News Media Influence on Nonevangelical Coders' Perceptions of Evangelical Christians: A Case Study

Abstract

This instrumental case study employed several methodologies to determine the following: between 1994 and 2004, 64.7% of Canadian national television news reports featured evangelicals from Canada, 32.7% featured evangelicals from the United States, and just 2.5% (or three news reports) featured evangelicals whose country of origin was outside North American. Combined, the reports left a small pool of nonevangelical coders feeling “cool” or “guarded” toward members of this faith group. When separated by country of origin, reports featuring Canadian evangelicals alone left coders feeling neutral, while reports featuring American evangelicals alone left coders feeling slightly negatively toward this faith group. A two-sample t-test determined that the difference between the coders' ratings of Canadian and American evangelicals' stories was significant. Other research has determined Canadian evangelicals are more tolerant than American; tangible manifestations of Canadian evangelicals more tolerant nature was found in the coverage.