Page 2 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Religion in the Media Age

Looking at the everyday interaction of religion and media in our cultural
lives, Religion in the Media Age is an exciting new assessment of the state
of modern religiosity. Recent years have produced a marked turn away
from institutionalized religions toward more autonomous, individual
forms of the search for spiritual meaning. Film, television, the music
industry, and the Internet are central to this process, cutting through the
monolithic assertions of world religions and giving access to more diverse
and fragmented ideals. While the volume and variety of information trav-
eling through global media changes modes of religious thought and
commitment, the human desire for spirituality also invigorates popular
culture itself, recreating commodities – film blockbusters, world sport,
popular music – as contexts for religious meaning.
Drawing on fascinating research into household media consumption
Stewart M. Hoover charts the way in which media and religion inter-
mingle and collide in the cultural experience of media audiences. The
result will be essential reading for everyone interested in how today’s mass
media relate to contemporary religious and spiritual life.

Stewart M. Hoover is Professor of Media Studies in the School of
Journalism and Mass Communication, at the University of Colorado,
Boulder, where he directs the Center for Media, Religion and Culture. He
is a leading authority on media and religion, and has authored, co-
authored and co-edited several books, including Media, Home and Family
(2004), Practising Religion in the Age of Media (2002), Religion in the
News (1998), Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture (1997) and Mass
Media Religion (1989).