Lilly Endowment Inc. has awarded $743,000 to the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication for a research project on media, religion and culture.
Acting Dean Stewart Hoover and Research Associate Lynn Schofield Clark are the co-principal investigators of the project, which is one of the largest interview-based efforts to study media use in the family in the country. The grant will allow the two faculty members to continue their research.
Through extensive interviews conducted with members of families, both individually and as a whole, Hoover and Schofield Clark are studying how families set rules for standard media use such as newspapers, television and radio and how such media policies often reflect the religious beliefs of the family. Their new research also will focus on new technology usage such as Internet use in the home, Schofield Clark said.
"Our research has already made some major new contributions to our understanding of how people use and make sense of the media they consume," said Hoover. "And this new funding will enable us to extend this work to the digital realm. Relatively little is known about the religious significance of such media use. Our projects are addressing that societal and scholarly need."
Hoover is the author of "Religion in the News" and "Mass Media Religion," and Schofield Clark is the author of the forthcoming "From Angels to Aliens: Teens, the Media, and Beliefs in the Supernatural."
Hoover has received three previous grants from the Lilly Endowment of Indianapolis. This latest grant also will allow the School of Journalism and Mass Communication to fund three research assistantships. Students who receive assistantships will help conduct the interviews necessary for the research project while completing either doctoral or master's degrees at CU-Boulder, Schofield Clark said.
The grant also will fund a new program of one-year doctoral dissertation fellowships for students interested in pursuing research in the areas of media, religion and culture, according to Schofield Clark.
"We are very excited about this because not only will the grant fund our research, but it will bring students in various disciplines to the University of Colorado campus to interact with the many scholars here who are interested in this important and emergent area," Schofield Clark said.
Students with an interest in media, religion and culture can apply in the year that they are writing their doctoral proposal to be considered for the doctoral dissertation fellowship program聮s one-year $12,000 grant. Recipients will come to CU-Boulder with their adviser at least once during the year of the fellowship award.
This latest funding also should help raise awareness about the programs offered at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Schofield Clark said. "Not only is the school preparing people for excellence in the fields of journalism, advertising, Web design and the entertainment media, but this grant highlights the school聮s emphasis on developing critical thinking skills, contributing to policy and considering the role of the media -- both what it is and what it should be -- in relation to the larger society."
The funding will begin in January 2001 and continue until summer 2004. For more information on the grant and the doctoral dissertation program, visit the research project聮s Web site at .
CU-Boulder's School of Journalism and Mass Communication provides a variety of degree programs for students interested in journalism careers. Undergraduate program offerings include advertising, broadcast news, broadcast production management, news-editorial and media studies.
Graduate degree programs are offered in mass communication research, newsgathering, integrated marketing communications, environmental journalism and communication. For more information visit the school's Web site at .