Related Publications
Clark, L.S. (2009). Sustaining the Mystery, Developing Cross-Religious Understandings: Religion, Philosophy, and Convergence Culture Online in ABC's Lost . Northern Lights Journal (special issue on religion, media, and enchantment).
Clark, L.S. (2008). When the University Went ‘Pop’: Exploring the Rising Interest in the Study of Popular Culture. Invited essay, Sociology Compass 1:1.
Clark, L.S. (2008). You LOST me: Mystery, Fandom, and Religion in ABC's LOST . In Faith in High Definition: Religion and Prime Time Television in a Post 9/11 World , Diane Winston and Jane Iwamura, Eds. Baylor University Press.
Clark, L.S. (2008). Why study popular culture? Or, how to build a case for your thesis in a Religious Studies or Theology department. In Gordon Lynch, Ed., Between Sacred and Profane: Researching Religion and Popular Culture . I.B. Taurus Press.
Clark, L.S. (2008). Reflections on Experiences in Iran . Invited essay , Journal of Media and Religion .
Clark, L.S., Ed. (2007). Religion, Media, and the Marketplace . Matwah, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
Clark, L.S. (2006, December). Introduction to a Forum on Religion, Popular Music, and Globalization. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45(4): 475-479.
Clark, L.S. (2006). Religion, American Style: Critical Cultural Analyses of Religion, Media, and Popular Culture. (Review of Heather Hendershot's Shaking the World For Jesus , David Chidester's Authentic Fakes , and Sean McCloud's Making the American Religious Fringe ). American Quarterly 58 (2): 523-533.
Clark, L.S. (2003; paperback 2005). From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural. New York: Oxford University Press. Received the Best Scholarly Book Award from the National Communication Association's Ethnography Division, 2003.
Clark, L.S. (2005). Popular Culture. In David Morgan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: MacMillan.
Clark, L.S. (2005). Book review, Soul Searching , by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. Oxford University Press, 2005. In Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44(4): 497-498.
Clark, L.S. (2004). Reconceptualizing Religion and Media in a Post-National, Postmodern World: A Critical Historical Introduction. In P. Horsfield, M. Hess, and A. Medrano (Eds.), Belief in Media . London: Prager.
Clark, L.S.(2004). Touched by an Angel. In Horace Newcomb (Sen. Ed.), Encyclopedia of Television . New York: Routledge.
Clark, L.S. (2004). Book review, Rave Culture and Religion , by Graham St. John (Ed.), Journal of Media and Religion.
Clark, L.S. (2004). Book review, Habits of the High-Tech Heart , by Quentin Schultze, Calvin Theological Journal.
Clark, L.S. (2003). Baby Boomers and their Millennial Kids: 'Folk' Definitions of Religion and their Relation to Culture. In A.L. Greil and D.G. Bromley (Eds.), Defining Religion: Investigating the Boundaries between the Sacred and Secular. Amsterdam: JAI Press.
Clark, L.S. (2003). The 'Funky' Side of Religion: An Ethnographic Study of Adolescent Religious Identity and the Media. In J. Mitchell and S. Marriage (Eds.), Conversations in Media, Religion, and Culture , London: Continuum Press.
Hoover, S.M. and Clark, L.S. (Eds.) (2002). Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion and Culture. Columbia University Press.
Clark, L.S. (2002). U.S. Adolescent Religious Identity, the Media, and the ‘Funky' Side of Religion. Journal of Communication 52 (4), 794-812.
Clark, L.S. (2002). Book review, Religion on the Internet: Research Prospects and Promises, by Jeffrey Hadden and Douglas Cowan (Eds.). Sociology of Religion 63(4): 540-541.
Clark, L.S. (2001). Fundamentalists and the Entertainment Media. In Brenda Brasher (Sen.Ed.), Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism . New York: Routledge.
Clark, L.S. (2000). Angels. In Wade Clark Roof (Sen. Ed.), Encyclopedia for Contemporary American Religion . New York: Macmillan.
Clark, L.S. and Hoover, S.H. (1997). Controversy and Cultural Symbolism: A Case Study of the RE-Imagining Event. Critical Studies in Media Communication 14(4), 310-331.
Hoover, S.H. and Clark, L.S. (1997). Negotiating the Boundary Between Religion and the Media: The Case Study of the RE-Imagining Controversy. Review of Religious Research 39(2), 153-171.
| Popular Culture in a Religiously and Culturally Plural World |
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Often, however, when people are asked about how their actions and choices in public life relate to what is deeply meaningful to them, they are at a loss for words. In part, this is because in the U.S. we tend to be individualistic, as Robert Bellah and his colleagues have famously argued, and therefore it's easier for us to think about our personal motivations than our obligations to the larger society. But this inability to explain our actions also comes about because we are less motivated by rationality than we might like to believe. In the research and teaching that we do, we emphasize that people often choose to do things less because of the perceived ends they are trying to achieve, and more out of an often-unconscious, taken-for-granted understanding of how things should be done. Obviously, people don't always act logically. We do what we do mostly as a result of what we've learned in our observations of the people we care about, and then we share stories with one another that reinforce our shared values. In our view, then, culture is the store of public symbols and stories that flesh out and reinforce these taken-for-granted understandings of how things should be done. It is in the stories and myths, the sounds and images of a culture, then, that people are able to make sense of their lives, and to ascribe meaning to their actions. Because the entertainment and news media are important sources of public storytelling, they figure prominently in the stories we tell each other about who we are and what we value. Certainly, there are huge industries involved in the decision-making processes of which stories get to be told, and how, in the mass media. Yet what becomes popular tells us about not only the values of those industries, but about what resonates among people themselves. Stories in popular communication, therefore, can tell us something about the shared beliefs and values that people hold. They offer scripts for action and reinforcement for choices made. They reassure us that the world is as we imagine it to be. As Iver B. Neumann has said, “There is considerable value in demonstrating how specific representations contribute to maintaining worlds as they are.” In our research and teaching, we are therefore interested in talking to young people and their famlies about their media preferences, and in making connections between these preferences and public life, so that we all might be better able to address the inequities and problems of today's world in ways that are meaningful and fair for all. Lynn Schofield Clark has been writing and speaking on popular culture, media, and world religions for more than ten years. Her research has been featured in the New York Times , Chicago Tribune , LA Times , the Boston Globe , The Chronicle for Higher Education , The Independent (U.K.), The Guardian (U.K.), and The Age (Australia), among other publications; on CNN, PBS, the BBC, and several other broadcast outlets; before audiences at Harvard University, the University of North Carolina, Indiana University, Ohio State University, and in numerous other national and international venues.
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In order to understand a culture, it's important to explore what its people value, and how they express those values through their actions in both public and in private realms. For more than ten years, Clark and her colleagues have been asking people in the U.S. what they value and what they aspire to in their relationships, their jobs, and in their free time, and we've heard some of the same things over and over: a healthy family, a strong faith tradition, a rewarding job, freedom. 