Religious Periodicals and Presidential Elections, 1992–2008

Abstract

In a 1992 study, J. David Fairbanks and I found that two prominent Catholic journals, America and Commonweal, devoted more coverage to presidential campaigns during the presidential elections from 1960 to 1988 than Christian Century and Christianity Today, their Protestant counterparts. The current study, which also reviews Crisis and First Things in addition to the four previous journals, finds that the sectarian split has disappeared in terms of quantity of campaign coverage. Instead, the qualitative difference in coverage is ideological, akin to James Davison Hunter's culture wars thesis, with America, Christian Century, and Commonweal manifesting a progressive Christian outlook while Christianity Today, Crisis, and First Things express an orthodox Christian outlook. In the Catholic journals, progressive and orthodox discourses during the campaigns are as antagonistic toward one another as they are with Protestant or secular discourses, reflective of Timothy Radcliffe's theological distinction between “Kingdom” and “Communion” Catholics.

Notes

¹I am indebted to Dale McConkey (2001) for several of the sources in this literature review.

²A list of complete citations for all primary source material from the periodicals that is noted through parenthetical references can be obtained from the author.

³I am indebted to Kelly Jacobs' comparison of the print and online versions of these journals to make this editorial determination.

^aThe range of issues included in the 1992–2000 column on religious political participation is broader than that of the 1960–2008 column.

^bThis type of journal entry was not measured in the 1960–1988 study.