The Medium Is the Danger: Discourse about Television among Amish and Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Women

ABSTRACT

This study shows how Old Order Amish and ultra-Orthodox women’s discourse about television can help develop a better understanding of the creation, construction, and strengthening of limits and boundaries separating enclave cultures from the world. Based on questionnaires containing both closed- and open-ended questions completed by 82 participants, approximately half from each community, I argue that both communities can be understood as interpretive communities that negatively interpret not only television content, like other religious communities, but also the medium itself. Their various negative interpretive strategies is discussed and the article shows how they are part of an “us-versus-them” attitude created to mark the boundaries and walls that enclave cultures build around themselves. The comparison between the two communities found only a few small differences but one marked similarity: The communities perceive avoidance of a tool for communication, in this case television, as part of the communities’ sharing, participation, and common culture.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Sapir Academic College and the Israeli Second Authority for Television and Radio for their support of this research. I am also grateful to Helene Landau for her skillful editing.

Notes

¹ This research does not include the Habad and Breslav ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects because their use of technology is different than that of the other sects.

² Bender (1989) and Stoltzfus (1994) are interesting reads, but they are not based on academic studies.