Horsfield, Peter, Mary E. Hess, and Adán M. Medrano, eds. London:
Ashgate, 2004. xxiv + 243 pp., $ 84.95 (USD). ISBN:
0 7546 3830 8 (cloth).
[1] Belief in the Media is an intriguing journey into the
realm of religion and the media (both broadly construed). The
edited volume developed from the International Study Commission
on Media, Religion, and Culture, and all but one contributor, Jin
Kyu Park, were core members of this seven-year commission. The
contributors hoped that this volume would provide a new perspective
on the study of religion and the media, which would challenge the
existing paradigm that focuses on how institutional religion deploys
media technology. Rather, the contributors seek to move from
an institutional frame to a frame that embraces cultural studies,
the importance of lived praxis, and an emphasis on individuals. The
work, however, primarily focuses on Christian traditions and their
relationships with media. Moreover, the contributors represent
a wide array of experience with media and religion from theologians
to producers to art historians to former journalists. Thus,
the essays sometimes feel a bit uneven in their coverage of the
subject matter. The volume is broken down into four parts:
the cultural perspective, mediated Christianity, media culture and
Christian institutions, and an overview of the field of religion
and media.
[2] In his introduction to the volume, editor Peter Horsfield
explores the importance of media in religious and social changes
beginning with the importance of printing for the Reformation. More
importantly, Horsfield examines the desire for the re-enchantment
of the world in the twentieth (and now twenty-first) centuries. Media
have been essential to the desire for re-enchantment. Horsfield
writes, “Media have become the practical marketplace where
individuals gather, converse, gain information, communalize their
concerns, and build identity and worldviews” (xix). Additionally,
Horsfield lays out the issues that concerned the commission: how
have media replaced religion? What is the relationship between
religious authority and symbolic practice? What constitutes
the relationship between religion and media? Do new understandings
of this relationship require new epistemology? What is abundantly
clear from Horsfield’s introduction and the following essays
is the need to move away from institutional understandings of the
media as a tool. Media should be understood more culturally
than institutionally.
[3] The first part of the volume, “The Cultural Perspective,” provides
the theoretical framework to move beyond institutional models. This
cultural frame focuses on meaning-making in media and in religion
and emphasizes practice. In her “Reconceptualizing Religion
and Media in a Post-National, Postmodern World,” Lynn Schofield
Clark provides a thorough and useful introduction to the study of
religion and media and the challenges scholars face today. The
other articles in the section from Horsfield, Robert S. Goizueta,
and Juan Carlos Henríquez reflect on the importance of media
and their relationship to theology. In “Because God
is Near, God is Real,” Goizueta explores the use of media
in both medieval Christianity and Latino Catholicism in which media
become loci of religious revelation. In the second part of
the volume, “Mediated Christianity,” the contributors
present case studies of religion and media, including J. Kwabena
Asamoah-Gyadu’s work on Pentecostals in Sub-Saharan Africa,
Germán Rey’s examination of Latin American telenovas,
David Morgan’s study of icons and images in Ethiopian Protestantism,
Jolyon Mitchell’s discussion of horror films in West Africa,
and Stewart M. Hoover and Jin Kyu Park’s research on religion
and the internet. This is the strongest section of the work
because it demonstrates the interplay of religion and media the
most clearly. Each of the case studies is a compelling testament
to the cultural studies approach that the volume prefers. For
instance, Jolyon Mitchell explores the popularity of horror films
in West Africa, showing that the horror films are actually morality
tales that bolster Christianity while degrading indigenous African
religions. Additionally, David Morgan explores the ambivalence
toward icons in Ethiopian Protestantism by demonstrating that certain
icons might be unwelcome but others are embraced.
[4] The third part, “Media Culture and Christian Institutions,” explores
the impact of media on Christian institutions. This part,
of course, drives home the message that institutions can no longer
view media as simply tools for institutional messages; rather, the
fluidity of media must be taken into account. Mary Hess examines
the importance of popular culture and how Christian institutions
might adapt to it. Both Adán Medrano and Siriwan Santisakultarm
reflect on the use of media in their religious backgrounds, Latino
and Thai Catholicism, respectively. Medrano’s “Making
Religious Media” demonstrates the difficulty of creating religious
television programming, which resonates both with the institutional
message and the lives of adherents. In “Changes in the
Thai Catholic Way of Life,” Santisakultarm traces the changing
media that dominated Thai Catholic life from oral culture to the
purported loss of religious communication with modernization. The
final essay in this part explores the U.S. Catholic Church sexual
abuse scandal, and Frances Forde Plude suggests that, with this
scandal, it becomes clear that the Church and the news media have
different and often contrasting views of media. She, like
Hess, argues that religious institutions should adapt to these new
understandings of media and begin to accept the importance of media
as communication. This section might be best put to use by
religious practitioners hoping to adapt their institutions to our
global media culture.
[5] The final part is an overview of the study of religion, media
and culture. Robert A. White emphasizes the basic theme of the work:
studies of religion and media need to move away from institutional
emphases to a more cultural framework. White’s essay
is the clearest articulation of the importance of the cultural framework
to present the importance of social actors who are affected by historical
forces but also create cultural meaning. White describes how
media are often used by individuals to create religious identity,
and how media foster religious systems, and how important the popular
media are, among other themes. Moreover, White believes that
this book
would argue that the religious and the popular are sites where
we are building our cultures, including our religious cultures. We
need to ask what kind of culture we are creating in these experiences,
whether these are the kinds of cultures we want to create, and who
is involved in the creation process.”(215)
White’s essay is a good introduction to the study of media,
religion, and culture for those who are unfamiliar with the topic. Overall,
I think this volume is an interesting introduction to the interaction
between religion and media. It is applicable to religious
historians, theologians, and religious practitioners. The
coverage of the subject matter is a bit uneven, blending articles
that are primarily descriptive with others that not only demonstrate
qualitative research but which also argue for the importance of
this research. As I noted above, the third part seemed to
be the most useful for religious historians, but the entire volume
could have been structured a bit differently. In his introduction,
Horsfield suggests a variety of ways of reading the text, suggesting
reading Clark’s essay and then White’s overview. The
book would have been easier to comprehend if White’s overview
had been included in the first part. Nonetheless, this volume
is a useful addition to scholarly studies of religion and media,
and could prove to be a worthwhile textbook for introductory courses
on this topic.
Kelly J. Baker
Florida State University
kellyjbaker@gmail.com
