“Ghosts, spirits and Schwarzenegger: 

 Children’s connections to God

in mediated culture”

 

 

 

Lee Hood

Doctoral candidate

Symbolism, Media and the Lifecourse Project

Center for Mass Media Research

University of Colorado

Campus Box 287

Boulder, CO  80309

Lee.Hood@Colorado.EDU

 

Presented at the

Third International Conference on

Media, Religion and Culture

July 20-23, 1999

Edinburgh, Scotland

 

Abstract

 

                Much research in religious studies has focused on changing practices vis a vis  traditional religious institutions.  Within media studies, audience research on religion has increasingly focused on the ways individuals construct their own spiritual meaning out of a symbolic inventory that may or may not include the claims of those traditional institutions (Hoover, 1997; Clark, 1998).  Using that paradigm, and following the trajectory of Coles in The Spiritual Life of Children (1990), this paper explores how children find spiritual meaning in such diverse media choices as Unsolved Mysteries and The Terminator.  Applying Linderman’s (1997) concept of social semeiology to explore how cultural symbols take on different meanings within particular social contexts, the paper examines how differences between children’s conceptions of God and media may be tied to differing religious beliefs within their households. 

 

 

 

 

"Ghosts, spirits and Schwarzenegger:

Children’s connections to God in mediated culture”

 

                The program Touched By An Angel has been one of the most popular on U.S. television the past few seasons, and it is not at all surprising that viewers have felt a spiritual connection to the program.  Its theme involves angels in earthly form helping humans solve dilemmas and expose them to God’s love.  It is much more surprising that viewers would identify spiritual themes and connections to God in such diverse television programs as Unsolved Mysteries and Walker, Texas Ranger, and movies such as The Terminator.  Yet these are precisely some of the programs that children in a study of household media use have identified when asked if they think about God or religion when they watch television or movies (in the same way as their parents or other adults are identifying programs such as Star Trek or The X-Files).  This paper will explore the context within which those connections are made, how children talk about these programs, and the differences in religious practices within these children's families.

                Hoover (1999) categorized three central paradigms within the study of media and religion:

                -- The first, focusing on religious institutions and individuals presenting their messages in the media sphere (studies of televangelism being predominant);

                -- The second, focusing on "media events" and the phenomenon of civil religion;

                -- The third, examining the treatment of religion in the "secular" media (such as studies of journalistic treatment of religion).

                Hoover proposes is a fourth and fifth paradigm of religion in the media age.  The fourth focuses on the autonomous actions of audiences and the meanings they achieve within popular, vernacular practice -- in which "there is the potential that all of television can become religious television" (1999, p. 7, emphasis in original).  The fifth paradigm extends the fourth, to ask how and from what influences such meanings are made.  These paradigms presume a complex interaction between religion and media products, in terms of the ways audience members find meaning within the two spheres.

 

On the one hand, it is clear that television has come to determine and construct contemporary religion and religious consciousness.  On the other hand, religion can be seen to condition and construct readings of contemporary television. (Hoover, 1999, p. 17)

                The argument herein is framed within this fourth and fifth paradigm, and additionally seeks to examine the ways in which family contexts may condition this interaction particularly for young audience members. 




Changing Conceptions of Religion




                Many scholars have documented the changing conceptions of religion, and the trend from institutional religion to individual "seeking," as Roof (1993) termed it.  Hammond (1992) and Hoover (e.g., 1997) have both argued that authority over religious symbols now rests with individuals, not institutions.  This "new paradigm," as it was labeled by Warner (1993), is one in which religious experience and meaning are embedded in personal and individual experience.  This new perspective on religion allows for "the construction of religious culture out of a universe of symbols that may or may not include the symbolic claims of the historic religions" (Hoover, 1997, p. 286).

                Clark furthers this argument in her examination of teens and religious identity- construction (1998), and ponders whether it is possible that ideas of what it means to be religious or spiritual are drawn, at least in part, from mass media sources.  She argues that "media, through their institutional position within society, have the power to articulate and provide legitimacy to certain ways of framing these symbols into consensually-accepted and naturalized discourses" (1998, p. 251).  She has recently explicated her ideas further:

 

Young people, like people of all ages, see themselves as the authorities over how they will be “religious,” rather than relying on religious institutions to tell them what it means to be religious per se.  Thus the media and the religious institutions and various other sources become rivals on somewhat equal footing in the mind of the young person who is trying to make decisions about what to believe and how.[1]

                Lippy's (1994) conception of "popular religiosity" is suggestive of this turn from the strong influence of religious institutions in determining religious meaning to a more broad-based sphere of influences outside of the traditional realm.  In the same vein as Clark's (1998) work, this paper attempts to contribute to the understanding of "popular religiosity" by describing the discourses framing ways in which people talk about religion in the current U.S. context (her words) -- in this case, how children talk about religious and spiritual themes within media texts.  While she explored identity-construction, I am exploring identification -- that is, what religious or spiritual meaning children identify  from the media sources with which they connect.  While she examined religious identity-construction among teenagers, this paper looks at pre-teens and their family contexts, and how those contexts may influence these adolescents' conceptions of spiritual themes in media products. 




Changing Ideas of “Religious” Media




                At the same time religion has been changing, so have notions of "religious broadcasting".  While a large body of scholarship has focused on explicitly religious broadcasting and televangelism (from Parker et al., 1955, to Horsfield, 1984; Hoover, 1988; Peck, 1993, to name a few), Hoover (1997) challenges the notion that the conception of "religious media" is equated with texts constructed by religious groups or with religious intentions.

                Roof (1995) wrote of the "blurred boundaries" between religion and prime-time television, suggesting that many programs "present audiences with existential encounters arising out of everyday life, and which have the potential for provoking religious or mystical-spiritual responses" (p. 12).  He suggests that individuals are compelled to "take the lead in constructing any religious or spiritual meaning that might possible be derived" from television programs (1995, p. 14).

                Similarly, Schultze (1990) argued that popular programs can serve a religious function even though they are not produced by any religious organization and do not serve a specific function in proselytization.  Further, he notes that a program does not even need to address the religious "compartment" of life to carry religious meaning.  It is within this vein that some of the following examples are framed -- the ways in which children identify spiritual significance even in programs where there is no specific religious theme at all.

                Unlike Fore (1987), I do not begin with the assumption that the values, assumptions and worldview of television are "in almost every way diametrically opposed to the values, assumptions, and worldview” of traditional religions (p. 25).[2]  Instead, the intent here is to explore ways in which children find "religious" or spiritual meaning in the media products they encounter, and how those interpretations may be influenced by the belief systems in their families.




Theoretical Frameworks




                Linderman's conception of social semeiology is a good place to begin a discussion of the family contexts in which these various meanings take place (cf. Linderman, 1995, 1997).  Combining the Peircian understanding of the dynamics of individual meaning construction with the Saussurean notion of sign systems as structures of meaning, Linderman's model focuses on the social dimension of the use of signs.  He asserts that individual processes of meaning construction must be contextualized within the social structures and situational conditions of which the individual is a part.

 

The individual process of meaning construction is founded on the social meaning with which the individual is acquainted.  Through the individual's previous experiences from social interaction, he or she has acquired knowledge about how certain signs are used -- i.e., what meaning certain signs are supposed to carry in a certain situation. (1995, p. 55-56)

                Linderman suggests that this theoretical model can be applied to different levels of social systems -- as large as a country or even a transnational category defined by age or social class, for example.  Alternately, sign systems may be limited to a much smaller group, such as a small religious sect.  Linderman asserts that the levels to be analyzed must be defined according to the particular focus of each empirical research project.  In this case, the focus is on a household-level system, and exploring the degree to which the social semeiology within the family affects the meanings children take from media products.  And to specify another point of focus, this study particularly looks at how the religious understandings expressed or unexpressed within the household may affect the meanings children take from media sources.   

                Using the framework of social semeiology, Linderman (1995) found significant differences between the responses of evangelical and non-evangelical audiences to a religious-themed program from South Africa.  I am applying the same framework to propose that children in institutionally and non-institutionally religious families react differently to questions of media experience and religious themes.  

                Clifford, Gunter and McAleer (1995) hypothesized that for aspects of social reality in which firsthand experience is limited or nonexistent, children's beliefs, attitudes, and ideas are unstable and malleable.  Using this hypothesis, it is possible to see how children with limited firsthand experience or exposure to institutional religion  interpret media products differently than those children for whom that experience is both frequent and consistent within their households.




The Family Context




                The family has been an important site for qualitative audience research.  Morley (1992) argues it is here that the primary involvement with television occurs, and the primary articulation of meanings undertaken.  He maintains that the family, through its patterns of interaction, its internal systems of relationships, and its own culture of legitimation and identify formation, provides "a laboratory for the naturalistic investigation of the consumption and production of meaning" (1992, p. 183).  Morley agrees with Silverstone (1990), who argues that television watching is a complex activity, inevitably enmeshed with a range of other domestic practices and can only be properly understood in this context.

                In a similar vein, Lindlof and Meyer (1987) argue that the consumption of 'mediated communication' is a quintessentially domestic activity, maintaining that the fact "media messages are usually received by people in private and familiar settings means that the selection and use of these messages will be shaped by the exigencies of these local environments" (p. 2).

                The location of audience members in family contexts is an important component of the social action approach to research.  Anderson (1996) says this approach sees agency as socially directed rather than individually autonomous.  Social action theorists, he says, "see the individual as a socially bounded, knowledgeable agent who is a local and partial representative of societal memberships and whose actions are improvisations on cultural themes" (1996, p. 78).  This approach recognizes two different notions of the agent: one as an acting entity and the second as a representative.  I take this to mean representative of a larger social context, which usually begins with the family, and I believe it is consistent with Linderman’s idea of social semeiology (discussed above). 

                Anderson's empirical work has been in the realm of what he calls the "situated" audience, in which "its members are identified as embedded in an ongoing social action that must be accounted for...The behavior of any audience member becomes particularized by the actual circumstances of attendance."  (1996, p. 85)  In other words, Anderson is arguing for an approach in which audience members are understood in the social context and interactions of their viewing, not as isolated acts by individuals.

                It is within this tradition of studying audience members as family members concurrently that we have conducted research on household media use in the Symbolism, Media and the Lifecourse project directed by Professor Stewart Hoover at the University of Colorado.[3]  Hoover (1996) describes an approach which "seeks to account for the integration of media practices in the social flow of life...and how access to, learnings from, identifications with, and rejections of cultural and media commodities is articulated with that flow" (p. 13).  The argument here is that this social flow, particularly as it relates to religious teachings, seems to be implicated in different conceptions of media and religion for children in the households studied.




The Particular Case of Children




                In 1998, Life Magazine asked children to contemplate who God is, and asked them to illustrate in a photograph what they would like to ask God.  Their responses illustrate the range with which children can conceive of a higher being and their own connections to that supernatural force.  A 12-year-old girl photographed a stapler because she said it, like God, binds things together.  An 11-year-old girl photographed a shadow, since "God is like a shadow -- blurry -- because nobody has a clear image of Him" (Adato, 1998, p. 70).  In a similar way, Coles (1990) documented the different ways children talk about religious themes in  The Spiritual Life of Children.[4]  Coles examined the ways children’s religious backgrounds seem to influence their conceptions of religious themes (with chapters such as “Christian Salvation,” “Islamic Surrender,” “Jewish Righteousness,” and “Secular Soul-Searching”).  Building on that work, I am seeking to explore how the religious orientations within households might impact how children contemplate the connections between their spiritual beliefs and the media products they consume.

                Williams (1969) investigated how class differences can affect the ways children talk about television programs.  In a similar vein, I would like to suggest that household religious differences seem to have some effect on how children talk about religious or spiritual issues as they relate to their interactions with media.  Williams began with the assumption "that young children will attend and respond most to stimulation on the levels typically exercised in their family environment" (1969, p. 353).  The examples below  illustrate how the family environment can be thought of not only in terms of class differences, but in terms of differences in religious orientation, as well.




Institutionally Religious Families[5]




                In some ways, the Hansens and the Cains are very different.  The Hansens are an upper-middle class family[6] living in an affluent suburb of Denver, Colorado.  The parents, Blair and Nadine, have college degrees and work in white collar professional jobs.  The Cains are a lower-middle class family[7] in a semi-rural area, living in a home provided by the dog racing track where the father, Andrew, is a maintenance man.  Both parents, Andrew and Nora, have high school educations.

                Religiously, these families are much closer than their socioeconomic status might indicate.  Both families are Protestant Christian and attend church regularly, and explicit church teachings are a part of family discussions.  In each family, both the parents and children identify religion as "very important" to them.  That is not to say the families are identical religiously.  Yet the parents' religious worldviews, and the views expressed by their children, are similar enough to merit consideration together.




The Hansens




                Blair and Nadine Hansen are both ex-Catholics, and the family now regularly attends an evangelical non-denominational church.  They are not ultra-conservative in their religious beliefs.  On a scale of 1 to 6 (conservative to liberal), Blair rates his beliefs  a 2-1/2 to his beliefs, and Nadine rates hers a 2 to 3.  They could be categorized as evangelical "seekers," using Roof's (1993) term.  They made a conscious decision together to leave the Catholic church after they were married, and both explain their decision in very similar terms that focus on their individual spirituality.

 

Nadine: I wasn't getting what I needed spiritually from the Catholic church.... And as I started seeing, learning more about the Bible and learning more about doctrines and things about my faith is when I started questioning what the Catholic church...and then I tried, I tried to go to the Catholic church, but I never got as much out of it as when I went to a Christian church, in terms of really getting a sermon that preached to me about what I was dealing with on a daily basis but using Biblical references and teachings that were, just seemed to mean more to me than what I was getting from the Catholic church.  And I think I was just being impacted in different areas by sort of evangelical movements that were not as much a part of the Catholic church at the time that I left.[8]

                Nadine reports matter-of-factly that she is considered a "black sheep" in her family for having left Catholicism, and that her brother and sister, who are "still really strong in their Catholic faith...have a hard time understanding that." 

                Blair also says that leaving the Catholic church was a matter of trying to find something more meaningful to him and his wife spiritually.

 

Blair:  It was like this old retired-type priest telling us how you raise your family.  We just couldn't connect with this guy.  (We) had some friends who were attending more of a community-type church, went to that and thought, "Hey, you know, this definitely makes more sense.  The issues he's talking about with family and kids, this particular pastor, that's happening in our lives and we can relate much easier to what he's talking about."[9] 

                The Hansens tried a Baptist church and a large community church before settling on the small non-denominational church they now attend.  For Blair, the denominational affiliation is not important. "I think wherever your faith leads you, as long as you're getting fed spiritually, it's not like God says, 'Oh, you have to be a Catholic or a Protestant.'" 

                Before the time of our interview, the Hansens had been participating in a "house church" consisting of families who met outside a congregational building for fellowship and Bible study, which both Blair and Nadine identified as important to them.  The  Hansen children, Sara and Trevor (ages 15 and 11 at the time of our interviews), participate in church youth groups.  Trevor reports that the family prays before mealtime, even at a fast-food restaurant.  Sara identifies accepting Jesus as the biggest event that has changed her life, and talks about trying to be a witness to non-Christians.




The Cains




                The Cains are more conservative than the Hansens.  They belong to a conservative Baptist congregation, where they attend services every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening.  On a scale of religious views, conservative to liberal, Andrew Cain rates himself a 1 (most conservative), and says he believes "the Bible means exactly what it says, and that's the end of it."[10]  His wife, Nora, is not quite as conservative, believing that her children will learn from interactions with the broader culture.

 

Nora: You've gotta find that balance and you've gotta expose your kids to some things that are out there without bringing in things that are really wrong.  You can't hide 'em from some of the things that are going on, because they need to be exposed to those things and realize where morals come into play and where their beliefs come into play.[11] 

                Yet she makes a distinction between "worldly things" and "what is pleasing to the Lord," and at the time of our interview had eschewed all other reading until she finished reading the Bible cover to cover.  She defers to her husband on decisions of what is allowed and not allowed in the household, saying "he's the man of the house and I am to be under him" -- reasoning clearly based on a conservative, literal reading of the Bible.

                The Cains' older children, Patrick and Kelli (ages 9 and 10 at the time of their interviews) participate in organized youth activities and attend the church-operated school.  Their mother is the school secretary and de facto administrator.  Their younger sister, Brittany (age 2 at the time of the interviews), is learning religious children's songs in Sunday school.




Common Connections to God




                The Hansen and Cain children, while coming from somewhat different conservative Christian backgrounds, talk in very similar ways about connections between God and media products.  They think not in terms of specific media examples, but in broader terms of whether God (or Jesus) would approve of their viewing choices.

                In answer to the question, Do you think about God when you watch television or a movie?, Kelli Cain answered this way:

 

Kelli: Sometimes I debate on whether, when I'm watching a show, would God sit there and watch it with me?  Sometimes my mom says that to me.

Interviewer: So what do you mean -- you're imagining God watching with you?

Kelli: Um-hmm.  He's right by me now, and right by me every day of my life.  And if we're sitting up there watching a bad show or something, He's sitting there with us.  What do you think He's doing?

Interviewer: So how does that make you feel?

Kelli: Sometimes it just makes you think.

Interviewer: And then after you think that, what do you do?

Kelli: We shut it off, most of the time.[12]

                Kelli's thoughts about God and media no doubt are influenced by the teachings of her church and also those of her parents.  Her mother, Nora, described similar feelings during her own individual interview when talking about listening to radio.  “Where I draw the line is, could I sit there and listen to the radio if Christ were sitting next to me?”  If she cannot answer affirmatively, she turns the radio off, because listening is “not the right thing to be doing.”

                  Nora’s husband, Andrew, also thinks in terms of religiously-driven prohibitions when thinking about God and television.

 

Interviewer: Do you ever think about God or religion when you're watching TV or a movie?

Andrew: I would have to say yes, 'cause that's why some of the stuff gets shut off, because it's not right.  It's not right to my teachings, I guess I would say it that way.

Interviewer: What about when you're listening to music, do you ever...?

Andrew: Yes, 'cause I'll shut some of that off, too.  I'll even shut some of your Christian radio stations off, 'cause sometimes they get off line.[13]

                Andrew uses explicitly religious reasoning in directing the family’s media choices.  He decreed that they would no longer watch the historically-situated Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman after an episode in which the title character taught a lesson in evolution.  He also objects to movies which he says teach witchcraft and black magic -- movies such as The Swan Princess and Disney’s classic Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).  The children have internalized these prohibitions.  Patrick, age 9, answers in his individual interview that Bedknobs and Broomsticks is not a good show to watch because “they act like witches,” and he says the video game Batman and Robin, which he is not allowed to have, is stupid because “they fly around and all that stuff.”[14]  Kelli explains that she does not mind the family's prohibition against rock music, “because I’ve been raised in a Christian home.”  

                The Hansens also have had some overt reactions to media based on their religious beliefs.  They canceled their subscription to Time when Blair believed the magazine “seemed to be on (a) campaign of bashing God.”  Still, compared to the Cains, they do not have such strong family prohibitions about watching television and movies.  Sara and Trevor occasionally watch the adult comedy program Saturday Night Live with their parents, and Trevor was allowed to watch the movie Braveheart, with its brutal battle scenes, for its "historical" value.  Yet the children, when asked whether they think about God when they watch television or movies, answer in ways remarkably similar to Kelli Cain.

 

Sara: Yea, like Jesus wouldn't want you to be watching this.  Like that.  Jesus wouldn't want you to be watching this 'cause it's not very Christian-like.

Interviewer: What specifically?

Sara: Just like bad language and stuff, and sex stuff, all that stuff.[15]

                Sara says she finds it sad that a lot of programs depict premarital sex, because “we know that’s not right” and not in keeping with Christian teachings.  She feels pressured by her friends to attend R-rated movies, but she does not approve of the themes or the language.  Her brother, Trevor, also thinks of God in contrast to some of the available popular programming.

 

Trevor: If I see a bad movie or something, the language and stuff, I'm like, 'He (God) couldn't have created this' or something.  Just some things that He can't do and stuff.[16]               

                In both the Hansen and Cain families, the children (as well as Andrew and Nora Cain) answer questions about God and media in ways that suggest the What Would Jesus Do or WWJD evangelical movement, although no one in either family mentioned the movement.  More will be said about these families, and their religious orientations  toward media products, in the discussion section below.




Less Institutionally Religious Families




                In contrast to the families above, the Parks, the Schwartzes, and the Jarrett-Millers are not regularly involved with institutional religion.  They talk about religion differently than the Cains and the Hansens, tending to tie the concept of religion or spirituality to moral issues more than specific religious doctrines.  The connections that children in these families see between God and media are also less tied to religious institutions and their traditional doctrines.




The Parks




                The Parks are a rural family, living five miles from the nearest paved road and ten  miles from the nearest small town.  Ryan Park, the father, grew up in a Four Square Gospel church, but rejected its strict rules.  He says religion is "fairly important" in his life, and rates his religious views a 3 (on a 1-6 scale, conservative to liberal) -- right in the middle.  His wife, Janet, rates her views a 4.  She says religion is very important to her, but "it's not the structured religion."  She was not raised in a religious family as her husband was, and in fact, indicates that she has a fear of church attendance. 

 

Janet: He (Ryan) was raised in a church and I wasn't, and so I'm one of those who goes to church and feels like I have to do everything they tell me to, and so I...sometimes it's really difficult for me to take what I need from it and leave the rest, whereas he can do that.[17]

                Janet and Ryan believe in moral values that they say are based on Christian teachings, but they do not attend church.  Janet equates her spirituality with being "an emotionally passionate person".  The Parks are like many of the parents Clark interviewed (1998), who equate religion with values.  (I will elaborate on this connection further in the  discussion section below.) 

                The ways in which their sons talk about religion are also indicative of a family with less clearly-defined doctrinal beliefs than the families I have labeled "institutionally religious".  The Parks' younger son, Cary (age 9 at the time of the interviews), first responded with reference to a profanity when asked if he ever thinks about God.

 

Cary: Like, sometimes when I get really mad at my mom I go like, I'm not gonna say it, but I'll say, "God," like that.[18]

                In the family interview the Parks' older son Michael (age 10 at the time of the interviews) said he hadn't thought much about it when asked how important religion is to him.  His mother laughed and said, "Guess that shows we need to work on that, huh?"    

(He subsequently received a Bible for Christmas!) 

                Michael was surprised by the interviewer's question of what the family thinks of religious-themed television shows.  "There's religious shows?" he asked incredulously.  His mother went on to describe her reactions to such shows as Touched by an Angel and Highway to Heaven, an older program which featured Michael Landon as an angel in human form.  Janet says she likes these programs because they “bring out the best in people.”  Her son Michael responded that the quasi-news/police program Save Our Streets also brings out the best in people.  The divergence of his response from the more predictable religious themes of the programs his mother mentioned was just a sign of his thinking about media and religion.  It was in individual interviews that the much broader connections these children see between God and media were accentuated. 

                Michael reported that he thinks about God when he watches Unsolved Mysteries.  His subsequent explanation of the connection reveals his understanding of  the supernatural and how he has imagined it relating to religious teachings.

 

Interviewer: In Unsolved Mysteries you talked about ghosts and spirits.  How do those make you think about God?

Michael: Well, most spirits and ghosts go to heaven.  Every time I watch that show and I watch the part about ghosts, I keep on wondering, 'Why aren't they going to heaven?  Can they not find their way, or do they have some unfinished business here or something like that?'  Because sometimes they have to...I heard when we were going to church once and this was my first time to church, they were talking about, I think you have to do one thing before you go to heaven.  And evidently the ghosts haven't figured out their one thing yet.[19]

                Michael's younger brother Cary (age 9) also connects ghosts with the concept of God, and uses the plot line of the movie Ghost to illustrate his understanding of the supernatural.[20]

 

Interviewer: What shows do you watch when you think about God?

Cary: Like ghost stories, 'cause you know, they go up in heaven.  And sometimes they want to go back down and see what...like, if I had a girlfriend and I was grown up and I died, and I'd go up and come back down and see...'Cause you're up in heaven when you're a ghost.

                The Park brothers are using what Clark (1998) labeled a mystical discourse, one of numerous possible discursive approaches to religion that she identified.[21]  The mystical discourse "highlights the inexplicable power of the supernatural over the known universe" (1998, p. 290).  It is the same discourse employed by Ally Schwartz, age 12.  She is part of a blended family, and her father is explicitly "turned off" to organized religion.  She does not attend church regularly, but reports praying at bedtime when she visits her father.  She identifies the program Dharma and Greg as an instance in which she thinks about God when watching television, because it deals with spirits.

 

Ally: Dharma, she's this girl that's from the '70s, and she's like, "The spirits will come and take you.  Let your spirit be free."  There's one where this Indian was dying, and it was about spirits, and just like that.[22]

                The responses of these three children are reminiscent of one of Clark's (1998) examples, a young man named Jake (age 15), who used almost interchangeable references to God, angels, and ghosts.




The Jarrett-Millers 




                The Jarrett-Miller family is another example in which a less institutional religious atmosphere may contribute to broader ways of thinking about the connections between God and media for the children.  Tammy Jarrett is a single working-class[23] mother raising three children, including two adopted native American children, in a very small town (population approximately 350 people).  Her ex-father-in-law is a Southern Baptist minister who turned her off to the Baptist church.  During the school year, when the children are with their mother, they do not attend church.  They attend church services  with their father, Tammy's ex-husband, and her ex-in-laws in the summertime.  Tammy says religion is "fairly important" to her, but like the Parks, frames her answer in broader  themes which are tied to general morality as much as to specific Biblical teachings. 

 

Tammy: I do want my children to basically grow up knowing right from wrong according to the Bible, and maybe what is even not necessarily in the Bible but what is polite to another human being.[24]

                There is evidence her children have received some formal religious teaching.  Danny, the youngest of the Miller children at age 8, discusses heaven and hell, and describes God as in "a clear cloud sittin' in this big chair, with Jesus beside him and a lot of angels on his right hand."[25] 

                Yet in the family interview, Danny struggled with a question about television shows dealing with anything religious.  "I don't know what religious means," he said.  His mother explained that "your religion is your belief in God."  Later, in an individual interview, Danny named two television programs that made him think about God, one predictable (Touched by an Angel), and the other surprising, at least to the interviewer -- Walker, Texas Ranger.  In explaining why the Chuck Norris action series reminded him of God, Danny recounted in detail two episodes with specific angel themes.

                Like Danny, his adopted brother Justin (age 10 at the time of the interviews) identified some predictable media products with a connection to God -- the movie The Preacher's Wife and "a show about praying."  He also, like his brother, mentioned Walker, Texas Ranger as a program that deals with religion, as well as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and the show Early Edition, which is built around a character with a supernatural ability to predict the future.  "Early Edition, I include that in religion because there are things we can learn from that show," he explains.

                His inclusion of shows with some kind of lesson under the category of religion indicates a broader conception of religion than that institutionally tied to a church. 

He also said he thinks about God when he watches the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The Terminator, which he identified as one of his favorites.

 

Justin: When people would die, I think about them going up to heaven and all that.

Interviewer: Like in the movies that you watch?

Justin: Uh-huh.

Interviewer: What about when you watch Terminator and stuff like that?  A lot of people die in those movies.

Justin: Uh-huh.  I think about that all the time.  And I think about the same thing, yea, them going up to heaven.

Interviewer: So do you think the people who die in The Terminator would go to heaven?

Justin: Well, everybody except the first people he meets.[26]

                Like his brother Danny, Justin’s discussion of The Terminator indicates some exposure to religious teaching -- in this case, the concepts of heaven and hell.  Yet his facile extension of those themes to a clearly non-religious program indicates a mindset in which those connections are not narrowly defined.




Discussion: Family Influence Revisited




                If the family can be thought of as a small (but influential) social sphere, then the concept of social semeiology is useful in examining how such socialization may influence the meanings children make from media sources -- and in the present context, particularly how the family may influence the children’s thinking about media and its connections to religious or spiritual themes.  Inasmuch as these families represent broader social and (particularly for the Cains and Hansens) religious influences, I am not suggesting a disavowal of these larger contexts.  On the contrary, I am suggesting that these families are situated within particular contexts that provide the broader socialization forces which are then reflected at the family level.      

                Using the idea of social semeiology, let us re-examine the families introduced above.  The Cains are the most overtly and explicitly religious of the families presented here.  Both Andrew and Nora Cain frame their media choices, particularly their prohibitions, in terms of religious beliefs and teachings.  Their criticisms of secular media are consistent with the “typical complaints about the nefarious moral influences of various kinds of media content” that Schultze identified as a common fear among evangelicals (1996, p. 66).

                The Cain children have adopted the same language in discussing their media choices, particularly around the question of the connection to God.  Interestingly, at other points in their individual interviews the children had described Christian children's radio programs that they listen to -- Adventures in Odyssey and The Children's Bible Hour, as well as Biblically based movies that they sometimes consult to complete their homework for their church-affiliated school.  Yet these examples did not come up when the children were asked if they think about God when watching television or movies, nor did they offer explicitly religious radio programs as an alternative.  Instead they think of prohibitions.  I would like to emphasize that these answers were obtained in individual interviews, in which the children did not have access to what their parents had told me.  They report they do not watch much television, and had not seen the program Touched by an Angel, so that was not a possibility for an answer.

                Sara Hansen and her mother both talked about the movie Hoosiers, based a small-town basketball team overcoming great odds, being inspirational for them, and Blair Hansen identified it as one of the family's favorite movies.  Yet is was not an inspirational theme Sara referenced when asked the connections she sees between God and media, but rather the idea of which media content God would not approve of.  Her response is more in line with her father's explicit rejection of Time magazine being "anti-God."

                Both of these households, I have tried to argue, represent examples in which the  overt religious orientations socialize the children in such a way that the connections they think of between God and media are framed in those explicit religious terms.

                The households in which children came up with broader, more unpredictable connections between God and media were those in which the parents talked in less narrowly-defined terms about religion and more in terms of a general moral code.  Hoge, Johnson and Luidens (1994) found that a shared moral code which stresses honesty, fairness, not hurting others and generally “leading a good life” was identified as somehow connected to religion by individuals across a wide spectrum -- from fundamentalists to religious liberals and even agnostics.  One interviewee, who did not attend church, defined morality as “the very essence of religion” (1994, p. 143).  This broader definition of religion as morality allows individuals to claim some connection to religious currency without the commitment of an institutional tie.  These values are also not exclusively tied to religious institutions, but to broader social institutions as well.

                Ryan Park says he gets most of his moral values "from a spiritual or Biblical sense," yet he also talks in more general terms of right and wrong, and the U.S. Constitutional principle that all people are created equal.  He considers these discussions of right and wrong, as they relate to media content, a moral discussion "with religious overtones."[27]

                This broader application of a moral code in place of a particular institutional religion also has implications for the reception of television programs, and whether they constitute what could be classified as “religious” understandings.    

                Janet Park (whose sons, remember, were reminded of God by ghost stories) uses general moral themes rather than those explicitly tied to a specific religious doctrine to talk about television programs she enjoys.  Explaining why she enjoys Touched by an Angel, she says: "I like uplifting, inspirational, happy ending, be a good person, try hard, you know...things that instill good solid values in people." 

                Similarly, Tammy Jarrett, whose children (the Millers) connect God to The Terminator and Walker, Texas Ranger, reflects on the general values she believes her children can learn from programs such as Touched by an Angel or its spin-off program, Promised Land. 

 

Tammy: I think those tell...they try to get a point across.  I want my children to grow up respecting other people, having respect for their land,

America, and not be out just for themselves, and knowing that other people need, and that if you can help them, be there for them.  And I think that Promised Land and Touched by an Angel shows things like that.

                These understandings are consistent with Schultze's (1990) description of  television programs that perpetuate very broad myths, which are consistent with spiritual beliefs without having to be explicitly religious -- beliefs such as good triumphs over evil  and society can be redeemed by the works of moral individuals.  Similarly, Newcomb (1990) argues that general moral themes within television programs do not point toward transcendence which is narrowly, specifically, or denominationally defined.  "Particular viewers may yet find their transcendent symbols in varying places," he says (1990, p. 40).          This seem to be the case with the children in the non-institutionally religious families examined here -- finding ideas of transcendence and spiritual meaning in places that might not be predicted within specific doctrinal traditions.  I have tried to argue that these children’s’ lack of exposure to organized religion in their family contexts makes these more “unpredictable” connections between God and media perhaps, indeed, predictable after all.




Implications for Further Study




                What I have tried to present here is evidence of different family contexts and the ways in which they seem to influence how children think about religion (or spirituality) and media products.  While the small number of families examined here makes generalization impossible, I believe the use of extended and multi-layered interviews (family and individual) and the examination of the family context helps make possible a better understanding of the ways children discuss these issues and the family environments within which these connections are framed.  From this understanding, it would be possible to design a broader study of whether family religious differences and the media implications are evident in larger numbers of children and for children across different religious faiths and cultures.  Such a study would, I believe, offer new insights into how and to what extent children’s connections to religion and media are intertwined in the postmodern world. 




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