Introduction Religion, media, culture: the shape of the field
In recent years, mediation has come to be studied as a range of religious practices in different cultural settings and historical periods around the world. The assumption at work in social and cultural criticism, theology, and mass communication studies before the 1990s was often either that the study of mass media need not include any attention to religion or that mass media compromised, diluted, or eviscerated religious belief. In the United States, the realization that religion is indeed a mass-mediated phenomenon whose social agency and historical significance need to be scrutinized emerged during the 1970s and 1980s under two broad rubrics: the history of the book and print culture and the study of popular culture and religion.1 There were several noteworthy exceptions to this, especially in the study of visual mass media and religion (Lange 1974; Milspaw 1986; Goethals 1990). But more generally, interest in popular religious media in the United States was bolstered by the rise of the religious Right as a political force that made aggressive use of media in the political sphere.2 Though work before that time had certainly considered the meaning and effect of media among religious audiences, much of it was theological reflection or investigation conducted by religious researchers for use by clergy and religious organizations (Parker et al. 1955; Marty 1961; Kuhns 1969; Horsfield 1984; Fore 1987).
