Religion is Big News on the Net
(OJR.org) Religion, long of marginal concern in the mainstream media, is big news on the Internet. A survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project earlier this year found that of 64 percent of 128 million surfers used the Internet for some form of spiritual or religious activity. That's 82 million adult Americans. And, contrary to expectations in the early days of the Internet, it's not just people searching for novel or unusual religious traditions: many people used the Internet to support their interest in traditional beliefs. "We had expected the Internet to replace traditional sources of religious and spiritual information, but in fact the information complements and supplements surfers’ offline faith," said Lee Rainie project director at Pew and co-author of the religion report.
It's not a demographic catered to, or understood by, the mainstream media. News media generally treat religion either as an aspect of a larger story, like religion in politics, or seasonally, like the recent article in Newsweek about the birth of the historical Christ. Religion is rarely a story in its own right. "As a subject it's a niche subject, not central to the life of a news organisation," said Rainie. → Full Story