"The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a neo-Pentecostal religious group originally from Brazil, has attracted a great deal of attention since it was founded by Pastor Edir Macedo in 1977. Part of that attention is due to the group’s and its leaders’non-traditional religious practic
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es, which include syncretic versions of Christian Pentecostal, shamanistic, and Afro-Brazilian Umbandan rituals. A great deal of scrutiny, however, centers on the fact that since the UCKG purchased TV Record in the early 1990s, the group has become a major player in the very desirable and profitable Brazilian broadcasting market. This paper examines the rise of UCKG as a major media player in Brazil, and also sheds some light into the Church’s attempts at globalizing (or at least expanding) its television and radio holdings to other countries and regions." (Abstract)
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"Increasingly, Pentecostal, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and indigenous movements all over the world make use of a great variety of modern mass media, both print and electronic. Through religious booklets, radio broadcasts, cassette tapes, television talk-shows, soap operas, and documentary film
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these movements address multiple publics and offer alternative forms of belonging, often in competition with the postcolonial nation-state. How have new practices of religious mediation transformed the public sphere? How has the adoption of new media impinged on religious experiences and notions of religious authority? Has neo-liberalism engendered a blurring of the boundaries between religion and entertainment? The vivid essays in this interdisciplinary volume combine rich empirical detail with theoretical reflection, offering new perspectives on a variety of media, genres, and religions." (Publisher description)
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"This article will describe the impact of North American religious television in two very different Latin American contexts: Guatemala in Central America and Brazil in South America. From these common North American roots, Guatemala and Brazil provide contrasting case studies of how religious entrep
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reneurs struggle to place their messages in the media marketplace. Guatemala provides a study in marginality: despite having built impressive religious institutions, Guatemala’s Pentecostal television preachers have had little success in getting their message before the general populace on commercial television. Guatemala’s highly fragmented social and ecclesial climate has led to fierce competition for the loyalty of the faithful between religious entrepreneurs who have only limited impact in the larger society. Brazil, on the other hand, provides examples of Pentecostal preachers who have built successful religious franchises that have accumulated sufficient resources to finance major incursions into the commercial media. The concluding section will explore how symbolic goods are marketed in today’s global religious supermarket." (Introduction, page 49)
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