Page 261 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

250 Public religious culture post-09/11/01

many of the familiar elements of the “public vocabulary of mourning”
we’ve been talking about: flowers, teddy bears, poems, etc. 50
The intermixture of the media-experienced and the direct relation-
ship to the events invokes ideas about the nature of media experience
that ring true with the evolving perspective we have been describing
here. Media sociologist John Thompson speaks of “mediated quasi-
interaction” where communication mediates between audience
experience and events. Thompson intends to refer to the experience of
day-to-day life more than to such singular events as 9/11, but his
description is still apt.

For many individuals whose life projects are rooted in the practical
contexts of their day-to-day lives, many forms of mediated experience
may bear a tenuous connection to their lives: they may be intermit-
tently interesting, occasionally entertaining, but they are not the issues
that concern them the most. But individuals also draw selectively on
mediated experience, interlacing it with the lived [direct] experience
that forms the connective tissue of their daily lives. 51

Mediated civil rituals of commemoration and mourning can be described
as a particular case of what Thompson describes. Seeing events like 9/11 as
powerful and systematic themes and texts ordering media content and
practice, we can see their reception, consistent with the picture Thompson
paints, as a negotiation between their interests and experiences on the one
hand, and events that almost demand response on the other. These must
be, at the same time, integrated into their daily lives. The outpouring of
objects and actions that followed 9/11 is evidence of such motivations and
negotiations, and in a way just the “tip of the iceberg” of ritual actions
tied to the mediated events. As an example, a local reporter wrote of her
family’s experiences and reactions to 9/11 very much in ritual terms, and
in terms that speak to the existence of evolving, consensual, and larger
modes of ritualization surrounding the event.

In the past few weeks, there have been many more folded hands and
bowed heads around the nation’s dinner tables. I know that has been
the case at our house. We’ve clasped hands and stumbled through
prayers because we aren’t sure what else to do. The horror of the
terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington is beyond our
scope. Our words are feeble, but they tumble out along with our tears.
I lit two candles, one to represent the families torn apart by violence,
the other to remind us that God mourns with us. I explained the
significance of the candles to my son and husband and took myself by
surprise. How did I know that? What was I thinking about? Yet, I
kept going, pushed by faith I often question. 52