Overview
- Offers a new way of looking at television preaching, as it focuses on unintended fans of televangelists – individuals who found these preachers amusing rather than uplifting
- Challenges research on religion and “new” media by highlighting analog “alternative” media
- Reorients research on religion and popular culture to focus more closely on how people actually use religious media
Part of the book series: Contemporary Religion and Popular Culture (CRPC)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book examines unintended participatory cultures and media surrounding the American televangelists Robert Tilton and Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner. It brings to light heavily ironic fan followings; print, audio, and video projects; public access television parodies; and other comedic participatory practices associated with these controversial preachers from the 1980s onwards. For Tilton’s ministry, some of these activities and artifacts would prove irksome and even threatening, particularly an analog video remix turned online viral sensation. In contrast, Bakker-Messner’s “campy” fans – gay men attracted to her “ludicrous tragedy” – would provide her unexpected opportunities for career rehabilitation.
Denis J. Bekkering challenges “supply-side” religious economy and branding approaches, suggestions of novelty in religion and “new” media studies, and the emphasis on sincere devotion in research on religion and fandom. He also highlights how everyday individuals have long participated in public negotiations of Christian authenticity through tongue-in-cheek play with purported religious “fakes.”
Reviews
“Denis J. Bekkering’s American Televangelism & Participatory Cultures is a solid addition to religion and popular culture studies. … Religion and popular culture scholars can find value in Bekkering’s methodologies, his use of the Internet and YouTube as an archive for starting research, and his concept of recreational Christianity as an interpretive framework.” (David Feltmate, Reading Religion, January 28, 2020)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Denis J. Bekkering received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Waterloo. He has previously published work in Culture and Religion, Studies in Religion, and the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: American Televangelism and Participatory Cultures
Book Subtitle: Fans, Brands, and Play With Religious "Fakes"
Authors: Denis J. Bekkering
Series Title: Contemporary Religion and Popular Culture
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00575-7
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-00574-0Published: 25 October 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-13124-1Published: 10 December 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-00575-7Published: 12 October 2018
Series ISSN: 2945-7777
Series E-ISSN: 2945-7785
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 228
Topics: Religion and Society, Sociology of Religion, Film/TV Industry