Stephen read my article on “Why we should think about mass media?” and asked me to list my top 5-10 favourite books/articles on religion, media and culture.

I think it’d be a great idea to start a tag-blog on this topic. You know how it works: I offer my top 5-10 list and “tag” someone (through the trackback function) to do the same, who then posts on their blog their top 5-10, and tags someone else. I’ll try my best to track the tagging, and let all y’all know who’s posting their top 5-10 list.

So here’s my top list…

Stewart Hoover and Knut Lundby (1997). Rethinking Media, Religion, and Culture. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications.
Jolyon Mitchell and Sophia Marriage (2003). Mediating Religion: Conversations in Media, Religion and Culture. London, T&T Clark.
Peter Horsfield, Mary E Hess and Adan Medrano (2004). Belief in Media: Cultural Perspectives on Media and Christianity. Aldershot, Ashgate.
Stewart Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark (2002). Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion, and Culture. New York, Columbia University Press.

I consider these books kinda like yearbooks of the dominant research teams in the field of media, religion and culture. Each of these books offers a pretty good overview of the current state of research (in the year they were published) and point to the possible futures. Everything from religion and globalisation in Latin America to religious emails in Scandinavia can be found in there, somewhere.

Pierre Babin and Mercedes Iannone (1991). The New Era in Religious Communication. Minneapolis, Fortress Press.

When I first approached a lecturer eight years ago about the possibility of doing research in media and religion in my B.Theol. degree, I was given this book. I still use it. Babin draws on a diverse range of media theories to draw a picture of how (then) young people approach religion, and the challenge for religious educators and practitioners. A fresh Catholic perspective that includes a critical look at how the Church needs to let go of the Counter-Reformation.

Taisto Lehikoinen (2003). Religious Media Theory: Understanding Mediated Faith and Christian Applications to Modern Media. Jyvaskyla, Jyvaskyla University Press.

I picked this book up when I got to go to a conference in Jyvaskyla. It gives a great summary of the different approaches to mass media by the Catholics, Protestants and Evangelicals, drawing both American and European examples (because you need a space shuttle to get to Oz/NZ from Finland, we fell of his radar).

Lynn Schofield Clark (2003). From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural. New York, Oxford Unviersity Press.

If you want to know how American teenagers use media to construct personal religious identities, both within and away from traditional institutions and communities of faith, read this book. Clark provides personal portraits of soem of the young people in her research, which makes for a less blah- academic read. You need to read this book if you want to know how TV became sacralised and religion marginalised in America.

Peter Horsfield (2002). The Mediated Spirit. Melbourne, Uniting Church in Australia. [CD-ROM]

Well, he’s my supervisor, and, well, bless him. He needs some encouragement. No, not at all. If it were a book it would be like a Brief History of Time, as it covers the role of media in shaping religion, its organisation and power over twenty-five centuries or so. Because it’s a CD-ROM, you don’t read, you surf it, so those centuries are easier to handle. Great insights into how writing and printing excluded women from the religious elite. An inspiring introduction and call to the church. He tells me he’s turning it into a book. Don’t buy it. He’ll no doubt have to suck all the fun that went into making the CD-ROM, including all the hypertext and pictures and stuff. I particularly like this one as my name is in there, somewhere, amidst all the thank-yous. You’re welcome.

Okay, now, who do I tag? Mary Hess and Adan Medrano – you guys are well read – would you oblige? Ping me, email me, or comment on this post if you accept, and I’ll let everyone see your top 5-10.