Stewart M. Hoover – författare

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. Focusing on this intersection of the sacred and the secular, this volume gathers together the work of media experts, religious historians, sociologists of religion, and authorities on American studies and art history. Topics range from Islam on the Internet to the quasi-religious practices of Elvis fans, from the uses of popular culture by the Salvation Army in its early years to the uses of interactive media technologies at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance. The issues that the essays address include 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.

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. Focusing on this intersection of the sacred and the secular, this volume gathers together the work of media experts, religious historians, sociologists of religion, and authorities on American studies and art history. Topics range from Islam on the Internet to the quasi-religious practices of Elvis fans, from the uses of popular culture by the Salvation Army in its early years to the uses of interactive media technologies at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance. The issues that the essays address include 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.

As the availability and use of media platforms continue to expand, the cultural visibility of religion is on the rise, leading to questions about religious authority: Where does it come from? How is it established? What might be changing it? The contributors to The Media and Religious Authority examine the ways in which new centers of power and influence are emerging as religions seek to “brand” themselves in the media age. Putting their in-depth, incisive studies of particular instances of media production and reception in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and North America into conversation with one another, the volume explores how evolving mediations of religion in various places affect the prospects, aspirations, and durability of religious authority across the globe.An insightful combination of theoretical groundwork and individual case studies, The Media and Religious Authority invites us to rethink the relationships among the media, religion, and culture.The contributors are Karina Kosicki Bellotti, Alexandra Boutros, Pauline Hope Cheong, Peter Horsfield, Christine Hoff Kraemer, Joonseong Lee, Alf Linderman, Bahíyyah Maroon, Montré Aza Missouri, and Emily Zeamer, with an afterword by Lynn Schofield Clark.

As the availability and use of media platforms continue to expand, the cultural visibility of religion is on the rise, leading to questions about religious authority: Where does it come from? How is it established? What might be changing it? The contributors to The Media and Religious Authority examine the ways in which new centers of power and influence are emerging as religions seek to “brand” themselves in the media age. Putting their in-depth, incisive studies of particular instances of media production and reception in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and North America into conversation with one another, the volume explores how evolving mediations of religion in various places affect the prospects, aspirations, and durability of religious authority across the globe.An insightful combination of theoretical groundwork and individual case studies, The Media and Religious Authority invites us to rethink the relationships among the media, religion, and culture.The contributors are Karina Kosicki Bellotti, Alexandra Boutros, Pauline Hope Cheong, Peter Horsfield, Christine Hoff Kraemer, Joonseong Lee, Alf Linderman, Bahíyyah Maroon, Montré Aza Missouri, and Emily Zeamer, with an afterword by Lynn Schofield Clark.

This exciting volume explores how religious meaning is generated and performed in our present digital media ecosystem. It uses the spatial metaphor of a third space to visualize the mobility of everyday religion and to explore the dynamic ways in which contemporary subjects imagine, produce, and navigate new religious and spiritual places.Comprised of seven original essays, this book provides a rigorous discussion of the complex intersections of the digital and religion, demonstrating how third spaces of religion stand out by virtue of their in-betweenness. They exist between private and public, between institution and individual, between authority and individual autonomy, between large media framings and individual "pro-sumption," and between local and translocal. Including probing analysis of how Muslim, Catholic, and Neo-Pagan identities are cultivated and developed online, case studies reflect on the creative outcomes of this condition of in-betweenness and the emergence of other places of religious and spiritual meaning.Blending theoretical analysis with grounded empirical research, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of contemporary religion, media and religion, sociology of religion, religion, and popular culture.

This exciting volume explores how religious meaning is generated and performed in our present digital media ecosystem. It uses the spatial metaphor of a third space to visualize the mobility of everyday religion and to explore the dynamic ways in which contemporary subjects imagine, produce, and navigate new religious and spiritual places.Comprised of seven original essays, this book provides a rigorous discussion of the complex intersections of the digital and religion, demonstrating how third spaces of religion stand out by virtue of their in-betweenness. They exist between private and public, between institution and individual, between authority and individual autonomy, between large media framings and individual "pro-sumption," and between local and translocal. Including probing analysis of how Muslim, Catholic, and Neo-Pagan identities are cultivated and developed online, case studies reflect on the creative outcomes of this condition of in-betweenness and the emergence of other places of religious and spiritual meaning.Blending theoretical analysis with grounded empirical research, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of contemporary religion, media and religion, sociology of religion, religion, and popular culture.

Looking at the everyday interaction of religion and media in our cultural lives, Hoover’s book is a fascinating assessment of the state of modern religion. This revised second edition now looks at the digital age, "new media" and the significant role of social media on religion today. While the sheer volume and variety of information traveling through global media changes modes of religious thought and commitment, the human desire for spirituality also invigorates popular culture itself, recreating commodities – film blockbusters, world sport, politics, and popular music – as contexts for religious meanings.Drawing on research into household media consumption, Hoover charts the way in which media and religion have continued to intermingle and collide in the cultural experience of media audiences. This second edition of Religion in the Media Age is essential reading for everyone interested in how today's mass media relates to contemporary religious and spiritual life.

Looking at the everyday interaction of religion and media in our cultural lives, Hoover’s book is a fascinating assessment of the state of modern religion. This revised second edition now looks at the digital age, "new media" and the significant role of social media on religion today. While the sheer volume and variety of information traveling through global media changes modes of religious thought and commitment, the human desire for spirituality also invigorates popular culture itself, recreating commodities – film blockbusters, world sport, politics, and popular music – as contexts for religious meanings.Drawing on research into household media consumption, Hoover charts the way in which media and religion have continued to intermingle and collide in the cultural experience of media audiences. This second edition of Religion in the Media Age is essential reading for everyone interested in how today's mass media relates to contemporary religious and spiritual life.

Based on extensive fieldwork, this book examines how parents make decisions regulating media use, and how media practices define contemporary family life.

Based on extensive fieldwork, this book examines how parents make decisions regulating media use, and how media practices define contemporary family life.

The growing connections between media, culture, and religion are increasingly evident in our society today but have rarely been linked theoretically until now. Beginning with the decline of religious institutions during the latter part of this century, Rethinking Media, Religion, and Culture focuses on issues such as the increasing autonomy and individualized practice of religion, the surge of media and media-based icons that are often imbued with religious qualities, and the ensuing effect on cultural practices. Editors Stewart M. Hoover and Knut Lundby examine each of these issues and the implications of major recent findings of religious, media, and cultural studies as they pertain to one another. In a primary effort, the leading class of contributors to this work effectively triangulate these three separate areas into a coherent whole. The book explores phenomena like rallies, rituals, and resistance as they are distinct expressions of religion often transmogrified into different mediated or cultural expressions. This collection should benefit the work of scholars and researchers in communication, media, cultural, and religious studies who seek a broader understanding of the two-sided relationships between religion and media, media and culture, and culture and religion.

The growing connections between media, culture, and religion are increasingly evident in our society today but have rarely been linked theoretically until now. Beginning with the decline of religious institutions during the latter part of this century, Rethinking Media, Religion, and Culture focuses on issues such as the increasing autonomy and individualized practice of religion, the surge of media and media-based icons that are often imbued with religious qualities, and the ensuing effect on cultural practices. Editors Stewart M. Hoover and Knut Lundby examine each of these issues and the implications of major recent findings of religious, media, and cultural studies as they pertain to one another. In a primary effort, the leading class of contributors to this work effectively triangulate these three separate areas into a coherent whole. The book explores phenomena like rallies, rituals, and resistance as they are distinct expressions of religion often transmogrified into different mediated or cultural expressions. This collection should benefit the work of scholars and researchers in communication, media, cultural, and religious studies who seek a broader understanding of the two-sided relationships between religion and media, media and culture, and culture and religion.

This volume addresses the various and highly topical controversies surrounding religious television by examining its history, structure, content, viewship, and social impact. It represents a compilation of original essays written by the world's leading scholars, regulators, authorities, and watchdogs of religious television. Each controversy is addressed from a wide range of perspectives. The result is a most interesting exchange of ideas and ideologies: the presentation of empirical data, theology and learned opinion, and an assortment of insightful conclusions.

This volume addresses the various and highly topical controversies surrounding religious television by examining its history, structure, content, viewship, and social impact. It represents a compilation of original essays written by the world's leading scholars, regulators, authorities, and watchdogs of religious television. Each controversy is addressed from a wide range of perspectives. The result is a most interesting exchange of ideas and ideologies: the presentation of empirical data, theology and learned opinion, and an assortment of insightful conclusions.

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 very fluidity of the meaning of spirituality is part of its appeal: it can service as easily as a reference to a perceived common essence of humanness as it can work to legitimate market-based practices. While the involvement of spiritual life with social transformation is certainly not peculiar to contemporary societies, what has changed is the upsurge of media in these matters. 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 here 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.

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 very fluidity of the meaning of spirituality is part of its appeal: it can service as easily as a reference to a perceived common essence of humanness as it can work to legitimate market-based practices. While the involvement of spiritual life with social transformation is certainly not peculiar to contemporary societies, what has changed is the upsurge of media in these matters. 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 here 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.

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. In Does God Make the Man?, Stewart M. Hoover and Curtis D. Coats draw on extensive interviews and participant observation with both Evangelical and non-Evangelical men, including Catholics as well as Protestants, to argue that neither of these assumptions is correct.Dismissing the easy notion that media encourages toxic masculinity and religion is always a positive influence, Hoover and Coats argue that not only are the linkages between religion, media, and masculinity not as strong and substantive as has been assumed, but the ways in which these relations actually play out may contradict received views. Over the course of this fascinating book they examine crises, contradictions, and contestations: crises about the meaning of masculinity and about the lack of direction men experience from their faith communities; contradictions between men's religious lives and media lives, and contestations among men's ideas about what it means to be a man. The book counters common discussions about a "crisis of masculinity," showing that actual men do not see the world the way the "crisis talk" has portrayed it—and interestingly, even Evangelical men often do not see religion as part of the solution.

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. In Does God Make the Man?, Stewart M. Hoover and Curtis D. Coats draw on extensive interviews and participant observation with both Evangelical and non-Evangelical men, including Catholics as well as Protestants, to argue that neither of these assumptions is correct.Dismissing the easy notion that media encourages toxic masculinity and religion is always a positive influence, Hoover and Coats argue that not only are the linkages between religion, media, and masculinity not as strong and substantive as has been assumed, but the ways in which these relations actually play out may contradict received views. Over the course of this fascinating book they examine crises, contradictions, and contestations: crises about the meaning of masculinity and about the lack of direction men experience from their faith communities; contradictions between men's religious lives and media lives, and contestations among men's ideas about what it means to be a man. The book counters common discussions about a "crisis of masculinity," showing that actual men do not see the world the way the "crisis talk" has portrayed it—and interestingly, even Evangelical men often do not see religion as part of the solution.

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. Outside the West, religion is an ever more prominent force in social and political movements of both reform and retrenchment. Across these contexts, 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 fundamental is ms and the media together and address the resulting relations and interactions from critical perspectives of history, technology, geography, and practice. The result lays important groundwork for scholarship on these new and increasingly important phenomena.

This title looks at the complex role that media play in the rise and spread of fundamentalist movements within various religions traditions. 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. Outside the West, religion is an ever more prominent force in social and political movements of both reform and retrenchment. Across these contexts, 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. The result lays important groundwork for scholarship on these new and increasingly important phenomena.

This volume considers the mediation of religion in the context of global relations of power, culture, and communication. It takes a nuanced, historical view of emergent religions and their mediation in various forms. The wide range of chapters provides valuable insight into particular contexts while also offering connections to other cases and contexts. Together, they form a snapshot of religious evolution in the media age.

Looking at the everyday interaction of religion and media in our cultural lives, Hoover’s new book is a fascinating assessment of the state of modern religion. Recent years have produced a marked turn away from institutionalized religions towards more autonomous, individual forms of the search for spiritual meaning. Film, television, the music industry and the internet are central to this process, cutting through the monolithic assertions of world religions and giving access to more diverse and fragmented ideals. While the sheer volume and variety of information travelling through global media changes modes of religious thought and commitment, the human desire for spirituality also invigorates popular culture itself, recreating commodities – film blockbusters, world sport and popular music – as contexts for religious meanings. Drawing on research into household media consumption, Hoover charts the way in which media and religion intermingle and collide in the cultural experience of media audiences. Religion in the Media Age is essential reading for everyone interested in how today mass media relates to contemporary religious and spiritual life.