HISTORY AND POLICY IN AMERICAN BROADCAST TREATMENT OF RELIGION

The evolution of policy and practice regarding religion in the case of US broadcasting provides an opportunity to understand the treatment o f religion as an objective matter. US print media treatment developed less self-consciously. In each of these cases, however, a fundamental question obtains: how it is that in a society where religiosity is so common, religion continues to be a problematic element of media conten t? This article investigates the policy history and finds a complex se t of causes and consequences. As a matter of policy, and in defense ag ainst state control, the broadcast industries sought to claim control over all aspects of content, even that which would fall under the 'pub lic service' rubric. In the case of religion, this control was just as quickly handed over to private religious institutions with the unders tanding that what religion would appear would be of a general, non-con troversial kind. This system did not survive historical circumstances which brought about increased political activism on the part of sectar ian interests after the 1970s.