Unsecular media
Subtitle: making news of religion in America
By: Mark Silk.
Series: Public expressions of religion in America
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 181
Subjects: Journalism, Religious -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Mass media in religion -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Mass media -- Religious aspects; United States -- Religion -- 1960-
Description: Unsecular Media is the first comprehensive description and analysis of how the American news media cover religion. A working journalist as well as a historian of religion, Mark Silk explores the inherent tensions between religion and the news media and traces the ups and downs of religious news coverage from Benjamin Franklin to David Koresh.

Changing views of Americans' religious commitment have led to an image of the news media as implacably secularist. But Silk examines contemporary news coverage and concludes that, rather than reflecting a secular bias, contemporary media accounts express religion-based values that most Americans share.

Those values, Silk shows, are embodied in moral formulas, or topoi, that mark out the territory religion occupies in journalistic discourse. The formulas - good works, tolerance, hypocrisy, false prophecy, inclusion, supernatural belief, and spiritual decline - make the huge variety of American religious life morally comprehensible to a mass audience.

In demonstrating their usefulness and shortcomings, Silk points the way toward a less judgmental and more pluralistic approach to the coverage of religion.
Notes: Includes index.