Religion and Electronic Media

Last updated on: November 6, 2014 at 5:15 pm by Guest Contributor

Religion and Electronic Media 2014-11-06T17:15:00-05:00 Guest Contributor

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In an average week, one-in-five Americans share their religious faith online, about the same percentage that tune in to religious talk radio, watch religious TV programs or listen to Christian rock music. And nearly half of U.S. adults see someone else share their religious faith online in a typical week.

These are among the key findings from a survey conducted in May and June of 2014 that asked 3,217 adults from the Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel whether they had engaged in various kinds of religious activities during the previous week.

Fully 20% of Americans said they had shared their religious faith on social networking websites or apps (such as Facebook and Twitter) in the past week, and 46% said they had seen someone else share “something about their religious faith” online. The percentage of Americans who shared their own faith online is similar to the proportions who said they watched a religious TV program (23%), listened to religious talk radio (20%) or listened to Christian rock music (19%). Even more (40%) said they shared something about their religious faith “offline, in a real-life setting.” By way of comparison, in Pew Research telephone surveys conducted in 2014, 35% of Americans have reported attending religious services at least once a week.

The survey suggests that religious engagement through TV, radio, music and the internet generally complements – rather than replaces – traditional kinds of religious participation, such as going to church. Americans who said they frequently attend religious services were more likely to engage in these electronic religious activities than those who said they attend religious services less often. And white evangelicals and black Protestants — two groups with high levels of traditional religious observance — shared their faith online, watched religious TV and listened to religious talk radio more often than other large U.S. religious groups.

The survey also finds that young adults (ages 18-29) are about twice as likely as Americans ages 50 and older to see people sharing their faith online. This pattern reflects broader generational differences in technology adoption and media consumption, with young adults using the internet more than older people do. By contrast, watching religious television is considerably more common among older adults than among those under 30.

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