The Media and Male Identities: Audience Research in Media, Religion, and Masculinities

Findings from in-depth interviews with 19 Evangelical Protestant men regarding their ideas about masculinity, media, and religion are reported. The authors propose a critical test of a neoconservative view which laments a modern “crisis of masculinity” and which posits media as a villain in this crisis and religion, particularly conservative religion, as the savior. The study pursues a line of inquiry suggested by D. Gauntlett (2002) and S. M. Hoover (2006) with the hope of developing clearer ideas of how men make gendered narratives of self-understanding and presentation out of their media lives. These interviews contradicted the neoconservative claims, finding that media plays constructive roles in these men's senses of self in both masculine and religious terms.