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Conclusion: what is produced? 269

in more detail below) there may be ways in which separate spheres appear
to exist, based on these interviews. One of those ways has to do with this
idea of the “common culture.” Some of our interviewees (particularly the
“metaphysical believers and seekers” and “secularists”) were readily able
to conceive of religiously or spiritually significant things in the media.
Some traditionalists felt this way, too. For others, though, such as Rachel,
there is more of a “bright line” between cultural resources related to her
faith and resources of the “broader culture.” What is significant is that,
even in cases like Rachel’s, the resources of the “broader culture” hold
sway, or are even in a way determinative. Once again, what seems to be
happening is something that we predicted, based on our theoretical rumi-
nations: that people would negotiate a plausible sense of self out of a range
of resources.
Across many of our interviews, though, we got the sense that “the
media” are, in a way, more “culturally” than “religiously” or “spiritually”
meaningful. Most of them seemed to be able to reflexively position them-
selves, their faith, their values, the media, and the claims of the broader
culture, and make decisions and choices accordingly. The media are reli-
giously significant, but do not “replace religion,” in this sense, for
everyone in every case.
We should also note that this “common cultural” discourse plays a role
in interactions within the household as well as beyond it. Just as individ-
uals found value in the cultural currency they could access and express in
interactions with friends, co-workers, and others, many of the families
here also interacted around, and used, these resources for their own
discourses in the household.
The practices we’ve been talking about here, rooted as they are in the
logics of individual “selves” making sense out of a range of cultural
resources, look very much like a kind of “postmodern” moment, where
the fixed and determinative forms and shapes of society have given way to
idiosyncrasy and solipsism. There is a lot of invention, play, and negotia-
tion in these interviews. Interviewees seem to draw on a range of domains
and ideas as they make sense of themselves and their lives. In some ways, it
is difficult to find systematic themes, motivations, or outcomes in these
accounts. Clear reference to social or cultural “truths” do not seem to
determine meaning outcomes. Fundamental social or class interests are not
readily on display (though they clearly lie behind much of what we’ve
seen). Religious history or doctrine do not seem to play a major determina-
tive role in the process. Clerical authority is not much of a factor. So, what
are the central logics? What kind of systematic conceptions and ideas and
values claims can we see?
This cultural-meaning level is one of the places where we can see the
contrast we discussed earlier, between Giddens’s ideas about the way that
autonomous “selves” make systematic meanings directed at their perfection