Communication, Church and Society: A Story of Qualitative Enquiry

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show how a communication problem was identified between the church and society in New Zealand. The hypothesis was that the way the church presents itself to contemporary society creates a disconnect between the two. As the church is not seen as relevant, those exploring spirituality may therefore never consider the church or Christian spiritualty as being helpful in their exploration. This research looked at whether society (receivers of church communication) and church leaders (as representative of the source of the church’s communication) had the same concept in mind when referring to ‘church’. The theoretical underpinnings of the research started with the basic Shannon-Weaver model of communication.11 The methodology was shaped by the framework of critical studies, and ‘thick description’ from Clifford Geertz was the influencing core qualitative concept behind our method of qualitative research using semi-structured in-depth interviews, focus groups and thematic analysis.22