Content analysis comparison of science-religion articles in two religion, two science, and two news magazines

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to digital@library.tamu.edu, referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-94).Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics.The content-analysis study focused on the point where science and religion intersect in two science magazines (Discover and New Scientist), two news magazines (Time and U.S. News & World Report,) and two Christian magazines (Christianity Today and Christian Century). The study focused on how these six magazines covered four topics from 1993 through 1998: Big Bang, cloning, evolution, and Y2K. The primary research question was: Did Christian, science, and news magazines' coverage of specific science-religion topics dicer in their emphasis on science and religion? This study tested three hypotheses: 1) Christian magazines tend to provide only minimal coverage of the science side of science-religion topics. 2) Science magazines tend to provide only minimal coverage of the Christian side of science-religion topics. 3) News magazines tend to provide equal and balanced coverage of science-religion topics. A set of 318 magazine was analyzed. Factors such as article length, use of graphics, religion and science keywords, and use of sources were studied. Overall, the use of religion keywords and religion sources by the science and news magazines was lacking, always less then 30% of total keywords or sources. The science and news magazines did not focus much coverage on the Christian side of the scientific topics. Christian magazines, instead of news magazines, had the most balanced coverage. Science and news magazines should make a more conscious effort to cover the religion side. The science topics chosen were ones that inherently created debate in the religion arena. Truly thorough coverage would include the Christian side of these topics. News magazines typically known for thorough, balanced coverage would be expected to include the religion aspect of these topics. Thus, the research indicated a possibility that journalists from news magazines, when choosing how they would cover a topic, did not sufficiently study all the arenas impacted by the scientist discoveries. This lack of coverage should be viewed as a wooing for future reporting