Creating, Sustaining, or Dispelling Misconceptions: Discourse Analysis of Mainstream Print Media's Coverage of Obama's Religious Identity

This study considered the role the mainstream print media has played in creating, sustaining, or dispelling the confusion among some Americans regarding President Barack Obama's religious identity. Employing a qualitative discourse analysis of coverage of Obama's religious identity, the st...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Meadows, Laura (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group [2014]
Dans: Journal of media and religion
Année: 2014, Volume: 13, Numéro: 3, Pages: 138-152
Accès en ligne: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Résumé:This study considered the role the mainstream print media has played in creating, sustaining, or dispelling the confusion among some Americans regarding President Barack Obama's religious identity. Employing a qualitative discourse analysis of coverage of Obama's religious identity, the study noted several distinct themes, including current faith practices, connections to history, blame game, otherness, politicization, and Muslim connections. A number of articles failed to capture the social, political, and historical contexts of the issue. This failure resulted in coverage that implicitly accepted the questions' legitimacy surrounding the President's religion and delegitimized his beliefs. Other coverage legitimated the confusion over his religious identity by focusing on Obama's "nontraditional" path to Christianity. Such coverage accentuated Obama's otherness, and created the potential for distrust and doubt. The study concluded that the coverage Obama received from the mainstream print media played an important but inconsistent role in dispelling the confusion over his religious identity.
ISSN:1534-8415
Contient:Enthalten in: Journal of media and religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/15348423.2014.909192