Publication

A persistent scholarly discourse has considered the impact of the “new” or “digital” media on religion for the past two decades. Each new development in digital technology seems to bring with it a new form of “the religious,” religious practice, or the religious imagination.

Many believe that religion plays a positive role in men’s identity development, with religion promoting good behavior, and morality. In contrast, we often assume that the media is a negative influence for men, teaching them to be rough and violent, and to ignore their emotions.

Ninety-five percent of American kids have Internet access by age 11; the average number of texts a teenager sends each month is well over 3,000. More families report that technology makes life with children more challenging, not less, as parents today struggle with questions previous generations never faced: Is my thirteen-year-old responsible enough for a Facebook page?

This book maps emergent global practices and discourses of mediated, spiritualized social change. Bringing together scholarly perspectives from around the world and across disciplines, the authors explore how ‘spiritualities’ express themselves through and with media – from television to Internet, from fashion to art murals – as socially transforming voices and practices.

The Center White Papers Series presents essays on important and emerging issues in media and religion. They are intended for a nonspecialist audience and seek to lay out the rationale for academic study and teaching focused on the intersections between media and religion.

The Center White Papers Series presents essays on important and emerging issues in media and religion. They are intended for a nonspecialist audience and seek to lay out the rationale for academic study and teaching focused on the intersections between media and religion.

The turn of the twenty-first century has seen an ever-increasing profile for religion, contrary to long-standing predictions of its decline. Instead, the West has experienced what some call a ‘realignment’ of religion where it persists in conjunction with other institutions and structures.

Religion is infiltrating the arena of consumer culture in increasingly visible ways. We see it in myriad forms-in movies, such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, on Internet shrines and kitschy Web “altars,” and in the recent advertising campaign that attacked fuel-guzzling SUVs by posing the question: What would Jesus drive?

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.

Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Left Behind series are but the latest manifestations of American teenagers’ longstanding fascination with the supernatural and the paranormal. In this groundbreaking book, Lynn Schofield Clark explores the implications of this fascination for contemporary religious and spiritual practices.