Peter Berger (1929) is an American sociologist best known for his collaboration with Thomas Luckman in writing The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. That book argues that human reality, and knowledge of it, is a social construct, emerging from the individual or group’s interaction with larger social structures (institutions). Social structures, once widely adopted, lose their history as social constructions (objectivation), and come over time, by the people who live within them, to be deemed natural realities independent of human construction (reification). Berger predicted, in his later book, The Sacred Canopy, near-term all-encompassing secularization of religion, which prediction has proved false, especially in the third world (as Berger himself has acknowledged in his later work, Desecularization).

神圣的帷幕 : 宗教社会学理论之要素 = The sacred canopy elements of a sociological theory of religion

Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication

The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion—Our Social Skin. By Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Pp. xi + 184. $20.00.)

The world system theory can provide a refreshingly different perspective of global press freedom. The starting point of assessing press freedom should be the world system, not the ‘atomistic’ nation-state, because one cannot understand the part without knowing the whole, which is more than the sum of the parts. This article proposes the application of a revised formulation of the world system theory – which presumes a capitalist world-economy dominated by three competing center-clusters each associated with a dependent hinterland of peripheral economic clusters – to examine global press freedom. It proposes a three-tiered typology for measuring press freedom at the world system, nation-state and individual levels. It suggests that press freedom indices should factor in the power of the center-clusters, themselves led by a hegemon cluster, to flood the hinterlands technologically with a barrage of information-communication.

Freedom of the Press A World System Perspective

Marie Evans Schmidt and Elizabeth Vandewater review research on links between various types of electronic media and the cognitive skills of school-aged children and adolescents. One central finding of studies to date, they say, is that the content delivered by electronic media is far more influential than the media themselves. Most studies, they point out, find a small negative link between the total hours a child spends viewing TV and that child's academic achievement. But when researchers take into account characteristics of the child, such as IQ or socioeconomic status, this link typically disappears. Content appears to be crucial. Viewing educational TV is linked positively with academic achievement; viewing entertainment TV is linked negatively with achievement. When it comes to particular cognitive skills, say the authors, researchers have found that electronic media, particularly video games, can enhance visual spatial skills, such as visual tracking, mental rotation, and target localization. Gaming may also improve problem-solving skills. Researchers have yet to understand fully the issue of transfer of learning from electronic media. Studies suggest that, under some circumstances, young people are able to transfer what they learn from electronic media to other applications, but analysts are uncertain how such transfer occurs. In response to growing public concern about possible links between electronic media use and attention problems in children and adolescents, say the authors, researchers have found evidence for small positive links between heavy electronic media use and mild attention problems among young people but have found only inconsistent evidence so far for a link between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and media use. The authors point out that although video games, interactive websites, and multimedia software programs appear to offer a variety of possible benefits for learning, there is as yet little empirical evidence to suggest that such media are more effective than other forms of instruction.

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Media and Attention, Cognition, and School Achievement

Press Freedom, Media, and Development, 1950–1979: A Study of 134 Nations

PART ONE: THE CURRENT STATUS OF RESEARCH ON RELIGION AND MASS MEDIA Introduction - Daniel A Stout and Judith M Buddenbaum Toward a Synthesis of Mass Communication Research and the Sociology of Religion Religion and Mass Media Use - Judith M Buddenbaum and Daniel A Stout A Review of the Mass Communication and Sociology Literature PART TWO: RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND MEDIA ORIENTATIONS: INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVES Catholicism, Conscience, and Censorship - Ted G Jelen Mainline Protestants and the Media - Judith M Buddenbaum Evangelicals' Uneasy Alliance with the Media - Quentin J Schultze Fundamentalism and the Media, 1930-1990 - Margaret Lamberts Bendroth Protecting the Family - Daniel A Stout Mormon Teaching about Mass Media PART THREE: THE ROLE OF RELIGIOSITY IN MASS MEDIA USE: COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF AUDIENCE BEHAVIOR Religion, Mass Media and Tolerance for Civil Liberties - Tony Rimmer The Role of Religion in Newspaper Trust, Subscribing and Use for Political Information - Judith M Buddenbaum The Role of Religion in Public Attitudes toward Religion News - Judith M Buddenbaum and Stewart Hoover The Passionate Audience - Thomas R Lindlof Community Inscriptions of 'The Last Temptations of Christ' PART FOUR: CASE STUDIES Keeping the Faith - Sam G McFarland The Roles of Selective Exposure and Avoidance in Maintaining Religious Beliefs Diversity from Within - JoAnn Myer Valenti and Daniel A Stout An Analysis of the Impact of Religious Culture on Media Use and Effective Communication to Women Use of Mass Media for Political Information in a Middletown Quaker Meeting - Judith M Buddenbaum How Mennonites Use Media in Everyday Life - Sharon Hartin Iorio Preserving Identity in a Changing World Rappin for the Lord - Cheryl Renee Gooch The Uses of Gospel Rap and Contemporary Music in Black Religious Communities Mormons, Mass Media, and the Interpretive Audience - Daniel A Stout, David Scott, and Dennis G Martin PART FIVE: THE FUTURE: RELIGION AND THE CHANGING INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT Religion and the Information Society - Jorge Reina Schement and Hester C Stephenson

Religion and mass media : audiences and adaptations

(2002) Genealogy of an Emerging Field: Foundations for the Study of Media and Religion Journal of Media and Religion: Vol 1, No 1, pp 5-12

Genealogy of an Emerging Field: Foundations for the Study of Media and Religion

How religion is depicted by journalists is a key area of interest to researchers of media and religion. Scholars sharply disagree in their interpretations of news coverage. Olasky (1990) claimed that the press has been secularized in its framing of religion, whereas Silk (1995) insisted that religious values are clearly reflected in this type of news. Despite their tendency to dichotomize the issue, Olasky and Silk focus us on an important question: What is the nature of the process by which journalists present religion to their audiences? One approach to this issue, which has not been adequately applied to the study of media and religion, is framing. At the most basic level, frame analysis (Goffman, 1974) is the study of how events in everyday life are organized or made sense of in coherent ways. We react to things in the world based on the information coming to us through frames. Mass media frame events by organizing them into news stories, which are the products of a journalist’s perceptions and a business organization’s effort to attract audiences. In the study of religion and media, framing has value far beyond just knowing what is in the news; it also determines the types of information that ultimately contribute to public opinion about particular religions. Knowing what type of information is out there is very important given that treatment of religious groups is tied to the kinds of information available to citizens. Support-oriented frames by the JOURNAL OF MEDIA AND RELIGION, 2(1), 1–3 Copyright © 2003, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Media, Religion, and "Framing"

b Religious programs have been part of regular television fare since 1939. Although networks and local stations generally have kept religious programming to less than 2% of the total television offerings and have confined it to Sunday mornings,! the type and variety of programs carried by local stations have changed significantly during the past 40 years. Originally, the networks worked exclusively with the Protestant Radio Commission of the Federal Council of Churches, and local stations produced programs in cooperation with local councils or with large Protestant congregations. But, by 1960, independently produced Protestant programs as well as ones presentinga Catholic or Jewish perspective were generally available.2 During this early period, the emphasis was on presenting programs that would be acceptable to a broad cross-section of viewers and that would stress ethical and social concerns shared by most religions. At least partly as a result of a long campaign by National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) to \"safeguard the right of evangeli-

Judith M. Buddenbaum

Papers

Press Freedom, Media, and Development, 1950–1979: A Study of 134 Nations

Religion and mass media : audiences and adaptations

Genealogy of an Emerging Field: Foundations for the Study of Media and Religion

Media, Religion, and "Framing"

Characteristics and Media-Related Needs of the Audience for Religious TV.