Media & Religion

Popular Christian religious visual media has had an important effect on the cultural transmission of Christianity by indirectly and directly promoting important government ideals to viewers in the United States. Christian television shows and movies are especially prominent. Popular examples include The Chosen, Miracles from Heaven, A Week Away, and Murder Among the Mormons. 

Spreading of Religion through Cultural Transmission

Who consumes visual Christian media and why? Let’s look through the lens of uses and gratifications research, which claims that people consume specific media to meet specific needs that they themselves can identify. 


In the book “Religious television, controversies and conclusions,” authors Robert Abelman and Stewart M. Hoover state, “Audiences tend to be self-selecting. They already believe, turning to religious broadcasting for confirmation of those beliefs.” In other words, Christian believers use visual religious media to gratify their desire for further verification of the values that already matter to them. 


So, the majority of the time the sender to receiver dynamic is Christian to Christian, rather than Christian to Non-Christian. Christian visual media preserves traditional Christian values through cultural transmission, or the passing on of specific beliefs, attitudes, or norms from one generation to the next.







Comments

  1. adelaideDecember 4, 2023 at 7:11 PM

    This is such an interesting perspective, but it totally makes sense! I know for me, I tend to view media that confirms my beliefs. I think it is a really cool thing that we can use media to promote and encourage people's beliefs. I think your application of uses and gratifications totally makes sense. Thank you for sharing!

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