A study of television's treatment of religion has found that matters of faith are addressed more in broadcast networks' shows, but mostly in a negative manner, the Parents Television Council has announced.

The Los Angeles-based council worked in conjunction with the National Religious Broadcasters to release the study titled, “Faith in a Box: Entertainment Television and Religion.”

Researchers found that NBC led other major networks in negative depictions of faith, with 9.5 negative treatments for every positive treatment.

It was followed by Fox, with 2.4 negative depictions for each positive one and 1.2 negative for each positive treatment by both WB and ABC.

Council analysts reviewed prime-time entertainment programs on seven commercial broadcast networks-ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PAX, UPN and WB-between Sept. 25, 2003 and Sept. 24, 2004. They found that 2,385 hours of programming on those networks contained 2,344 treatments of religion-ranging from a brief prayer to “the actual presence of God in a scene.” That demonstrated a marked increase from the council's last study on religion in 1997, when researchers found 551 treatments of religion in 1,800 hours of programming.

While references to faith were the most common related to religion, the study also looked at treatment of religion as an institution, depictions of clergy and devout lay people and miscellaneous references to religion.

Analysts found that more than 32 percent of television's depictions of religious institutions and doctrine were negative, while 11.7 percent of such depictions were positive.

When clergy were depicted, 36.2 percent of the time they were negative, compared to 14.6 percent positive. Depictions of devout laity were 33.3 percent negative and 20.4 percent positive.

Religion News Service

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