Paranormal Media: Audiences, Spirits, and Magic in Popular Culture (review)

Annette Hill is Professor of Media at the University of Westminster, UK, and the author of Restyling Factual Television (2007) and Reality TV (2005). Her latest book, Paranormal Media, is about the contemporary culture of the paranormal, a culture she finds to be heir to the “secularization” of beliefs about spirits, ghosts, and other paranormal phenomena that took place around 1800. She synthesizes some previous research on topics related to the title subject as context and support for the results of a study described in the appendix. This study, which was conducted in South East England, consisted of group interviews involving 104 people, in-depth interviews with seventy people, participant observation of ghost hunting events, and interviews with experts offering various professional and industry perspectives. The interviews, which were part of a larger, two-year study of digital media in the home, consisted of questions about beliefs and attitudes regarding the paranormal, including related television shows and websites, ghost tourism, and so forth. The results are presented throughout the book in the form of quotations supplementing Hill’s scholarly text.

Chapter one introduces the title subject, emphasizing surveys and news articles showing that many people in Britain and the United States believe in at least some aspect of the paranormal. Chapter two, “Spirit histories,” demonstrates how paranormal phenomena and their representations have changed over the centuries with attention to such things as Spiritualism, magic-lantern shows, and how the Brothers Grimm made ghost stories into consumer products. Beliefs about the paranormal were, Hill says, once closely linked to religion and fear: “Fear of ghosts was also a fear of the occult and the Devil with his army of night workers” (23). While fear is still part of the paranormal equation, the context has changed along with the rest of the world, such that “popular culture spirit beliefs began to be relocated from religious to secular contexts. [. . .] Fear of ghosts was a sign of superstition and old ways of thinking about religion and supernaturalism” (23–24). In chapter three, “Paranormal in popular culture,” Hill emphasizes the shift from the spirit beliefs popular in the nineteenth century to the belief in the paranormal that characterizes the contemporary world, in which “The entertainment industry has transformed paranormal beliefs into revenue streams. What was once considered niche is now mainstream” (63).

Not surprisingly then, chapters four, five, and six are devoted to “Armchair ghost hunters,” “Psychic tourists,” and “Experiences,” and, along with chapters seven and nine, incorporate most of the primary resource interview material. These chapters cover such topics as ghost hunting television shows, ghost walks and overnight visits to haunted sites, and the importance of personal experience to notions of authenticity in relation to the paranormal. Chapter seven is about magic and magicians who rarely presume to practise “real” magic and often seek to debunk those, like psychics and mediums, who do. Chapter eight is a discussion of research methods and the importance of audience participation to the industries capitalizing on beliefs in the paranormal. Chapter nine is more about cultural engagement by way of the active pursuit of explanations for what falls outside the range of normal experience.

Hill explains some of the relevant methodological issues and terms, but is less diligent in her examination of the assumption that “secularization” has released us from superstitious and fear-based responses to the paranormal. This assumption might pass without note, and when followed by chapters about paranormal beliefs in such “secular” contexts as television, ghost walks, and magic shows, it seems rather obvious. But does a willingness to be entertained by the paranormal mean that related beliefs have transferred from the “religious” to the “secular” realms, or have the expressions of belief merely diversified? No mention is made of church positions on the phenomena discussed, “Wicca” and “pagan” are not indexed terms, and the interview participants were apparently...