JOURNALISM AND RELIGION. [This entry discusses reporting on religious topics in the daily print and broadcast media in the United States.]

Alexis de Tocqueville devoted a chapter of his Democracy in America (1835), "Of the Relation between Public Associations and the Newspapers," to the interdependence of communications media and other institutions in a democratic society. Tocqueville highlights this interdependence in the following observation:

There is a necessary connection between public associations and newspapers; newspapers make associations, and associations make newspapers.… A newspaper can survive only on the condition of publishing sentiments or principles common to a large number of men. A newspaper, therefore, always represents an association that is composed of its habitual readers. This association may be more or less defined, more or less restricted, more or less numerous; but the fact that a newspaper keeps alive is proof that at least the germ...