Approaches to the study of media and religion: Notes from the Editors of the Journal of Media and Religion with recommendations for future research

As the Journal of Media and Religion (JMR) begins its seventh year, the editors pause to reflect on research directions and make recommendations for future research. Based on studies in JMR and other sources, three research approaches are identified: (1) The Proliferation of Mediated Religion, or the idea that media are creating multiple places of worship beyond the physical walls of traditional congregations, (2) Religious Audiences as Interpretive Communities, where shared interpretations of popular media content are increasingly important in understanding religious groups, and (3) Media Criticism drawing on the cultural aspects of religion in critiquing media genres and texts.A dominant theme across the three approaches is that individuals are increasingly willing to have religious experiences through media of popular culture. The numinous is recommended as an integrative concept to facilitate research of new forms of mediated religion.     

Religious agency,identity, and communication: reflections on history and theory of religion

Abstract

This paper discusses the applicability of recent theories of religion to the problem of describing and explaining religious transformation in the period between the final Bronze Age and Late Antiquity. Instead of evolutionist and cognitive approaches, it proposes a model of religion that tries to analyze religion in terms of its making by starting from the individual's appropriation and creation of religious tradition. Religion is understood as a strategy to attribute agency to agents that do not appear immediately plausible. Recent scholarly discussions on human agency suggest categorizing human religious agency into the three subsets, namely: (1) acting religiously with regards to past, present, and future; (2) collective religious identity; and (3) religious communication. These subsets are shown to produce fruitful questions for research on historical sources. Against this backdrop, religion is explained as a precarious cultural resource articulated through the agency of individuals and allowing changed attributions of individual agency.     

Belief,trust, and relationality: a Simmelian approach for the study of faith

Religion has been conceptualised as personal belief in the transcendent. Anthropologists of religion have critiqued such a construct for decades for being based on a Christian Protestant model and one that reflected subsequently modern rationalist Western culture. This construct has increasingly been shown to fail to account for the religiosity of contemporary Christians. Drawing on the sociology of Georg Simmel and based on ethnographic research in a Christian evangelical church, the article proposes a reconceptualisation of religious belief that is experiential and relational. Evangelicals in this case study show that propositional belief plays increasingly a secondary role to belief intended as trust in God and forming a relationship with God and others. Relationships mediate personal religious experience and are shown to be essential to the conversion process, the life of faith, and Christian identity. The study thus bridges the separation between theoretical and empirical works by operationalising Simmel’s sociology.     

Religion and local politics in Southern Europe: a research agenda

This article brings to a conclusion the series of three special sections published in 2015 and 2016 by Religion, State and Society on ‘Religion and local politics in southern Europe’. We set up a research agenda on the interactions between religion and local politics in Southern Europe. In doing so, we focus on the localisation of religion, including religious debates, and on the impact of the recent economic crisis. More specifically, we address the local as a contested concept, the multilevel governance of religion as a scalar opportunity structure – in relation to the transnational dimension of religious actors – the effects of such changes in the welfare landscape and the impact of the economic crisis on the activities and strategies of religious actors in Southern Europe. Our research agenda focuses on the interactions between two main dimensions: the territorial impact of political and economic changes, and the multiscalar schemes of territorial governance.     

Gods and REMS: The implications of recent dream research for the psychology of religion

Throughout history dreams have been primarily the province of religion. People in many cultures have looked to dreams as sources of spiritual insight and divine revelation. The relationship between traditional religious views of dreams and modern psychological views of dreams has long interested psychologists of religion—for dreams are a uniquely fertile subject for comparing religious and psychological understandings of human experience. In recent years there have been many revolutionary discoveries in dream research, discoveries that have taken us far beyond the seminal works of Freud, Jung, and the early sleep laboratory researchers. This essay describes the work of three leading contemporary dream researchers (neurophysiologist J. Allan Hobson, psychologist Stephen LaBerge, and anthropologist Barbara Tedlock) and evaluates the implications of their findings for our understanding of the religious dimensions of dreams. The essay concludes with some reflections on the valuable role of dream study in the psychology of religion. The primary claim is that recent dream research can make important contributions to current psychology of religion discussions about such issues as interdisciplinary inquiry, hermeneutics, the cross-cultural study of religious experience, the cultural and religious context of modern psychology, and the practical concerns of pastoral counselors.This essay is based on a paper presented on November 25 at the 1991 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Kansas City, Missouri.     

Religion and the five factor model of personality: An exploratory investigation using a Canadian university sample

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation of religion, defined in terms of religious affiliation, religious involvement and religious orientation, to the five factor model of personality as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised using a religiously heterogeneous sample of 1129 Canadian university students. Results indicate that NEO-PI-R Agreeableness and Conscientiousness domains are significantly related to and affected by religion as measured across all three operationalizations of the construct used, though some sex differences were observed. Contrary to expectation, Neuroticism was found to differ as a function of religious affiliation with persons, particularly females, reporting No Religion obtaining significantly higher scores than those persons reporting a formal religious institution for their affiliation. Findings involving Extraversion were also inconsistent with hypotheses; Extraversion did not significantly relate to any form of religion measured. Openness was found to be largely unassociated with religion except for a significant negative correlation with a measure of extrinsic religious orientation. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings in relation to existing literature and Eysenck's hypothesis that religiousness is a function of conditionability and tender-minded attitudes. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are also overviewed.     

Religion and Spirituality in Quality of Life Studies

The authors present their views on the current state of the art for research focused upon religion/spirituality and quality of life. Because of the undeniable influence of religion and spirituality at the macro-level of cultures, the internal and external worlds of individuals embedded in any culture are touched by religion and spirituality – even for individuals who deny any religious affiliation or beliefs. Religion and spirituality has already attracted attention from QOL researchers across a wide set of disciplines and should continue to do so in the future. The authors discuss approaches, topics and methodological issues that should be considered when researching religion/spirituality and QOL. Recommendations for future research are set in italics.     

“Let the heavens be glad,and the earth rejoice”: religion and life satisfaction among emerging adults in the United States

Although previous research suggests that religion contributes to greater life satisfaction, there is still disagreement about what aspects of religion predict greater life satisfaction. Despite a growing body of theory and research on emerging adulthood as a life stage that is distinct from adolescence and young adulthood, there has also been limited research on the relationship between religion and life satisfaction among emerging adults. Based on the third wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion, our results suggest that two measures of private religiosity, private devotion and religious efficacy, are significantly related to greater life satisfaction among emerging adults. In contrast, other dimensions of private and public religiosity, such as participation in organised religion, religious salience, otherworldly beliefs, and number of religious friends, are not related to greater life satisfaction. Finally, among emerging adults, being spiritual but not religious is not significantly related to life satisfaction.     

Religion,risk prevention and health promotion in adolescents: A community-based approach

Religion is an area that is increasingly examined as to how it relates to psychological and physical adjustment. However, there is a dearth of research as to how this factor operates in the lives of adolescents. The limited research available does suggest the importance of religious belief systems to youths. This paper provides a discussion of the role of religion in decreasing adolescent risk behaviour and increasing healthy lifestyle choices from a stress and coping perspective. Issues related to ethnicity and culture are presented. Research directions, therapeutic implications and practical suggestions for utilizing community resources are provided.     

Women and Religion: The Transformation of Leadership Roles

This paper explores women's leadership roles in the sociology of religion. I focus on the women presidents of three social science research organizations that specialize in the study of religious phenomena: the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and the Religious Research Association, and make some comparisons with women presidents of the American Sociological Association. This paper draws on the work of Marie Augusta Neal for a sociological perspective on women and religion. It suggests policy implications for women and other marginalized groups, and concludes with personal reflections on the transformation process.     

The Relationship Between Religion and Religious Coping: Religious Coping as a Moderator Between Religion and Adjustment

This study examined the relationship between and among religion, religious coping, and positive/negative psychological adjustment and investigated whether the four religious coping styles of Self-Directing, Deferring, Collaborative, and Turning to Religion would significantly moderate the relationship between religion and psychological adjustment. Each of the four religious coping measures were significant moderators between religion and positive and negative adjustment. However, the high self-directing and high religion group showed opposite results from the other three coping styles, in that they were the most maladjusted and least satisfied with life compared to the other three integration and religious coping groups. The participants high on religion and high deferring, high collaborative, and high turning to religion groups were less maladjusted and more satisfied than the other three groups in each of these religious coping styles.     

Crafting Mosaics: Person-Centered Religious Influence and Selection in Adolescent Friendships

This research addresses the intersection of two key domains of adolescents’ lives: religion and peer networks. Religion scholars argue that religion is multi-faceted and better understood by focusing on combinations of indicators (i.e., mosaics), versus a variable-centered approach. We adopt this framework and investigate the interplay between religion and peer networks, both in how religious mosaics are shaped by friends and how religious profiles affect friend selection dynamics. With data from two schools in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate religious mosaics using latent class analysis (LCA) to identify profiles consisting of combinations of commonly available survey-based measures of religious attitudes, behaviors, and identities. Finding evidence of theoretically expected profiles, we then use stochastic actor–based models (SABMs) to investigate network dynamics for these LCA-based religious profiles. We demonstrate how the profile data can be integrated within the SABM framework to evaluate processes of friend selection and influence. Results show evidence of adolescents influencing one another's religious mosaics, but not selecting friends on that basis.     

Countries Mimicking Neighbors: The Spatial Diffusion of Governmental Restrictions on Religion

Conceptualized as efforts to deny religious freedoms, previous research explains the presence of governmental restrictions on religion by isolating national governments, asserting that the primary determinant is a country's internal structural characteristics. These approaches overlook why the levels of governmental restriction on religion are spatially clustered and increasing in distinct patterns. Utilizing spatial analysis and data from the Religion and State Project, this article demonstrates that governmental restrictions on religion are spatially clustered, not independent from neighboring countries, and that increases in a country's level of restrictions reflect similar changes in bordering countries. Spatial clustering emerges through the diffusion of policies, where national governments mimic their neighbor's policies and practices even when accounting for internal structural characteristics. The article concludes that while a country's internal structure is clearly a predictor of policies, national governments are not isolated from neighbors where the level of restrictions are susceptible to external influence.     

Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self‐Disclosure in Social Media

This study measured the prevalence of religious self‐disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N = 560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self‐disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although relatively few profile owners (30 percent) said anything about religion outside the religion‐designated field. Most affiliation reports (80 percent) were consistent with the profile owner's reported affiliation on the survey. Religious profile owners disclosed more about religion when they also believed that religion is a public matter or if they evaluated organized religion positively. Evangelical Protestants said more about religion than other respondents. Religiosity, believing that religion is a public matter, and the religiosity of profile owners’ friendship group were all positively associated with religious identification and self‐disclosure.     

从一心一意到三心二意：青少年的媒体多任务行为

计算机时代的到来带来了青少年媒体使用行为的变化,其中媒体多任务现象尤为显著。为全面了解在青少年群体中日渐普及的媒体多任务行为,本文首先介绍该现象的概念界定,其次概括研究中的理论基础和测量方式,并总结了青少年媒体多任务的影响因素和影响后果。未来应加强对智能手机等新兴媒体对媒体多任务行为的影响、媒体多任务行为的性别差异、媒体多任务行为的生态化测量以及媒体多任务行为积极影响的研究。     

Intelligibility,Moral Loss and Injustice

In Liberalism's Religion, I analyse the specific conception of religion that liberalism relies upon. I argue that the concept of religion should be disaggregated into its normatively salient features. When deciding whether to avert undue impingements on religious observances, or to avoid any untoward support of such observances, liberal states should not deal with ‘religion’ as such but, rather, with relevant dimensions of religious phenomena. States should avoid religious entanglement when ‘religion’ is epistemically inaccessible, socially divisive and/or comprehensive in scope. In turn, states should show special deference to religious observances insofar as they exhibit what I call integrity – whether personal or collective. The upshot of this interpretive strategy is that liberal law need not recognise religion as such. As a result, there are gaps between the liberal construal of disaggregated religion and the lived experience of religion as a uniquely integrated experience. Are these gaps morally regrettable? Are they unjust?     

试析中国传统神学的三大宗教意识

本文认为“天人合一”、“天人并尊”的宗教哲学本体论意识、“天人感应”的宗教心理机制和“神道设教”的宗教社会制控功能意识是中国传统神学的三大宗教意识。由此形成的天地君亲师崇拜、神仙崇拜、圣贤崇拜是中国宗教的三大特色,这些崇拜形式长期制约着中国宗教的历史发展和中国人的思维方式,对政治、哲学都具有深远影响,从而成为中国宗教哲学的中心。