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Conclusion: what is produced? 275

the outset concerned the role that media may play in providing a kind of
“symbolic inventory” to the practice of religiously infused meaning-
making. As we’ll discuss in more detail later, there are many examples of
media working in this way. However, it is important to note that, in the
means or style of negotiation we’ve seen, the media seem to be important
on two levels. In addition to a “symbolic inventory,” they are also a
context. Much of what we said earlier about the media conveying the
“common culture” is rooted in this sense of context. Processes and prac-
tices of legitimation of various ideas and values in the media involve a
negotiation between these two senses of media. Judy Cruz, in Chapter 4,
was a good example of this as she assessed mediated discourses about
science and fantasy fiction.
Judy is also a good example of another dimension we see in these nego-
tiations, that the kinds of things that are taken to be religiously and
spiritually meaningful in these narratives are often quite surprising. A good
deal of the material mentioned is predictable, starting with the range of
programming we’ve been calling “sentimental” and “inoffensive,” things
like Little House on the Prairie, Christy, and Seventh Heaven. Some
programming, like specifically “religious broadcasting,” was notable for
its absence from these discussions. But a wide range of material beyond
these was talked about, everything from science and fantasy fiction, to
mystical gothic dramas, to violent films like Braveheart,to The Simpsons,
to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In a way, the selection of material to
talk about was one of the modes of distinction we talked about earlier. A
significant point of social distinction between Terry Albert, the “born-
again” father who mentioned Braveheart, and the “secularist” mother
Sheryl Murphy, who identified Gandhi, is in those choices. This under-
scores the notion of autonomy discussed at the outset. Rather than
circulating around a set of ideas about what is or should be meaningful in
media, the logic of these interviews has centered on autonomous choice.

“Playful” practice
At the heart of the questions of autonomy and choice is another issue in
these negotiations, an expectation rooted in much of the “received
discourse” about the media. Cultural authorities of a variety of kinds,
including teachers, clergy, religious educators (and university professors),
have conceived of the practice of media consumption, particularly at the
level of viewing choices, to be something of a deliberative process. A wide
range of lay discourse about media, as well as many of the ideas at the
heart of the so-called “media literacy” movement, assume that people
bring a range of ideas and values to play in their decisions about what to
watch and what to do in the media sphere. In contrast, much of what we
have seen here seems to be more playful than it is deliberative. We’ve