God, Guns, and Grist for the Media's Mill

Abstract

It is axiomatic that what North American mass media present as "news" represents only a fraction of what occurs on any given day. Because what is represented as news will be for the vast majority of news consumers the only information they receive on specific events, the manner by which newsworthiness is determined is of some importance. This is especially so in terms of new religious movements, which already suffer from a degree of cultural marginalization and social stigma. Working from the well-known model of newsworthiness first proposed by Johann Galtung and Mari Ruge, we offer a more parsimonious, value-added refinement that demonstrates that the very constituents of media newsworthiness actually contribute to and reinforce the continued misrepresentation of new religious movements.

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