Page 306 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Appendix: notes on method 295

I’ll conclude with a few reflections on some of the unique approaches in
our collaborative work represented in this book. First, it does appear that
the narrative approach underlying our analysis was helpful and produc-
tive. Second, the notion of identity as the objective of the practice of
meaning-making proves useful heuristically, and did prove to be a good
way of describing and analyzing the interactions between various elements
and domains. Third, the approach of treating media materials as a kind
of “material culture” also proved useful. Interviewees were able to artic-
ulate their relations to media with a kind of objectivity that helped us see
their relations to other domains of their lives. In sum, the method seemed
to work well, and provided substantial material for interpretation and
analysis.
The most interesting and challenging part of this study – implicit in
much of what I’ve said above about our theoretical and methodological
challenge and evolution – is the phenomenon that most of our interviewees
had such a difficult time making clear and straightforward connections
between their media lives and their religious/spiritual lives. I (and we) did
not expect this to be as big a challenge as it turned out to be. Much of our
reflection and rethinking was driven by the need to come to grips with this
situation. What resulted, both here and in our earlier work, has been a
more subtle, nuanced, and – in our view – sophisticated view of relations
in these critical areas. As qualitative/interpretive work, this transition has
been substantive in both methodological and theoretical terms. We leave it
to readers and colleagues to help us judge the breadth of its significance.