Thou Shall Not Take the Name of Thy God in Vain: Washington Offices' Use of Religious Language to Shape Public and Political Agendas

Advocacy groups' use of religious language can shape the public's political attitudes and can influence politicians' legislative behaviors, thereby potentially influencing both public and political agendas. However, most existing research on agendas does not examine advocacy groups�...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kraus, Rachel (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group [2009]
In: Journal of media and religion
Year: 2009, Volume: 8, Issue: 2, Pages: 115-137
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:Advocacy groups' use of religious language can shape the public's political attitudes and can influence politicians' legislative behaviors, thereby potentially influencing both public and political agendas. However, most existing research on agendas does not examine advocacy groups' use of religious language, and the political scholarship that does consider religious language fails to examine its use across a variety of audiences. The current study fills these gaps by analyzing a myriad of written documents and the Web sites of 15 Washington offices, the advocacy arms of national religious bodies, to examine how they attempt to influence political and public agendas by using religious language to present their political positions to four different audiences. Results indicate that both institutional and theological religious themes are used by liberal and moderate, but not conservative offices to affect the political agenda, and all Washington offices primarily use theological religious themes to influence the public agenda.
ISSN:1534-8415
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of media and religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/15348420902881043