The Portrayal of Religion and Spirituality on Fictional Network Television

Longitudinal Changes in Religiosity in Dutch Society and Drama Programs on Television, 1980–2005

“…However, since the occurrence of themes of a religious nature and religious minor characters slightly increased, there was apparently a religious upsurge in American programs on Dutch television from 1985 onward. Between 1980 and 2005, the percentage of religious main characters we found in American programs was more or less comparable with the percentage of religious speaking characters as found by Skill et al (1994).…”

“…These findings correspond with those of Gildemeister (2006), who found that in prime-time entertainment programming, religion is on average only depicted once in 1.6 hours of television. Skill et al (1994) found that the scarce number of other studies that dealt with the portrayal of religion in conventional media drew about the same conclusion: religious matters play a negligible role. Since the United States is predominantly a religious country, this is a remarkable finding.…”

“…Although there are some studies on the representation of religion in television and films (e.g., Ferré, 1990;Jindra, 1994;Maguire & Weatherby, 1998;Pardun & McKee, 1995;Peterson, 2002;Robertson, 2002;Schultze, 2003;Spark & Stuart, 2007;Suman, 1997), quantitative content analyses on religion in American drama television are scarce. Skill, Robinson, Lyons, and Larson (1994) documented how religion is portrayed on American fictional prime-time television. They found that religion is rarely a central theme in storylines and that only a minimal number of speaking characters are linked to some type of religious group, organization, or belief system.…”

The Muslims Next Door: Transgressive Hybridity in TLC'sAll-American Muslim

“…Head (1954) found content referring to religion in only 10% of U.S. television in the 1950s. Skill, Robinson, Lyons, and Larson (1994) found that about 6% of characters on network television had discernible religious affiliations in the mid-1990s, a level replicated by Clarke (2005) in 2002. Whenever portrayed, however, religion on U.S. television tends to be predominantly Christian, reflecting the majority and hegemonic position (Engstrom & Valenzano, 2010) and treated as gene rally positive (Lewis, 2002).…”

Religious Practices and Conversations in American and Israeli Prime-Time Television Programming

“…Israel proves a contrasting case to the US because while in the United States church and state are completely separated, in Israel synagogue and state are interwoven. The synagogue-state relationship in Israel itself has been the subject of wide research attention (Sharansky, 2000). The centrality of religion in Israeli public life was reflected in the fact that 22% of all reporting about religion in the Israeli media was on the front page or at the beginning of broadcast programmes (Cohen, 2005).…”