Page 52 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

From medium to meaning 41

realm of meaning-making rather than the “impact” of media on behavior.
There is also a more fundamental, and interesting, contrast in that what I
am developing here – a view that sees media in terms of their integration
into daily life rather than in terms of their effects on it.
Much of the so-called “dominant” effects paradigm of media thinks of
media in relation to various pathologies. From the early twentieth-century
studies of the impact of films and novels on children and youth through
the “mass society” theories of mid-century, to the studies of the impact of
television on violent behavior later in the century, there has been a consis-
tent tendency for media to be thought of in terms of how they might
impact the otherwise-well-socialized pre-teen, the smooth-functioning
social network, or the functional family. Interactionism in a way (and – it
might be argued – the pragmatist social-theoretical tradition out of which
it grew) focuses on the opposite. It wishes to understand and explain the
way we come to be socialized, the way we make meaningful sense of
ourselves in the social worlds we inhabit and the social and cultural
resources we use for these purposes. It further assumes that, on important
levels, this is a conscious, cognitive process. Not denying that there is
much that is not fully self-conscious about individual psychological devel-
opment, even much that is latent and subconscious, interactionism
nonetheless wishes to look at how we make sense of our world and take
action to inhabit it.
The approach here has much in common with a relatively recent devel-
opment in the field of psychology called “positive psychology.” According
to its proponents, it has arisen in part in response to the same general issue
I’ve raised here: that the measurement tools available have too often
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assumed pathology rather than integration. One of the proponents of the
positive approach, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, has provided valuable insights
to an approach that would look at media objects in a germinal essay titled
“Why we need things.” In it, he suggests that physical (and, by extension,
cultural) objects serve important functions in grounding us in space, time,
and history. 65
I am not arguing that the whole point of social analysis of media and
religion is to see stability and functioning totalized systems. Indeed, cultur-
alist media analysis is most helpfully directed at issues of difference,
distinction, resistance, alternative readings, contrasting interpretations,
social critique, and social change. It does this through critiques and inter-
pretations that foreground the conditions under which certain systems of
meaning and meaning practice make sense or do not make sense. Thus, it
foregrounds the social system and its attributes rather than assumed
“effects” on it. It is possible to see such systems happily functioning, but
also to see ways in which there are contradictions and stresses within
them. The focus is on culture. Even though much of what we will discuss
in later chapters involves individuals and their experiences, meanings, and