Patriotism and a Free Press: A Content Analysis of Civil Religion in Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing and The Newsroom

ABSTRACT American civil religion abounds in Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, but an idealized patriotism is also pronounced in The Newsroom and Sorkin’s other works. A quantitative content analysis found that civil religion elements pop up roughly every three-and-a-half minutes in The West Wing and every four minutes in The Newsroom. Coding revealed that Sorkin primarily promotes civil religion in ways that affirm culture. Both shows refer to American documents such as the Constitution as sacred, drawing on these texts and famous figures for authority. Freedom of the press and its centrality to democracy dominates both shows, and both productions emphasize personal sacrifice for one’s nation. Overlap between the two shows indicates these values come close to Sorkin’s personal brand of civil religion, which provides a window into the civil religion of the wider entertainment and news media. This study opens up a fruitful vein of research for understanding today’s divided media landscape.