As scholars continue to work towards branching research in media and religion beyond Western countries, this research begins to fill an important gap in its study of Georgia, particularly at this important time in the country. Implications for the country and future research are discussed.
Effective Intercultural Workgroup Communication Theory: The Impact on Church Dynamics • Stephen Kabah, Regent University • The Church is no exemption to the rapid growth in diversity in almost all industries across the world. For the last two decades, there has been a swift increase in diversity due to globalization. Communication theorists have explored various dynamics in culturally diverse workgroups and its impact on effectiveness and creating a workable environment. In this study of 298 participants, it was found that church teams which are culturally diverse are more effective than those that are not. Additionally, the study indicated that culturally diverse churches have a strong sense of community and thus grow in membership. While this study is limited in scope at this time, it can be applied to a larger population. This paper suggests further research on this topic to support the Effective Intercultural Workgroup Communication Theory.
A Longitudinal Analysis of the Linguistic Tone of American Churches Online • Doug Mendenhall, Abilene Christian University; Lani Ford, Abilene Christian University • Messages from both the official websites of leading Christian denominations and from a random group of self-identified Christian sites are analyzed for significant differences in message tone between 2012 and 2016, the two most recent U.S. presidential election years. This quantitative analysis employs Diction 7.0, a common word-counting program that measures more than 40 variations of message tone. Eleven of the most relevant variables are utilized, as well as a scale developed by one of the authors in 2014 to combine Diction variables for a measurement of linguistic incivility. Findings include a lack of heightened Incivility over the four-year cycle, with an earlier trend continuing of lower Incivility for messages from official denominational sites than for self-identified Christian sites. Several other small, optimistic trends are identified. From a social identity perspective, the consistently low levels of incivility are consistent with strongly identified groups that project themselves as loving and positive.
Terrorism News Coverage and Attitude towards Islam: Does Following Terrorism News Cultivate Opinions about Muslims • Valentina Michael • This study explores the media effects of following news coverage about terrorism events in the United States and how it shapes attitude towards Islam and Muslims. A four-variable model was adopted to understand the relationships between the dependent variable, attitude towards Islam, and three independent variables, following terrorism news, knowing a Muslim, and political preference. The study conducted a secondary analysis of the CBS/ New York Times Poll conducted in 2013. Participants following news coverage of the Boston marathon bombing was as the primary news variable. The results of the study provide evidence of a negative relationship between following news about terrorism and favorable attitudes toward Islam. However, political preference has the highest influence on favorable or unfavorable attitudes towards Islam.
A multi-method approach to examining online sermons from religious organizations • Jordan Morehouse, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Daniel Riffe • Social media platforms are challenging the ways in which religious organizations communicate with their publics. To understand how churches and congregants are adapting to new media, this study explored the motivations behind viewing online sermons and content analyzed sermons published on social networking sites. Results suggest that online sermon viewers turn to online sermons for information goals and spiritual goals, and the majority of online sermons inform viewers on personal improvement or salvation.
Media as Religion: Practices of Mediation in a Catholic Community in South India • Subin Paul, University of Iowa; Deepika Rose Alex • This article examines the relationship between media and religion through a case study of a Catholic newspaper based in the South Indian state of Kerala. Specifically, we “thickly describe” the practices of mediation and meaning-making processes of the readers and editors of the print newspaper, Deepika (“Light”). We argue that, for a devout Catholic, the newspaper and religion are inseparable from each other and they both concurrently mediate the communal and spiritual longings of the believers.
No Compassion for Muslims? How Terrorism News About Muslim Victims Influence Emotions and Policy Support • Desiree Schmuck; Jörg Matthes, U of Vienna; Christian von Sikorski • A quota-based online experiment (N = 354) explored how terror news affect emotions and policy support depending on the victims’ religion and empathy-evoking news coverage style. News reports about terrorist attacks committed against Muslims rather than non-Muslims induce less anger and compassion, but more joy among non-Muslim news consumers irrespective of the news coverage style. Anger and joy predict subsequent support for restrictive counterterrorism policies, while compassion and anger predict support for victim compensation.
What would Jesus do in Cyberspace? • Ddavid Scott, UVU • A close-reading of two Mormon websites demonstrates that LDS.org (targeting believers) emphasizes hierarchical and structural forms of authority, while Mormon.org (aimed at non-Mormons) emphasizes shared values. These contradictory appeals may undermine the long term brand of the faith as new converts discover a different face of Mormonism in the pews.
An Analysis of the Rise and Fall of “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven” • Jim Trammell, High Point University • Christian mass media merge religious faith with consumable products. Christian media-films, books, music, and other goods marketed primarily to evangelical consumers-are typically framed as serving ministerial roles. But how does the Christian mass media industry negotiate this role in a marketplace that demands media products sell units and turn a profit? And what does it mean when a profit-driven industry influences Christian beliefs and practices? This manuscript examines the rise and fall of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven to explore how the Christian media industry negotiates its perception of a ministerial tool with the profit-based demands of the marketplace. This manuscript advocates for an explicit and intentional framing of Christian media where its money-making role trumps its religious expectations, and that its content is based more on sales than Christian service.
Print friendly
