Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2011, Media and Communication

The effect of religious media is a controversial topic of debates among religious media practitioners, theologians, and ministers in religious communities because they differently understood the roles of religious media on audience members' religious practice. Based on the uses and gratification perspective, this dissertation investigated how audience members' motivation to deepen their faith via religious media affects their religious knowledge, religious attitude, and religious behavioral intention. This study examined (a) how religious media affect religious audience members, (b) how the effect differs in a various demographic and religious audience groups, such as education, income, the duration of audience members' religious experience, their activeness in practicing their faith, and their motivation to deepen their faith, and (c) how the employment of the central vs. peripheral information processing strategies influences the outcomes of religious media use. This study proposed that the relationship between the faith motivation and the outcomes of religious drama exposure will be mediated by the employment of the information processing strategy in the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). A three-phase pre-test and post-test field experiment was conducted to trace the changes in participants' religious knowledge, religious attitudes, and religious behavioral intention. Participants watched one hour-long manipulated rational or emotional religious drama in their parishes. In data analysis, participants were divided into novice Catholics and experienced Catholics, passive Catholics and active Catholics, and Catholics with low faith motivation and those with high faith motivation to test the premises of the uses and gratification and the ELM. The results show that religious drama is an effective format in religious programming in audience members' religious knowledge increase, their religious attitude reinforcement, and their religious behavioral intention change (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Louisa Ha PhD (Advisor); Lance Massey PhD (Other); Gi Woong Yun PhD (Committee Member); Sung-Yeon Park PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Mass Communications; Mass Media

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2016, Theology

As virtual space, the internet can be understood theologically through the doctrinal loci of the incarnation and the church. These two doctrines pervade both scholarly and ecclesial discussions of technology and the internet to date, and remain the central doctrinal categories with which theologians should assess internet culture. In its broader sacramental imagination and its ecclesiology, the church relies on virtual space insofar as it relies on the productive tension between presence and absence. Furthermore, the social possibilities of the internet afford the church great opportunity for building a social context that allows the living out of Eucharistic logic learned in properly liturgical moments.

Committee: Vincent Miller Ph.D. (Advisor); William Portier Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jana Bennett Ph.D. (Committee Member); Angela Ann Zukowski D. Min. (Committee Member); Sandra Yocum Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Multimedia Communications; Religion; Theology

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2015, Antioch Santa Barbara: Clinical Psychology

This study examined how negative media influenced Evangelical Christians and their attitude toward evangelism practices. Using self-questionnaires, participants identified their level of in-group identification and type of internalized motivation for engaging in religious practices. After viewing a negative media clip about the professional football player, Tim Tebow, and his public expression of faith, 412 Evangelical Christians rated their fear of negative evaluation about engaging in evangelism. A control group of 31 participants completed questionnaires but received no media exposure. Consistent with previous research, the current study found that media exposure activated internalized social norms and feelings of oughtness, which were shown to be statistically significant predictors of anxiety as measured by BFNE-II scores. Internalization types were not found to be significant predictors for control group scores. Although 82% of Evangelical Christians highly identified with their in-group and 72% endorsed voluntary participation in evangelism practices, 59% of all participants registered clinically significant anxiety about evangelism regardless of exposure to negative media. Evangelism anxiety appeared be influenced by a sense of moral duty (Johnston, 2003), feelings of oughtness (Lindenberg et al., 2011), the risk of interpersonal rejection (Ingram, 1989), and fear of prejudicial treatment (Bobkowski & Kalyanaraman, 2010). Results indicated exposure to negative media activated obligatory expectations for conformity with evangelism practices. The electronic version of the dissertation is accessible at the Ohiolink ETD center http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Committee: Steve Kadin PhD (Committee Chair); Sharleen O'Brien PsyD (Committee Member); Christopher Rosik PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Mass Media; Psychology; Religious Congregations; Social Research

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, Communication

This study examined the effects of mortality salience on the opinions and preferences of people with different religious or philosophical worldviews. Specifically, participants completed a religious fundamentalist scale, a post-materialist index, and a cultural creativity index. Each participant was then randomly asked to think about the concept of death or a control topic. Finally, participants were asked to provide their opinions on a number of topics regarding prayer efficacy, media preference, and risk assessment. This study found supporting evidence that reminders of one's mortality tend to exaggerate any distrust of modern medicine held by religious fundamentalists, even if those reminders are not related to the medical issue at hand. It also provided some evidence that similar concerns held by post-materialists may be generally exaggerated under similar conditions. In addition, it was hypothesized that participants would consider potentially risky driving behaviors to be less dangerous when mortality was salient. This study found supporting evidence that religious fundamentalists were less concerned about the risks of driving with multiple passengers when mortality was salient. If assessments of other, riskier behaviors (such as texting while driving) mirror these results, mortality salience and religious perspective must be considered when attempting to discourage such behavior. It was also hypothesized that participants in the mortality salient group would prefer to get their news from sources that shared their point of view. However, no evidence was found to support this hypothesis. In fact, politically liberal participants were less likely to prefer liberal news sources when mortality was made salient. Since so many news stories and television shows deal with issues of mortality, media selection may depend in part on a combination of philosophical perspectives and the content of the news.

Committee: Gerald Kosicki PhD (Advisor); Michael McCluskey PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Political Science; Psychology; Religion; Social Psychology; Sociology; Spirituality

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2006, Religion

This thesis uses Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) as a case study for the exploration of religious broadcasting in America and the emergent Word of Faith movement. TBN is investigated as a challenge to the scholarly and popular understandings of religious broadcasting by considering it as a media-based church facilitating religious experience and community through technology. In order to understand TBN and its theological tenets better, the connection between the Word of Faith movement and Trinity Broadcasting Network is demonstrated through statistical and visual analysis of the flagship TBN program Praise the Lord. Additionally, this thesis examines the unique role of technology in TBN's end-times theology and in the development of Word of Faith. Finally, the political investments of TBN are explored, paying attention to the way that encoded visual texts subtly point readers to a socially conservative, American, and properly Christian, but distinctively TBN, identity.

Committee: James Hanges (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2005, History

As a lawyer, soldier, and politician, Lew Wallace epitomized the nineteenth-century ideals of manhood. Yet a series of professional failures prompted Wallace to turn to writing as a way to reconstitute his identity. The century's best-selling novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was the result. The questions Wallace explored in Ben-Hur about the historic reality of Christianity also resonated with the popular religiosity of Americans eager to experience faith vicariously. Aided by the late nineteenth-century mass-market machinery that propelled his novel to commercial success, Wallace became a popular authority on secular and religious matters by deriving definition and legitimacy from his audiences. Scholars generally omit Wallace and Ben-Hur from current historiography, yet both reveal important insights into late nineteenth-century American culture regarding manhood, popular religiosity, and celebrity.

Committee: Mary Cayton (Advisor) Subjects: History, United States