Page 198 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Believers, dogmatists, and secularists 187

wanna know what they are watching for but I’d say yeah to with these
two [referring to Christine and Chloe]. Samantha, she is pretty
much . . . I feel she is grown up enough to make good decisions for
herself so.
Interviewer: OK. So are there any TV shows that all of you guys hate?
Samantha: No.

The Tabor-Collins family does watch television with some frequency. The
girls were able to provide a list of programs and channels they regularly
watch. For them and for Sarah, though, it is important to say that, in
comparison with others, their family is not a media-saturated one.

Interviewer: So from an outsider’s point of view your family is kind of low
key on media in general?
Sarah: Uh [yes].
Interviewer: [to the girls] Is that what you think too, compared to your
friends?
Samantha: Oh, yeah by far. ’Cause a lot of my friends go home and watch
TV for hours. I mean we have had surveys at school on how much TV
we watch, some kids watch like four hours of TV everyday and like I
watch four hours maybe every two weeks. Like I hardly watch TV at
all, I get bored when I watch TV.
Interviewer: What about you? [to Christine] Your friends are the same
watch a lot of TV? Use computer a lot more than you?
Chloe: Yeah, our friends do.

This family wishes to present an account of media as something that they
can take or leave. They consume media regularly, but it is important for
them to think of themselves as distinct from other, more media-saturated,
families. Sarah does not express the kind of concern about media content
(except for violent content) that we hear elsewhere. Like the Stevens-Van
Gelder family, the concern is more about the time used in watching televi-
sion than it is about the effects of content or the values found there. This is
a more intellectualized than moralized vision, something that is not too
surprising in a non-traditional “seeking” household.

Some other families

Several of these themes are echoed in interviews with other families in the
“metaphysical believer and seeker” category. Mark Price and Gabriel
Benoit are a gay couple who live in a suburban neighborhood with their
11-year-old daughter, Lisette. All three of them express views of religion
5
and spirituality consistent with Roof’s “metaphysical seeking” category.
Mark observes that religion is choosing a denominational identity, and