Böcker av Judith M. Buddenbaum

Religious Scandals brings together real-life controversies involving men and women of faith, from the media frenzy over the 1811 New York blasphemy case of People v. Ruggles that shaped American law for well over 100 years to the 2008 government raid on the fundamentalist Mormon Yearning for Zion community in Texas.Religious Scandals focuses on two types of subjects: religious figures whose lapses put them at the center of scandals involving sex, money, or crime; and those who scandalized their fellow citizens by acting out according to their own religious beliefs. Together, these stories-some familiar, some little known-offer a fascinating portrait of American religious culture, as well insights into the role of the media in religious scandals, constitutional protections of religious freedom, and the overriding issue of public curiosity versus individual privacy.

This special issue of the "Journal of Media and Religion" looks at how religion is framed when it is thrust into the public realm through mediated coverage of a particular event. The first article examines how the public debate about teaching evolution was framed by the press in Tennessee. The next article discusses framing of news stories about Mormons during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. The final article applies Silk's unsecular media hypothesis to coverage of the Jesse Jackson infidelity scandal. Each of these articles uncovers new issues and insights about the framing of religion news. The editors hope that they will become important points of departure for theorization on this important topic. Future research will benefit from the analyses presented by these authors.