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Religion in the Media Age Looking at the everyday interaction of religion and media in our cultural lives, Religion in the Media Age is an exciting new assessment of the state of modern religiosity. Recent years have produced a marked turn away from institutionalized religions toward more autonomous, individual forms of the search for spiritual meaning. Film, television, the music industry, and the Internet are central to this process, cutting through the monolithic assertions of world religions and giving access to more diverse and fragmented ideals. While the volume and variety of information traveling through global media changes modes of religious thought and commitment, the human desire for spirituality also invigorates popular culture itself, recreating commodities – film blockbusters, world sport, popular music – as contexts for religious meaning. Drawing on fascinating research into household media consumption Stewart M. Hoover charts the way in which media and religion intermingle and collide in the cultural experience of media audiences. The result will be essential reading for everyone interested in how today’s mass media relate to contemporary religious and spiritual life. Stewart M. Hoover is Professor of Media Studies in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he directs the Center for Media, Religion and Culture. He is a leading authority on media and religion, and has authored, coauthored and co-edited several books, including Media, Home and Family (2004), Practising Religion in the Age of Media (2002), Religion in the News (1998), Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture (1997) and Mass Media Religion (1989). Religion, Media and Culture Edited by Stewart M. Hoover, Jolyon Mitchell and David Morgan Religion, Media and Culture is an exciting series which analyses the role of media in the history of contemporary practice of religious belief. Books in this series explore the importance of a variety of media in religious practice and highlight the significance of the culture, social and religious setting of such media. Religion in the Media Age Stewart M. Hoover Religion in the Media Age Stewart M. Hoover First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon. OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 Stewart M. Hoover All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0-415-31422-4 ISBN10: 0-415-31423-2 ISBN10: 0-203-50320-1 ISBN13: 978-0-415-31422-0 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-31423-7 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-50320-1 (ebk) Contents Series editors’ preface Acknowledgements Introduction 1 What this book could be about vii viii 1 7 2 From medium to meaning: the evolution of theories about media, religion, and culture 26 3 Media and religion in transition 45 4 Articulating life and culture in the media age: plausible narratives of the self 84 5 Reception of religion and media