Page 123 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

112 Articulating culture in the media age

culture of daily life, setting the stage for an analysis of their role in relation
to religion and spirituality. In Chapters 6 and 7, we will talk about the
ways that various narratives express the kinds of things people seek out
and find in the media sphere that relate to or serve their religious and spiri-
tual quests. In doing so, we will rely on (and – in a way – test) Roof’s
taxonomy, looking at how those major categories of identity and action
are and can be expressed in relation to media artifacts and symbols. In
Chapter 8, we will reflect on the fact that the relations between media and
religion are complex and far from straightforward. We will look there at
the variety of ways that people relate to media – what the media can “do”
for their religious and spiritual lives. The “accounts of media” we will be
looking at in these interviews reveal a kind of enigmatic and contradictory
role for the media. What does that tell us about the meaning practices that
result? In Chapter 9, we will move from the more closely focused level of
the household and daily life back toward the larger context of the way the
media have come to the center of the formation and expression of religious
and spiritual experience in cultural, social, and political life. Chapter 10
will draw the many avenues of inquiry in this book together in an explo-
ration of the contrasts and contradictions we have found along the way,
and conclusions we might be able to draw.