Page 304 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Appendix: notes on method 293

of this project for over ten years now, and her influence on my work has
been profound. I have already mentioned her important theoretical work
on the “constructivist” orientation of our project, but also must credit her
with a range of nuanced and sophisticated insights into the nature of reli-
gious practice as it relates to media culture. In addition, she has always
kept issues of class, ethnicity, and difference in general in the forefront of
our thinking, and therefore of my work here.
Henrik Boes was the second field researcher on the project, and
contributed a ground-breaking master’s thesis in religious studies based on
his interview work with us. Henrik focused, at an early stage, on the essen-
tially ludic nature of the media practices we were seeing. Whereas the
literatures had us looking for religiously inflected media practices that
would be sober and deliberative, Henrik saw in his own studies, and in
others, that much of this activity is better described as “playful,” rather
than “deliberative.” As can be seen in this book, this continues to be the
case in many of our households.
One of the most challenging things in initial phases of the study was to
analyze the claims being made by parents – particularly fathers – about
media policies and practices in the household. Joe Champ was the inter-
viewer in a number of the initial households where this became a theme,
and it was Joe who helped us see past the explicit claims being made by
these fathers toward the implicit structuration of ideas about fatherhood
and manhood in those contexts. Joe’s influence helped me to move to an
analytic position that interpreted the social meaning of these claims.
The theme of fatherhood and manhood continues to be an interest of
mine, and of our ongoing work, and Monica Emerich has been particu-
larly helpful in continuing to think about issues of gender in relation to
parental authority, and the symbolic meaning of that authority. Monica’s
own interests in spirituality and social change in the context of media
practice has helped us focus on the ways that media – as commodities –
function or may function in daily practice. Curtis Coats has also
conducted some important field research in this area.
Diane Alters was influential in helping us see that the “implicit” reli-
giosity of programs needs to be analyzed along with the “explicit” as a
package. Her interest in The Simpsons attuned her to the challenging ques-
tion of how we might socially legitimate or authenticate media experiences
and practices that might not – on their face – seem “religious.” Diane’s
sophisticated reading of the humanities literature on meaning and identity
helped me (and us) articulate what we are seeing with larger themes in the
culture. In addition to her intellectual skills, Diane was and is an excellent
and persuasive writer, and those gifts have given great form and shape to
the project and my thinking here.
Lee Hood wanted us always to keep in mind that these were family
systems we were looking at, after all, and that the relations within the