Religious Identity, Politics, and the Media: What White Evangelical Christian Women's Religious Identity Reveals About Their Endorsement of Donald J. Trump and Distrust of News Outlets

Abstract

This research examines white evangelical Christian women's social/religious identity and how this distinctiveness influences their political standpoints, voting behaviors, and opinions of perceived out-groups, including news outlets. While appreciating that numerous theoretical aspects are at play in this multifarious subject matter, an analysis of social/religious identity can provide focal insight and understanding when deliberating Christianity, politics, gender, and the media in reference to the nature of evangelical Christian women's support of Donald J. Trump as the United States President as well as their cynicism of most news outlets. This qualitative study employed focus groups and semi-structured in-depth interviews with evangelical Christian women and examined their responses through the lens of critical discourse analysis and social identity. The participants in this study consider their religious identity a vital aspect of their character; it motivates their viewpoints in numerous aspects of their lives, including individual motivations, group stimuli and political impulses. Consequently, how they construct their religious identity, and how and why they react uncompromisingly to out-group threats is a focal element for this exploration.