Communication Studies: Religion & Journalism

Every journalist needs a basic knowledge of religion to cover everything from presidential elections to the war in Iraq to the ethical issues raised by latest developments in medical research. This book starts with the history of the mass media and the role religion played in its growth. Then it looks at how journalists cover major religious traditions and particular issues that have religious angles. It also examines the religious press, from the Christian Broadcasting Network to The Forward.

Understanding religion is essential to understanding many major news stories. This book examines how the media frequently miss or misinterpret these stories because they either misunderstand religion or do not take religion seriously. The essays in this book examine nine specific news stories that were inadequately or incorrectly reported by major news sources because their religious dimension was ignored, overlooked, or misrepresented.

Quoting God charts the many ways in which the media reports religion new and how media itself influences--and is influenced by--religion in the public square. This book clearly demonstrates that the relationship between media culture and spiritual culture is foundational and multi-directional; that the relationship between news values and religion in political life is influential; and that the relationship among modernity, belief, and journalism is pivotal.

Daniel A. Rudd, born a slave in Bardstown, Kentucky, grew up to achieve much in the years following the Civil War. His Catholic faith, passion for activism, and talent for writing led him to increasingly influential positions in many places. One of his important early accomplishments was the publication of the American Catholic Tribune, which Rudd referred to as "the only Catholic journal owned and published by colored men." Rudd was also active in the leadership of the Afro-American Press Association, and he was a founding member of the Catholic Press Association and the Lay Catholic Congress movement. Also available online

Increasingly, the religious practices people engage in and the ways they talk about what is meaningful or sacred take place in the context of media culture -- in the realm of the so-called secular. These essays address issues including the public/private divide, the distinctions between the sacred and profane, and how to distinguish between the practices that may be termed "religious" and those that may not.

Stewart M Hoover offers a cultural-historical analysis of the rise of religious stories in the media. He brings into sharp focus: the relationship between religion and the news media, both in everyday practice and in the larger context of American public discourse; the place of religion in American life; the role of the media in cultural discourse; and the prospects of institutional religion in the media age.

This book maps emergent global practices and discourses of mediated, spiritualized social change. In the specific case of religion, globalization has unleashed a cascade of unexpected and unpredictable implications, many of which are consequences of the media. The authors show ways in which media and spiritualities are engaged around the world in efforts to restructure paradigms, institutions, beliefs and practices to affect social change. Also available online

This ebook explains why the moral order is given priority in Vatican teaching about communication and the reasons for Catholic social teaching to make moral judgments about these new realities. It discusses a ritual approach to religious communication, the generational experience of Catholics and their respective attitudes toward Church teaching, and the important link in the faith's praxis between reflexivity and forming habits of communication.

After the events of 9/11, media representations of Muslims in the West—never known for their accuracy—became even more stereotypically negative. Few of us realize, however, the profusion of similar sentiments that existed within Arab Muslim media outlets ten or even fifteen years earlier. In this ebook, Lila Abu-Lughod here examines these images of religious extremism in popular Arab media and explores the influence of media on religion itself.

The mass media and Christian churches in America regularly argue about news bias, sex and violence on television, movie censorship and many other issues. Christian media have offered the public some of the best media criticism, while, mainstream media have rightly taken particular churches to task for misdeeds as well as offered some surprisingly good depictions of religious life. The tension between Christian groups and the media in the U.S. ultimately that can serve the interest of democratic life.

No issue in religion is of as much concern as fundamentalism - or rather the fundamentalisms within various traditions - which are seen to be fomenting religious, social, ethnic, and political tension and conflict. The contributions to this volume represent the first effort to look at 'fundamentalisms' and 'the media' together and address the resulting relations and interactions from critical perspectives of history, technology, geography, and practice.

Explores how traditional Muslim authorities have used various media to put forth a unique vision of how Islam can be renewed and revived in the contemporary world.