Religion in the South --Jungyeon Alice Lee

Just believing a certain religion cannot be a good thing or a bad thing, unless the teaching of the religion is far beyond common sense. A religion gives its unique system of beliefs and customs to its believers, which makes up an important portion of the society’s cultural heritage. In this respect, southerners’ strong religious background should have contributed to the development of the southern culture.
On the other hand, this religious leaning is likely to provide a good circumstance where the stereotype can grow. In fact, mass media do not report positive activities in most of the churches as much as they do to negative aspects. A fanatic crime occurring in a church is more likely to be a popular news topic than most of the normal activities. Outsiders do not really hear about most of the local churches devoted to community outreach programs to make their communities much better. In this atmosphere, negative images on mass media might lead to the religious stereotype.