Page 213 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

202 Believers, dogmatists, and secularists

The broader agreement on the issue of violence was not the only area
where there was more commonality, either. Nearly all of the families
expressed the idea of a “hierarchy” of acceptable media that saw the so-
called “screen” media (with the exception of film for some) as lower in the
hierarchy than reading or the use of the Internet for information-gathering
purposes. Among the households we saw here, all but the dogmatists
seemed to feel that some of the problems with media behavior and content
are mediated by autonomous choice. Many maintain video libraries and
talk about those as their major media involvements (though there is much
evidence that even those households also consume a great deal of out-of-
home media, too). There was also some agreement among some of the
households that the problem with the derogated screen media is almost as
much their impact on time (distracting from more worthy pursuits) as their
conveyance of values.
Nearly all the families have a difficult time directly connecting media
with their religious or spiritual values, beliefs, and behaviors. It is as if
there is an “account of media” that stipulates those to be contradictory
realms. Few could easily or facilely talk about media that influenced or
expressed their faith, religious beliefs, or spirituality. The born-again
believers and dogmatists had the most to say about media and religion.
For families in both of those categories, there was a clear and focused
sense that there should be clear connections and distinctions between
media and faith. That did not seem to result in distinctive or necessary
ways of encountering, using, or interpreting media. Born-again believers,
for example, eschewed specifically “religious” media, 14 and, as I noted
earlier, did not make assessments of media that seemed directly significant
of their beliefs or faith. As I noted, when asked for examples of acceptable
programming, the typical responses were shows that were merely “inoffen-
sive” in some way, judgments that were not really different from those
made by parents in other categories. This aspect of media judgment thus
seemed to be more related to their roles as parents than to their roles as
born-again parents.
We should note, of course, that media other than television were more
often connected with religion and spirituality for many of our interviewees
across all five categories. Music seemed to be the media form most often
mentioned as the most powerfully connected to authentic faith and belief.
Others mentioned significant films and books. It almost seems that a
certain level of media behavior is dominated by an orientation to the medi-
ated common culture through the pervasive media of television, the
Internet, and (for young people) video gaming. At other levels of articula-
tion, where deeper and more refined connections are sought or become
significant, other media forms come to the fore. What is even more
intriguing is that, even for those households with the most focused reli-
gious and spiritual sensibilities, media of all of these kinds and on all of