media, religion and culture > research > symbolism, meaning and the new media @ home

Welcome to the Symbolism, Meaning and the New Media @ Home Page

The Symbolism, Meaning, and the New Media @ Home project took place between 2001-2006 at the University of Colorado's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The project, under the direction of Stewart Hoover, focused on the ways in which adults in the U.S. have participated in practices of religious "seeking," and how these practices intersect with and are informed by the emergent media environment. More than 100 persons were interviewed about media and religion in their daily lives, and a variety of religious cultural artifacts were analyzed.

This project built upon an earlier project called "Symbolism, Meaning, and the Lifecourse," in which a team of doctoral students interviewed more than 250 persons regarding how various kinds of families approach the media in their homes.

The primary book to come out of this project is Hoover's Religion in the Media Age (Routledge, 2006). This site introduces you to some of this project's findings and also introduces related work developed by and with doctoral students and faculty colleagues who worked on this project.

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