Page 169 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

158 Born-agains and mainstream believers

They consider their church their primary social involvement, though
Dinah belongs to a mothers’ prayer group and they both participate in the
volunteer management of the community swimming pool in their neigh-
borhood. Karl describes his faith history as moving “from nonreligious to
religious,” though, like many Evangelicals, he recounts a faith history that
began in a denominational church, then fell away during college, but
became “born again” as the result of contact with the Young Life organi-
zation. Dinah reports that she has not made a major change in her
religious beliefs during her lifetime. They are more eloquent and direct
about their beliefs and the relationship of those beliefs to social practice
than are the Millikens. With regard to media, they see their beliefs as at
least in part informing attitudes about social and political discourse they
encounter there, thus seeing media more as “context” than as a “symbolic
inventory.” In fact, much of what they have to say about media is about
such religiously inflected values and political issues. In a reflection that
combines awareness of media and values conflicts with a critique of local
news, Karl observes,

We usually watch the local news. I think it tends to be sensationalized
and ever-increasingly appeals to tabloidish kind of things. And I think
they’re more into ratings than truly what’s newsworthy, so they gear
their content towards what will get ratings and be more entertaining
as opposed to truly informational and newsworthy. The Disney
boycott, for instance, I think they like those kind of things because it
sensationalizes and stereotypes religion and religious people in a nega-
tive way.

Karl’s reflections on media values tend to be focused in this way, on ques-
tions that we might describe as almost more “political” than they are
“religious.” When asked about situations where they feel moved to discuss
questionable media content with their children, Karl and Dinah give exam-
ples that reflect current debates over religious politics.

Karl: If something, it seems to me, we may comment about something if
it’s grossly politically correct.
Interviewer: What do you mean by grossly politically correct?
Karl: Well, if there’s just so much plurality and so much diversity that it’s
atypical of a life situation. And it’s not something we discuss so much
as point out and probably make light of.
Dinah: Like, there is a TV show they used to watch called The Puzzle
Place. And it’s very pluralistic. And I just don’t believe in a lot of that.
And I would frequently talk about the topics that they would bring up
and why we don’t subscribe to it or how our values and beliefs are
different from that.