Content-Type: text/html

                Spirituality in Uses and Gratifications Theory 
Running Head: SPIRITUALITY IN USES AND GRATIFICATIONS






Religion, Spirituality, and 
Uses and Gratifications Theory
Paul A. Creasman
Regent University





Paper presented to the Religion and Media Interest Group, AEJMC
Juried paper competition, Annual Conference, Phoenix, August 2000



Address all correspondence to the author at:
Regent University, 1000 Regent University Drive, ADM 243
Virginia Beach, VA 23464
<a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0101A%26L%3DAEJMC%26E%3Dquoted-printable%26P%3D3245491%26B%3D--%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D_3617274%253D%253D_%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520charset%3Diso-8859-1" >[log in to unmask]</a>
757-226-4353
RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, AND USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY
Religion, as a concept, can be said to be comprised of two main components.  Any religion first requires a set of formal propositions defining the nature of humanity and their relationship to a higher being or a higher reality.  These statements constitute what are typically called "beliefs."  Second, religion needs an organizing institution, or "church," that governs and regulates the practice of those beliefs.  Contemporary studies addressing the intersection of religion and media have generally focused on this belief/church dichotomy.  Some studies have addressed how media technologies shape the presentation of the prime tenets of the gospel (Gill, 1990; Muggeridge, 1979; Owens, 1980; Romanowski, 1993).  Others have investigated how religious media content affects traditional church institutions (Gaddy & Pritchard, 1985; Schultze, 1991).
Seemingly forgotten in academia's approach to religion and media is the aspect of spirituality.  "Spirituality" differs from both "beliefs" and "church" for it is much more of a transcendent, ontological concern than either cognitive beliefs or immanent institutions that mere "religion" concerns itself with.  Whereas religion focuses on the material, the here and now, and the things of this earth, spirituality reaches beyond them all, opening the self to possibilities beyond the temporal.
In recent years, spirituality has become much more prominent in American mass media content.  Some have declared America to be in the midst of a spiritual revival, the likes of which mirror the country's previous 'great awakenings.'  Beaudoin (1998) perhaps made the strongest statement concerning the re-emergence of God in American culture:
While spiritual themes often appear in American culture, an important shift is occurring.  For a generation widely presumed to be indifferent to religion, religious themes and images are strikingly prevalent.  It may be overstating things to declare that God is on everyone's mind, but God-or at least a quest for meaning beyond the world of banality-is nearly a mainstream topic. (p. 42)
As evidence of this increased interest in spirituality, one only has to look to current trends in mass media.  The success of the television series "Touched by an Angel," the pop music genre 'contemporary Christian music,' films such as "Dogma," "End of Days," and "The Omega Code," as well as the book series Left Behind all testify to the increased prominence of spiritually-oriented messages in today's mass media content.1[1]   Yet, scholarly examinations of spirituality in media are lacking in published media studies.  If one takes the number of published studies as an indicator, spirituality in the media as a topic of scholarly inquiry has been marginalized for much of the 1990s-despite an increased presence of spiritual themes in media content.  Notable exceptions do exist (Engnell, 1995; Romanowski, 1992; Reid, 1993), but on the whole, scholarly research has not kept pace with the exponential increase of spirituality in the media.
Spirituality as a formal component of religion, can be somewhat problematic for researchers.  Deriving from a variety of disciplines, including theology and mysticism, spirituality defies an easy definition.  As a subject of academic inquiry, it has a short history.  Schneiders (1990) noted spirituality "only 20 years ago connoted suspect enthusiasm or mindless piety" (p. 30).  It may be that spirituality fails to fall neatly into either of the above recognized categories of "belief" and "institution," serving rather more as an overarching, invisible framework for the operation of the two more easily identifiable components of religion.  Certainly, researchers prefer to examine that which they can see, rather than that which is hidden.  Yet, the increase in spiritual content of today's mass media certainly deserves scholarly attention.
Recent work by several media scholars (Hoover and Lundby, 1997; Warren, 1997) has called for a re-conceptualization of the relationship between religion and media.  Central to their arguments is the claim that the institution of the church is losing its influence as a disseminator of religious belief.  What is called 'belief' is now being shaped more by media and media content than by the formal institutions of the church.  Hoover and Venturelli's (1996) conception of the "religious" is a radical departure from the above traditional paradigm.  Drawing on social and cultural theory, they place modern conceptions of religion squarely within secular culture and "contemporary mediated discourse" (p. 260).
This certainly seems to be a move in the right direction for media studies that wish to probe deeper understandings of religion.  Yet, I would contend that despite the insightful intentions of academic scholars to re-direct research agendas, there is still a fundamental problem with today's research into religion and media.  The questions we are asking are still being answered with the older categories of belief and institution, to the exclusion of the emerging academic concept of "spirituality."  We are not moving forward in our understanding of spirituality and its connection to established notions of religion.  Hoover and Lundby (1997), major proponents of re-conceptualizing the interrelationship between religion and media, encourage scholars to address "new modes of spirituality" (p. 31).  However, their recommendations fall short of truly looking at religion and spirituality anew.  They eventually resort to the old paradigm, urging researchers to study "the complex relations between religious institutions and the media" (p. 31) [emphasis mine].
This paper aims to re-conceptualize religious media studies in light of the explosion of spirituality evident in contemporary mass media content.  It is my desire to propose a more precise means of examining questions of spirituality in media.  This will be accomplished primarily by re-thinking the major media theory used to investigate media and media content: uses and gratifications.  Despite the theory receiving a healthy dose of criticism over the years (Elliot, 1974; Swanson, 1977), uses and gratifications theory does provide a useful framework for examining media consumption motives (McQuail, 1984; Palmgreen, 1984).  I argue, however, that to be properly applied to spiritual media content, a reconsideration of the theory is in order.  As applied in past studies examining religious media content, the uses and gratifications framework does not advance our understanding of the spiritual, only what we would consider "beliefs" or religious "institutions."  In the remainder of this paper, I will review the major tenets of uses and gratifications theory and show how previous studies have applied the theory to religious media and religious media content.  Then, I will offer a hopefully plausible definition of spirituality, proposing potential variables or typologies for inclusion into future uses and gratifications studies that attempt to further our understanding of spirituality.  
Primary Tenets of Uses and Gratifications Theory
The history of uses and gratifications research has been recounted many times in the literature (McLeod & Becker, 1981; McQuail, 1984; Rayburn, 1996; Rosengren, Wenner, & Palmgreen, 1985).  Two items inherent in the approach bear emphasis here-first, the theory's focus on the individual audience member, and second, the rational characteristics of the audience member.
Katz (1959) provided the necessary push toward an audience-centered line of research when he wrote, "less attention [should be paid] to what media do to people and more to what people do with media" (p. 2).  Up until the late 1940s, most media research was focused on "uniform" or "direct effects."  It was widely held that people were powerless to resist media messages.  Klapper (1960) began to formalize the existence of intervening effects, which began to dismantle the dominant powerful effects paradigm.  McQuail (1984) noted the change this idea brought to media studies:
The guiding thought was that effects would be more likely to occur where a corresponding or relevant motive existed on the part of the receiver.  In turn, this had a place in the development of theory and research concerning the active or 'obstinate' audience and of interactive, in place of one-way, models of media influence. (p. 179)  
The active audience, who select media to consume for the purpose of meeting specific goals, has remained a key tenet to the uses and gratifications paradigm (Katz, Blumler & Gurevitch, 1973, p. 510; McQuail, 1984, p. 185).
Hand in hand with the active audience concept is the rational audience concept.  McQuail (1984) noted uses and gratifications involved "a view of media consumption as a logical and sequential process" (p. 185).  The rational audience is primarily a methodological concern for uses and gratifications, for most research in the area involves self-reporting of gratification needs.  Becker (1979) wrote, "It must be assumed that the respondent is capable of providing answers to the questions posed regarding relevant gratifications" (p. 56).  Coupled with the assumption that audiences are capable of reporting their gratification needs, the rational audience view also holds that individuals are free to choose the media they consume (McLeod & Becker, 1981).
Uses and gratifications as a research paradigm has been heavily criticized by media scholars (Elliot, 1974; Swanson, 1977).  Most notably, critics charge that uses and gratifications lacks a theoretical basis for its claims, that it is overly functional, or positive, in its view of media, and it never gets beyond normative claims of media use-in other words, it fails in its ability to predict media use (Katz, Blumler, & Guervitch, 1973; McLeod & Becker, 1981).  It should also be noted here that the normative typologies of uses and gratifications have not changed much over the years.  In the last twenty years, uses and gratifications studies have typically employed typologies including relaxation, companionship, entertainment, passing time, escapism, and information (Palmgreen & Rayburn, 1979; Rubin, 1983; Elliot & Quattlebaum, 1979; Pearse & Courtright, 1993).  If uses and gratifications is to resuscitate itself, perhaps it should look to incorporate new typologies and seek to broaden its explanatory power.  Perhaps by reconsidering how uses and gratifications theory might serve issues of spirituality, it would accomplish just that.
Spirituality and Uses and Gratifications
One of the overarching themes of this paper is that if uses and gratifications theory is going to be applied to new studies of spiritually oriented media content, it must be reconceived and reconceptualized.  In this section, I will review several key past studies and show how they do not advance our understanding of spirituality.
As noted above, spirituality is an abstract concept.  For the most part, it is hidden from view and therefore, admittedly, it is hard to accurately research.  Korpi and Kim (1986), in their examination of televangelism, noted the difficulty in operationalizing such abstract concepts:
Uses and gratifications researchers often tend to resort to socio-structural variables such as standard demographics, especially age, sex, income, education, and occupation, availability of leisure time and media channels.  They also resort to psychological variables such as needs and motives.  However, these two kinds of variables (socio-structural and psychological) provide at best indirect explanations of why people attend to media. (p. 412)
As we will now see, this difficulty-measuring the abstract indirectly-only yields a limited understanding of the spiritual.
Abelman perhaps undertook the most well known examinations of religious gratifications derived from media.  In a series of studies (1987, 1988, 1989) he investigated uses of televangelism by the religious media audience.  Drawing on the work of Rubin (1984), Abelman identified ritual and instrumental viewers among the religious television audience-that is, religious audiences were found to view religious television out of habit and a need to stay informed.  Interestingly, Abelman also identified a third viewer type, the reactionary viewer.  The reactionary viewer consumes religious television primarily as an alternative to secular media (1987, p. 304).  This viewer is largely dissatisfied with the offerings of commercial television and views religious programming to gain a sense of "moral support not found in secular programming" (p. 304).
What is intriguing about these studies is their failure to identify any uniquely spiritual gratification of religious programming.  The reactionary viewer, according to Abelman, is "not unique to religious television" (1987, p. 304; 1988, p. 164).  The motives of this type of viewer are actually rooted in secularism, rather than in religion or even spirituality.  Abelman makes the claim that these viewers seek spiritual guidance and moral support, but fails to illuminate the roots of these needs, or what he means by "spiritual" and "moral."  No mention is even given to the potential network of beliefs that may have informed the need for "guidance."  
As with most gratification studies, the normative typologies used to measure the gratifications in these studies were drawn from known examinations of "secular" media.  No consideration is made as to whether the gratification typologies are uniquely spiritual or not.  Abelman weakly defines one of his most interesting typologies-"religiosity"-as "the importance religion has in one's life" (1987, p. 305; 1988, p. 116).   We come away from these studies still not knowing how or what particular dimension of spirituality informs media choices, much less knowing how religion was defined.  In his earliest study, Abelman argued that "religious programming has been ignored" in gratifications research (1987, p. 294).  In can be said that while these studies at least pay attention to religious media, we still don't have any better idea of what people are seeking spiritually from such programming.  These studies do succeed at defining gratifications received from religious programming, if "religious" is confined to an earthly, institutional concern.  Abelman's important work does not advance our understanding of the transcendent qualities of the spiritual.
It seems that all too often, variables measuring religious belief are lumped together into a single variable called "religiosity."  Gaddy and Pritchard (1985), in their examination of religious television as a functional alternative to physical attendance at a worship service, defined religiosity in terms of "the religious attitudes, values, and beliefs an individual holds" (p. 129).  While religiosity was seen as an important factor in the analysis, this definition still does not move beyond the concerns of this world to the transcendent experience.  Abelman (1987, 1988, 1989) utilized religiosity in his studies, calling it "the importance religion has in one's life."  Hamilton and Rubin (1992) employed religiosity as a term measuring church affiliation (p. 671).  In these cases, we can see religiosity serving as a catch-all category that places what could be 'spiritual' concerns into limiting 'religious' categories, which do not advance our understanding of the religious experience beyond the confines of "belief" and "institution."
To their credit, the above researchers may not have been seeking to explain aspects of the "spiritual."  They apparently aimed for understanding "the religious" and one can admittedly say they succeeded. My overall purpose in this essay is to go beyond the scope of these studies.  Seeing how these past studies are limited to traditional conceptions of religion and religiosity, I now wish to advance an empirical definition of spirituality which can serve to inform future research in this area.
Defining Spirituality
It is my central argument here is that "spirituality" is fundamentally different from "religion."  Spirituality addresses itself to things not of this world, while religion concentrates on earthly practices.  Cousins (1985), in writing the preface to the Christian Spirituality series, said, "The spiritual core is the deepest center of the person.  It is here that the person is open to the transcendent dimension: it is here that the person experiences ultimate reality" (p. xiii).  Schneider (1990) defined spirituality similarly, emphasizing "the fundamental dimension of the human being" and "the lived experience which actualizes the dimension" (p. 17).  These definitions are good ones, for they define spirituality in terms of transcendent experiences, "rather than in attitudes or relationships" (Eire, 1990, p. 57) which can bind our conception of what spirituality is to earthly dimensions.  I propose that the most important aspects of our definition of spirituality go beyond earthly parameters.  Spirituality must be the transcendent experience of humanity and the communion with a higher reality within that experience. 
Once spirituality is conceptualized as transcendent experiences of a higher reality, one must ask, "what is that higher reality that the spiritual person experiences?"  Here, I believe Otto's The Idea of the Holy (1952) provides a sufficient starting point for answering this question.  Idinopulos (1996) called Otto's work "a profound and penetrating analysis of religion" (p. 141).  The Idea of the Holy is useful for it allows us a glimpse at the characteristics of a possible higher deity, and it affords us a means of understanding our experience with that deity.
Otto's thought is complex and several basic ideas must first be established.  Concerning a deity, Otto says there exists a "wholly other," a numen, a highest being that exists "above and beyond the meaning of goodness" (1952, p. 6).  Our experience with that deity is "unthinkable and unspeakable, because it is unlike any other possible experience" (Raphel, 1997, p. 8).  The reason we can make sense of such an encounter is because we make use of Kantian a priori categories of understanding (Idinopulos, 1996, p. 140).  The overall effect of this encounter with an unspeakable deity via a priori understanding is a raw "creature-feeling" (Otto, 1952, p. 10), labeled mysterium tremendum et fascinans-translated loosely as mystery, trepidation, and fascination.  Mystery represents a type of irrationality, "something of whose special character we can feel, without being able to give it clear conceptual expression" (p. 30).  We are paradoxically separated from, yet also a part of the divine (Raphel, 1997, p. 153).  Trepidation connotes fear of the "other"-fear of its "awful majesty" (Otto, 1952, p. 20). Idinopulos (1996) described it as "the self awareness of being mere nothing_before the presence of the Lord" (p. 141).  Finally, the concept of fascination beckons the self to join the wholly other, despite the fear and mystery of the deity.  Like Kierkegaardian dread, we are attracted to what frightens us.  Together, this wholly other is "the divine [that] is indeed the highest, strongest, best, loveliest, and dearest that man can think of" (Otto, p. 39) and mysterium tremendum et fascinans is how we encounter it.
So, what is spirituality empirically?  Having examined Otto's thought, we can begin to move toward a definition.  It is the experience of, or the communing with a reality, a deity, that exists beyond the limits of this temporal world.  Probing deeper, we can also say that the spiritual experience involves a conflicting set of impulses, attraction and repulsion, fascination and mystery.  With wonder, awe, and fear, we encounter a higher reality outside of our temporal being.  It could be said that such experiences go against human rationality. Irrationality, along with transcendence, emerge from this brief overview as important considerations in spirituality.  With such a conception in mind, we can now begin to place spirituality within the uses and gratifications framework.

Reconceptualizing Spirituality in Media Gratifications Studies
It should be painfully obvious at this point that a large paradox is at hand.  The definition of spirituality proposed above contains elements that are antithetical to the primary tenets of uses and gratifications theory, namely that of the rational individual. How can uses and gratifications employ irrationality to examine consumer motivations of spiritual media content?  To reconcile such a paradox, we must look to Otto once again.  
Otto's spiritual typology of mysterium tremendum et fascinans contains elements of irrationality in that we are simultaneously attracted and repulsed by the numen-that which we can not know or observe.  I would suggest that this is not such a paradox when applied to spiritual media use.  The rational individual element of uses and gratifications theory is largely dependent upon the individual being in control of their choices.  In other words, we must have freedom to choose what media we consume and we must know why we consume it (McLeod & Becker, 1981).  When consuming media of a spiritual nature, we still are in control of our choices.  The spiritual experience does not necessarily preclude our loss of control.  How can this be?
The answer truly lies in the experience.  As an element of spirituality, the experience grants us the ability to choose rationally.  Once we experience the wholly other, we desire to re-experience "the highest, strongest, best, loveliest, and dearest that man can think of" (Otto, p. 39) again.  Using the a priori categories of knowledge, we come to some understanding of the wholly other.  Consumption of spiritually oriented media may facilitate the re-experiencing of the numen.  We are able to make rational choices despite the object of our choice being largely mysterious, frightening, or fascinating.  Even though we can not fully know or express our numinous experience, we still desire community with it and we choose purposefully, rationally, and freely in order to fulfill that desire.
New Variables/Typologies for Uses and Gratifications
In order to fully move beyond the normative paradigm of uses and gratifications theory and into a reconceptualized theory that includes the spiritual dimension, I now wish to propose three new variables, or typologies, that merit inclusion into future uses and gratifications studies that examine questions of the intersection of spirituality and media.  The variables are transcendence, irrationality, and community.
Transcendence.  The first variable/typology of transcendence should not come as a surprise, for it has informed much of the above discussion.  Hoover and Venturelli (1996) wrote, "Media theory and research must find a way to enter into discourses beyond 'the secular' if they are to fully account for contemporary practices of meaning construction" (p. 259).  This variable aims toward that end.  The work of Eire (1990) is especially helpful in formulating how such a variable would be used in such examinations.  
Above, I have spoke of spirituality as the transcendent experience.  Eire wrote, "since the experiences studied by spirituality are principally those in which individuals claim to transcend the world in which they live, it is imperative that all future studies in spirituality examine closely the concept of reality which informs any given experience" (p. 58).   Along these lines, as researchers, we should ask, "What experiences qualify as transcendent?  What is the other reality that media content affords for us?  How does the spiritual experience of another reality inform media choices?  How can choices in the immanent satisfy the transcendent?"
Uses and gratifications research must also move beyond its conceptions of media consumption as the end of human need.  Too often, we perceive that we can be satisfied by interaction with a medium itself.  I propose that individuals interact with media because there is something beyond the medium itself they are looking for.  Any medium is just that-a facilitator of something else.  Perhaps only in cases of habitual consumption do we perceive interaction with the technology as the end telos of media use, but there exists a need in everyone where we recognize that we as humans are fundamentally unsatisfied with our terminal being.  Maybe only the complete skeptic would disagree, but I offer that we as humans have an innate desire to seek eternal satisfaction outside of ourselves.  Spiritual uses and gratifications research is aware of this, viewing media as a means to affording that transcendent satisfaction.  If uses and gratifications researchers want to fully understand spirituality of media, we should begin to ask about how our experiences of another, transcendent reality, are served by media content.  
Irrationality. Again, this variable/typology should come as no surprise for it has also played a prominent part in the forgoing discussion.  Irrationality, as conceptualized here, can play a major part in understanding how the spiritual dimension informs media choices.  Irrationality, for purposes of empirical investigation, can be conceptualized as conflict.
Weber noted how religion was a system that gave meaning to behavioral norms.  In The Sociology of Religion, Weber (1963) wrote how a rational system of religious beliefs could be overwhelmed by a number of factors, namely a social economic system which encouraged privatization of beliefs (pp. 27-28).  The result of this privatization was a basic conflict of worldviews:
The conflict between empirical reality and this conception of the world as a meaningful totality, which is based on a religious postulate, produces the strongest tensions in man's inner life as well as his external relationship to the world. (p. 59)
Conflict, as a dimension of irrationality in spirituality, is also noted in Otto's typology of the "wholly other."  The spiritual experience is irrational because it is, at first, unknown to us (1952, p. 134).  Over time, it gradually becomes familiar to us, but in it's "crudest" form, the "wholly other" is shrouded in mystery.  It is mysterious because the spiritual experience alerts us to fundamental differences in our reasoning processes.  Otto wrote of the moment of conflict between apprehending the "wholly other," or "numinous," and pragmatic reality.  "We are dealing with a case of association between things specifically different-the 'numinous' and the 'natural' moments of consciousness" (p. 27).
Irrationality can fit within the uses and gratifications paradigm for researchers can look for conflict within individual use of religious media.  What tensions are evident in one's choices?  What processes must one sort through in making media choices?  What doubts does one have about the potential fulfillment of gratifications by a particular medium?  As noted above, irrationality doesn't necessarily have to be seen as antithetical to uses and gratifications.  While we are still in control of our media choices, we choose purposefully, to satisfy our need for the numinous experience, even if we must sort through fear, doubts, and uncertainty about the object of our choices.
Community.  The work of Eire (1990) is particularly useful in conceptualizing this final variable/typology called "community."  Eire postulates that any spiritual experience must also "take the social dimensions of the experience into account," asking, "how should the individual experience be related to its setting?" (p. 59).  Community as conceptualized here attempts to understand how one's network of relations, and the depth of those relations, inform and influence one's media choices.
The term "community" involves moving beyond the mere "social interaction" variables that dominate much of the uses and gratifications literature (Elliot & Quattlebaum, 1979; Perse & Rubin, 1990).  "Social Interaction" connotes an emphasis on the needs of the individual, but "community" shifts the focus of need fulfillment to common needs among several religious media consumers.  Durkheim (1965) located society at the heart of the religious experience (p. 419).  Under his paradigm, all rituals shared by individuals qualify as sacred.  Tukey (1990) also made this connection that the self must be balanced with a sense of a larger community.  "Being human means being a social-spiritual amphibian and only a structure in the psyche equally at home in both environments provides a suitable center" (p. 67).  Community can be that structure that balances the importance of self experience with a spiritual indebtedness to otherness.
There has been some work toward this end in the literature, although it is still in an embryonic state.  Woods (1999) made community-defined as "fellowship"-a major typology in his examination of religious music radio (p. 230).  We must begin to ask if we are all disconnected individuals, or are we intimately connected via a priori needs for fellowship with others?  How do our associations with those around us inform and influence our media choices?  How do our choices of media content, infused with spiritual dimensions, help us form communal relationships?  And how does community, derived from media use and content, enable the spiritual experience?
Conclusions and Implications
If academic research into the spiritual gratifications derived from media is to keep pace with the growing amount of spiritually infused media content, it must reconsider how spirituality is approached and defined.  As it stands, the past research into these questions has failed to fully capture what spirituality is.  Certainly past studies help us understand why people attune to religious media, but they shed less light on what spiritual gratifications truly are.  Obviously with the amount of spiritually oriented messages in the media growing, attention to this area demands the best possible variables and methods.
The three new variables proposed here aim to give researchers better typologies to incorporate into religious media studies that focus on the spiritual dimension.  If Otto, Weber, Eire, and Durkheim are right, then true spirituality includes elements of transcendence, irrationality, and community.  Current media investigations do not go beyond examining traditional parameters of religion, such as belief and institutions.  These proposed variables move beyond such simplistic conceptions and aim to incorporate elements of social identity and social origins of needs which, as we have seen, have been discarded from much gratifications literature.  Perhaps this new arrangement can move uses and gratifications in those directions.  It is not my desire here to offer methodological proposals for using these proposed variables, but rather to stimulate reconceptualizations of spirituality, which would yield a fundamental change in how we approach the cross section of religion and media.  
Tukey (1990) in his essay on advancing spirituality in rhetorical studies wrote, "How we view the nature of human communication depends upon our conception of the nature of being human" (p. 66).  This current essay argues the same.  If the increase in spirituality in today's media is an indicator of our humanness, then we are indeed spiritual beings.  We need strong, well-developed conceptions of what it means to be spiritual if we are to more fully understand use of media content containing spiritual dimensions.  Hopefully, this essay will nudge the paradigm that much closer to such understanding.


References
Abelman, R. (1987). Religious television uses and gratifications.  Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 31, 293-307.
Abelman, R. (1988). Motivations for viewing 'The 700 Club.' Journalism Quarterly, 65, 112- 118, 164.
Abelman, R. (1989). 'PTL Club' viewer uses and gratifications. Communication Quarterly, 37, 54-66.
Beaudoin, T. (1998, August 16). Gen-X not lacking in spiritual side. Chicago Sun-Times, p. 42.
Becker, L.  (1979). Measurement of gratifications. Communication Research, 6, 54-73.
Carrigan, H. (1995, May 1). Reading is believing: Religious book publishing toward the millennium. Library Journal, 120, 36-40. 
Cousins, E. (1985). Preface to the series. In B McGinn & J. Meyerdorff (Eds.). Christian spirituality I: Origins to the twelfth century (p. xiii), New York: Crossroad Publishing Company.
Di Sabatino, D. (1999). The Jesus people movement: An annotated bibliography and general resource. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press.
Durkheim, E. (1965). The elementary forms of the religious life. (J. Swain, Trans.). New York: MacMillian.
Eire, M. N. C. (1990). Major problems in the definition of spirituality as an academic discipline. In B Hanson (Ed.). Modern Christian spirituality (pp. 53-64), Scholars Press: Atlanta.
Elliot, P. (1974). Uses and gratifications research: A critique and sociological alternative. In J. Blumler & E. Katz. (Eds.), The uses of mass communication (pp. 249-268). Beverly Hills: Sage.
Elliot, W. & Quattlebaum, C. (1979). Similarities in patterns of media use: A cluster analysis of media gratifications. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 43, 61-72.
Engnell, R. (1995). The spiritual potential of otherness in film: The interplay of scene and narrative. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 12, 241-262.
Gaddy, G. & Pritchard, D. (1985). When watching religious TV is like attending church. Journal of Communication, 35, 123-131.
Gill, M. (1990). The music of Amy Grant: A new wrapping for a timeless message. Journal of Religion and Communication, 13, 12-24.
Gubernick, L. & Franco, R. (1995, January 2). Rocking with God. Forbes, 40-41.
Halls, K. M. (1999, October 31). Born again religious fiction's strong pulse reinforced in 'Left Behind" series. Denver Post, p. I-1.
Hamilton, N. & Rubin, A. (1992). The influence of religiosity on television viewing. Journalism Quarterly, 69, 667-678.
Hoover, S. & Lundby, K. (1997). Rethinking religion, media, and culture. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Hoover, S. & Venturelli, S. (1996). The category of the religious: The blindspot of contemporary media theory. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 13, 251-265.
Idinopulos, T. (1996). Understanding and teaching Rudolph Otto's The idea of the holy. In T. Idinopulos & E. Yonan (Eds.). The sacred and its scholars: Comparative methodologies for the study of primary religious data (pp. 139-155), E.J.Brill: Leiden.
Katz, E. (1959). Mass communication research and the study of culture. Studies in Public Communication, 2, 1-6.
Katz, E., Blumler, J. & Gurevitch, M. (1973). Uses and gratifications research. Public Opinion Quarterly, 37, 509-523.
Klapper, J. (1960). The effects of mass communication.  New York: Free Press.
Korpi, M. & Kim, K. (1986). The uses and effects of televangelism: A factorial model of support and contribution. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 25, 410-423.
McLeod, J. & Becker, L. (1981). The uses and gratifications approach. In D. Nimmo & K. Sanders (Eds.), Handbook of political communication (pp. 67-99). Beverly Hills: Sage.
McQuail, D. (1984). With benefit of hindsight: Reflections on uses and gratifications research. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 1, 177-193.
Muggeridge, M. (1977). Christ and the media. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Murphy, C. (1999, November 28). At millennium, finding salvation: Popular series by evangelical Christian authors retells book of Revelation. The Washington Post, p. C-1.
Otto, R. (1952). The idea of the holy. (J. Harvey, Trans.) London: Oxford University Press.
Owens, V. (1980). The total image: or selling Jesus in the modern age. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Palmgreen, P. (1984). Uses and gratifications: A theoretical perspective. In R. N. Bostrom (Ed.), Communication Yearbook 8 (pp. 20-55). Beverly Hills: Sage.
Palmgreen, P. & Rayburn, J. D. (1979). Uses and gratifications and exposure to public television: A discrepancy approach. Communication Research, 6, 155-180.
Pearse, E. & Courtright, J. (1993). Normative images of communication media: Mass and interpersonal channels in the new media environment. Human Communication Research, 19, 485-503.
Perse, E. & Rubin, A. (1990). Chronic loneliness and television use. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 34, 37-53.
Price, D. E. (1997, April 26). A field in flux: Contemporary Christian music. Billboard, 45-46.
Rayburn, J. (1996). Uses and gratifications. In M. Salwen & D. Stacks (Eds.). An integrated approach to communication theory and research (pp. 145-164), Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Raphel, M. (1997). Rudolph Otto and the concept of holiness. Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Reid, J. E. (1993). The uses of Christian rock music by youth group members. Popular Music and Society, 17 (2), 33-45.
Rice, L. (1997, February 24). Heaven can't wait. Broadcasting, 26-31.
Romanowski, W. (1992). Roll over Beethoven, tell Martin Luther the news: American evangelicals and rock music. Journal of American Culture, 15 (3), 79-88.
Romanowski, W. (1993). Move over Madonna: The crossover career of gospel artist Amy Grant. Popular Music and Society, 17, (2), 47-59.
Rosengren, K, Wenner, L., & Palmgreen, P. (Eds.) (1985). Media gratifications research. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Rubin, A. (1983). Television uses and gratifications: The interactions of viewing patterns and motivations. Journal of Broadcasting, 27, 37-51.
Rubin, A. (1984). Ritualized and instrumental television viewing. Journal of Communication, 34 (3), 67-77.
Sandler, A. (1998, May 4). Christian music: The word is out. Variety, 32-33.
Schindler, R. (1997, March 29). A spiritual journey. TV Guide, 40-41.
Schneiders, S. (1990). Spirituality in the academy. In B Hanson (Ed.). Modern Christian spirituality (pp. 15-38), Scholars Press: Atlanta.
Schultze, Q. (1991). Televangelism and American culture: The business of popular religion.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.
Swanson, D. L. (1977). The uses and misuses of uses and gratifications. Human Communication Research, 3, 214-221.
Tukey, D. (1990). Toward a research agenda for a spiritual rhetoric. Journal of Communication and Religion, 13 (1), 66-76.
Warren, M. (1997). Seeing through the media: A religious view of communication and cultural analysis. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International.
Weber, M. (1963). The sociology of religion (E. Fischoff, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press.
Woods, R. (1999). Contemporary Christian music radio: A uses and gratifications analysis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.
Zimmerman, D. (1996, April 23). Record labels see the light: Spiritual songs sell. USA Today, p. 6D.



Notes
[1] 1 Certainly in popular culture, artifacts abound that testify to a renewed interest in spirituality.  In television, Touched by an Angel is the first series since 1991 to last more than one year that blatantly incorporates spiritual themes into its plot lines (Schindler, 1997, pp. 40-41).  In 1997, Touched by an Angel garnered a 13.3 rating and a 20 share, making it one of the highest rated dramatic shows on television that year (Rice, 1997, p. 26).  Book publishing is noting increased attention to spiritual issues.  While Hal Lindsay's The Late Great Planet Earth set the early standard for spiritual book sales in the 1970s, selling 20 million copies (Di Sabatino, 1999, p. 13), Carrigan (1995) noted a "marked increase in requests for religious and spiritual books" toward the end of the decade and into the next (p. 36).  Religious book sales are projected to increase by eighty-two percent between 1987 and 2010 (p. 37).  One of the most popular fiction series published today is the evangelical series Left Behind, by theologian Tim Lahaye and writer Jerry Jenkins.  The six books in the series, telling of a post-rapture earth, have sold more than 10 million copies since they debuted in 1995 (Murphy, 1999, p. C1).  Publishers Weekly noted the series currently sells an average of 1.1 million copies a month (cited in Halls, 1999, p. I-1).
Perhaps the single best indicator of spirituality's resurgence in popular media is the growth of contemporary Christian music.  Contemporary Christian music (CCM) developed during the Jesus movement era of the late 1960s as a form of cultural evangelism (Romanowski, 1992).  Throughout much of its history, CCM was ghettoized and far removed from mainstream pop music circles.  In the 1990s, however, CCM has emerged as a forceful genre.  Since 1991, the CCM genre has averaged 22% growth a year (Zimmerman, 1996, p. 6D). Bolstered by the successes of Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, sales of CCM by mainstream outlets increased 40% between 1992 and 1993 (Gubernick & Franco, 1995, p. 40).  In 1996, CCM record sales totaled $538 million (Price, 1997, p. 45).   By 1998, combined sales of records and concert tickets totaled $1.3 billion (Sandler, 1998, p. 32).