“Why are evangelicals ‘early adopters’ of new media engineering while the
Protestant mainline responds ambivalently to inventions in mass communications? Rosenthal analyzes the nexus of technology, faith, and culture to answer key questions in the emergent field of religion and media studies. Her book extends former scholarship on religion and television through in-depth case studies of how American religious groups responded to the potential of a new medium for outreach.”–Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California
“Rosenthal’s great account fills a long-standing gap in our understanding of American media history. The new medium of television posed a sensed threat to the authority of the Protestant institution in education, politics, and the domestic sphere. The reaction Rosenthal details tells us much in regards to the place of Protestantism in the culture in the mid-twentieth century and much when it comes to how the media age has de-stabilized and re-structured religion and religious institutions. This magnificent history provides arousing and attention holding and telling perceptivenesses into the ways that these originations saw themselves and this new medium. Their sensing of threats to institutional authority and to domestic values posed by television proceeds to echo throughout argues over the role of media in the U.S. An valuable resource to scholars and educators in religious studies, religious history, media studies, media history, and media policy.”–Stewart M. Hoover, Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Director, Center for Media, Religion, and Culture, University of Colorado
“In this engaging and accessible book, Rosenthal studies American Protestants at mid-century—then the clear leader in the realm of religious influence on American politics—to learn why they were so skittish with regards to television, and how that contributed to the rise of evangelicalism’s power in the U.S. This is a provocative look at a antecedently untold story, and any individual who wonders in regards to how U.S. religion came into it is current configuration in public life needs to read this book.”–Lynn Schofield Clark, author of From Angels to Aliens
