The American mass media are doing a poor job of investigating the role of religion in the 2004 presidential campaign, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder journalism professor who just returned from a European conference examining religion and media.
"The media in the United States take it as a given that religious people are likely to vote for President Bush," said Professor Stewart Hoover, who made a presentation Sunday at the Prix Europa festival in Berlin. Hoover is co-director of the CU-Boulder Resource Center for Media, Religion and Culture.
"This assumption helps create the perception of a 'religion gap' -- the idea that regular churchgoers are more likely to vote for Bush than those who attend less frequently," said Hoover.
"However, there may be equally religious people who don't attend church as much and are in support of John Kerry," he said. "The media should examine whether church attendance is the only indicator of religiousness."
Fear of alienating or offending viewers and readers is a primary reason why many news organizations have shied away from the topic, according to Hoover. "Media have a tendency to think of religion as inherently controversial. That leaves them prone to accept the easiest answer instead of investigating it further.
"The press has never been good at covering religion," Hoover said. "It's not something journalists learn in school or on the job."
At the Prix Europa festival and conference, which Hoover described as similar to the Cannes or Sundance film festivals but instead focusing on European television, he presented an overview of the American media's role in religious understanding and misunderstanding.
"Religion has been such an important theme in this year's presidential campaigns, and televised religion has become such a high-profile dimension of religion in America," Hoover said.
"This is all somewhat confusing from a European perspective, where religion is much less publicly and privately prominent. But, with immigration into Europe, levels of religiosity are rising, and there is increasing diversity. I think they want to try to understand if there are lessons they can learn from us about how broadcasting can play a role in times of change."
At Prix Europa, Hoover discussed the way journalists cover religion, the relationship between media and religion in the coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath, how the U.S. media influenced Arabic and Islamic public opinion, the role of religion in the current political season and how it is being covered and affected by media representations, and how the media do and do not help audiences understand other religions in an era of increasing religious diversity.
Islam is a good example of a media failure, according to Hoover. While the mainstream media resisted the temptation to demonize Islam and Muslims after the Sept. 11 attacks, he doesn't believe much was done to help Americans understand Islam. "It's an issue of being worried about controversy, so we're reluctant to give religion as much attention as business or sports or other beats," he said.
Hoover joined the CU-Boulder faculty in 1991 and is well known for his research on religion and media. In April, he and CU-Boulder Professor Lynn Schofield Clark published a survey showing that nearly two-thirds of online Americans use the Internet for faith-related reasons. The media and religion are intermingled more and more all the time, according to Hoover.
"Important religiously defined centers of public and political discourse, such as Focus on the Family, are media phenomena," he said. "Important religious figures, such as Billy Graham, have extended their reach via sophisticated use of media.
"Pat Robertson, who is a televangelist, has become something more than that in political terms, based on his having been on television. Popular and entertainment media increasingly carry religious and spiritual themes."
For more information on media and religion, visit the CU-Boulder Resource Center for Media, Religion and Culture at .