The Oxford Handbook Of Religion And The American News Media

Whether the issue is the rise of religiously inspired terrorism, the importance of faith based NGOs in global relief and development, or campaigning for evangelical voters in the U.S., religion proliferates in our newspapers and magazines, on our radios and televisions, on our computer screens and, increasingly, our mobile devices. Americans who assumed society was becoming more and more secular have been surprised by religions' rising visibility and central role in current events. Yet this is hardly new: the history of American journalism has deep religious roots, and religion has long been part of the news mix. Providing a wide-ranging examination of how religion interacts with the news by applying the insights of history, sociology, and cultural studies to an analysis of media, faith, and the points at which they meet, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the American News Media is the go-to volume for both secular and religious journalists and journalism educators, scholars in media studies, journalism studies, religious studies, and American studies. Divided into five sections, this handbook explores the historical relationship between religion and journalism in the USA, how religion is covered in different media, how different religions are reported on, the main narratives of religion coverage, and the religious press.

Over the past three decades, the study of religion and politics has gone from being ignored by the scholarly 7ommunity to being a major focus of research. Yet, because this important research is not easily accessible to nonspecialists, much of the analysis of religion's role in the political arena that we read in the media is greatly oversimplified. This Handbook seeks to bridge that gap by examining the considerable research that has been conducted to this point andassessing what has been learned, what remains unsettled due to conflicting research findings, and what important questions remain largely unaddressed by current research endeavors. The Handbook is unique to the field of religion and American politics and should be of wide interest to scholars, students, journalists, and others interested in the American political scene.

Public opinion and the media form the foundation of the United States' representative democracy. They are the subject of enormous scrutiny by scholars, pundits, and ordinary citizens. This Oxford Handbook takes on the 'big questions' about public opinion and the media-both empirical and normative-focusing on current debates and social scientific research. Bringing together the thinking of a team of leading academic experts, its chapters provide a cutting assessment of contemporary research on public opinion, the media, and their interconnections. Emphasizing changes in the mass media and communications technology-the vast number of cable channels, websites and blogs, and the new social media, which are changing how news about political life is collected and conveyed-they describe the evolving information interdependence of the media and public opinion. In addition, the volume reviews the wide range of influences on public opinion, including the processes by which information communicated through the media can affect the public. It describes what has been learned from the latest research in psychology, genetics, and studies of the impact of gender, race and ethnicity, economic status, education and sophistication, religion, and generational change on a wide range of political attitudes and perceptions. The Handbook includes extensive discussion of how public opinion and mass media coverage are studied through survey research and increasingly through experiments using the latest technological advances. The Oxford Handbooks of American Politics are a set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of scholarship on American politics. Each volume focuses on a particular aspect of the field. The project is under the General Editorship of George C. Edwards III, and distinguished specialists in their respective fields edit each volume. The Handbooks aim not just to report on the discipline, but also to shape it as scholars critically assess the scholarship on a topic and propose directions in which it needs to move. The series is an indispensable reference for anyone working in American politics.

The field of `science and religion' is exploding in popularity among both academics and the reading public. This is a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to the debate, written by the leading experts yet accessible to the general reader.

From the founding of Harvard College in 1636 as a mission for training young clergy to the landmark 1968 Supreme Court decision in Epperson v. Arkansas, which struck down the state's ban on teaching evolution in schools, religion and education in the United States have been inextricably linked. Still today new fights emerge over the rights and limitations of religion in the classroom. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Education brings together preeminent scholars from the fields of religion, education, law, and political science to craft a comprehensive survey and assessment of the study of religion and education in the United States. The essays in the first part develop six distinct conceptual lenses through which to view American education, including Privatism, Secularism, Pluralism, Religious Literacy, Religious Liberty, and Democracy. The following four parts expand on these concepts in a diverse range of educational frames: public schools, faith-based K-12 education, higher education, and lifespan faith development. Designed for a diverse and interdisciplinary audience, this addition to the Oxford Handbook series sets for itself a broad goal of understanding the place of religion and education in a modern democracy.

The study of New Religious Movements (NRMs) is one of the fastest-growing areas of religious studies, and since the release of the first edition of The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements in 2003, the field has continued to expand and break new ground. In this all-new volume, James R. Lewis and Inga B. Tøllefsen bring together established and rising scholars to address an expanded range of topics, covering traditional religious studies topics such as "scripture," "charisma," and "ritual," while also applying new theoretical approaches to NRM topics. Other chapters cover understudied topics in the field, such as the developmental patterns of NRMs and subcultural considerations in the study of NRMs. The first part of this book examines NRMs from a social-scientific perspective, particularly that of sociology. In the second section, the primary factors that have put the study of NRMs on the map, controversy and conflict, are considered. The third section investigates common themes within the field of NRMs, while the fourth examines the approaches that religious studies researchers have taken to NRMs. As NRM Studies has grown, subfields such as Esotericism, New Age Studies, and neo-Pagan Studies have grown as distinct and individual areas of study, and the final section of the book investigates these emergent fields.

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Journalism is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, challenges, past and present global issues and debates in this exciting subject. The first collection of its kind, this volume comprises over 25 chapters by a team of international contributors. This Handbook is divided into five parts, each taking global developments in the field into account: Theoretical Reflections Power and Authority Conflict, Radicalization and Populism Dialogue and Peacebuilding Trends Within these sections, central issues, debates and developments are examined, including religious and secular press; ethics; globalization; gender; datafication; differentiation; journalistic religious literacy; race and religious extremism. This volume is essential reading for students and researchers in journalism and religious studies. This Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as sociology, communication studies, media studies and area studies.

21 essays present a scholarly look at the intricacies and past and current debates that frame the American system of church and state, within 5 main areas: history, politics, sociology theology/philosophy and law.