(1) Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers, The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation, (New York: HarperCollins, 1993). (return to text)
(2) Kenneth J. Gergen, The Saturated Self, Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, (BasicBooks, 1991). (return to text)
(3) Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler, Membership Roles in Field Research, (Newbury Park, NJ: SAGE Publications, Inc. #6, 1987), 33. According to the Adlers’ identification of three levels of increasing involvement, the Lifecourse researchers would be considered “peripheral” members of the setting, always observing from the outside, known to the subjects as observer, and therefore not immersed in the life experience. (return to text)
(4) Max Weber, Economy and Society, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). (return to text)
(5) Rosalind Brunt, “Engaging with the Popular: Audiences for Mass Culture and What to Say about Them,” chapter 5 in Cultural Studies, Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler (eds.), (New York: Routledge, 1992), 70. (return to text)
(6) Ibid., 73. (return to text)
(7) Ibid., 74. (return to text)
(8) David Morley, The ‘Nationwide’ Audience: Structure and Decoding, (London: British Film Institute, 1980), 125. (return to text)
(9) Janice Radway, Reading the Romance, Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1984). (return to text)
(10) Ibid., 76. (return to text)
(11) Stewart Hoover, “Social Flow in Media Households: Notes on Method,” unpublished paper presented to the 20th Scientific Conference, The International Association for Mass Communication Research, and the Network for Qualitative Television Audience Research, Sydney, Australia, August 20, 1996, 4. (return to text)
(12) Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Smith, (New York: International Publishers, 1971). (return to text)
(13) Hoover, “Social Flow in Media Households,” 5. (return to text)
(14) James Carey, “Abolishing the Old Spirit World,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication, March, 1995. (return to text)
(15) Hoover, “Social Flow in Media Households,” 9. (return to text)
(16) Klaus Bruhn Jensen, The Social Semiotics of Mass Communication, (London: Sage Publications Ltd., 1995). (return to text)
(17) Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1966). (return to text)
(18) David Morgan, Visual Piety, A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 6. (return to text)
(19) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “Why We Need Things,” In Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery, History from Things, Essays on Material Culture, (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 27. (return to text)
(20) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton, The Meaning of Things, Domestic Symbols and the Self, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 47. (return to text)
(21) Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollutions and Taboo, 3rd edition, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), 2-3. (return to text)
(22) Robert Wuthnow, et al., Cultural Analysis, (London: Routledge, 1991), 103. (return to text)
(23) For a more complete discussion of the meaning making practice of objectification see David Morgan’s, Visual Piety, A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). Morgan argues, “...we see popular religious imagery as part of a visual piety, by which I mean the visual formation and practice of religious belief. . . . images articulate the social structures of a believer’s world” (pp 1-2). For an interesting discussion of boundary creation and maintenance see Anthony Giddens’ Modernity and Self-Identity, Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991). Giddens utilizes the work of Garfinkel to describe the “fragility of natural attitude” (entropy) and the phenomenon of a concept he calls “basic trust,” developed in infancy which allows individuals to “screen off” risk, dangers, “existential anxieties,” forming a “defensive carapace” or “protective cocoon which all normal individuals carry around with them as the means whereby they are able to get on with the affairs of day-to-day life” (pp 36-40). (return to text)
(24) Michel Pecheux, (English translation, Harbans Nagpal), Language, Semantics and Ideology. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982). In fact, Pecheux is not very helpful in explaining what a “discourse” is, and Morley, who utilizes Pecheux, only describes “discourses” as “message systems.” I found feminist linguist Julia Penelope’s notion of discourse most helpful. Penelope argues that “discourse” is a collection of language conventions that represent a version of reality. Those accepting the discourse essentially consent to its version of truth. Julia Penelope, Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers’ Tongues, (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990). (return to text)
(25) Hoover, “Social Flow in Media Households,” (10). (return to text)
(26) See, Roger Silverstone, The Message of Television: Myth and Narrative in Contemporary Culture, (London: Heinemann, 1981); Roger Silverstone, Television in Everyday Life, (London: Routledge, 1993); Roger Silverstone and Eric Hirsch, eds., Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces, (London: Routledge, 1992). (return to text)
(27) See the Symbolism, Media, and the Lifecourse web site at http://www.colorado.edu/journalism/MEDIALYF/ (return to text)
(28) Pseudonym to assure confidentiality. (return to text)
(29) "Middle class” is identified as those whose income falls between $30,000 and $70,000 (self-reported). (return to text)
(30) Gary Carter [pseud.], interview by author, tape recording, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(31) Brian Carter [pseud.], Carter family interview by author, tape recording, December 4, 1997. (return to text)
(32) Katy Carter [pseud.], Carter family interview by author, tape recording, December 4, 1997. (return to text)
(33) Gary Carter, Carter family interview by author, tape recording, December 4, 1997. (return to text)
(34) Gary Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(35) I appreciate Lifecourse associate investigator Dr. Lynn Schofield Clark’s insight into Gary and Katy Carter’s role differences. (return to text)
(36) Carter family interview, December 4, 1997. (return to text)
(37) Ibid. (return to text)
(38) Gary Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(39) Ibid. (return to text)
(40) Ibid. (return to text)
(41) Ibid. (return to text)
(42) Traditional Mormons do not work or play on the Sabbath. She is referring to the professional football quarterback Steve Young who is Mormon and plays on Sunday. The Carter children are not allowed to participate in sports on Sundays. (return to text)
(43) Katy Carter [pseud.], interview by author, tape recording, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(44) Tommy Carter [pseud.], interview by author, tape recording, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(45) Gary Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(46) Ibid. (return to text)
(47) Carter family interview, December 4, 1997. (return to text)
(48) Lifecourse project members have identified the rapidity with which people like the Carters can make the decision to avoid a media offering. In what we call the “Cliffs Notes Effect,” audience members can often pick up enough condemning information from a commercial for a program, or a conversation with a friend. For instance, Katy Carter saw a commercial for the TV show “Nothing Sacred.” “I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t think I even want to...touch that one.’” (Katy Carter interview, March 16, 1998.) (return to text)
(49) Carter family interview, December 4, 1997. (return to text)
(50) Ibid. (return to text)
(51) Brian Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(52) Carter family interview, December 4, 1997. (return to text)
(53) Gary Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(54) Katy Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(55) Carter family interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(56) Ibid. (return to text)
(57) Katy Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(58) Gary Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(59) Ibid. (return to text)
(60) Carter family interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(61) Gary Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(62) Ibid. (return to text)
(63) Katy Carter interview, March 16, 1998. Brian’s refusal eventually resulted in his victimization—his buddies poured chocolate syrup on his head while he slept. Katy found out about it when he had to call in the middle of the night so she could bring him home. I have identified these thoughtless kids as “pranksters” on the first boundary model. Katy works to shield her children from what she considers their dangerous attitudes and behaviors. (return to text)
(64) Brian Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(65) Tommy Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(66) Katy Carter interview, March 16, 1998. (return to text)
(67) Ibid. (return to text)
(68) Wuthnow, Cultural Analysis, 82. (return to text)
(69) Dr. Stewart Hoover has led the Lifecourse project in efforts to develop a theory of ‘suffusion’ and ‘differentiation.’ As I said, suffused families move more freely within diverse cultural discourses, while more differentiated families, such as the Carters, define themselves against perceived culturally dangerous values. We hope these terms will enhance our comparative analysis of families we interview. (return to text)