Historical Background of Media and Religion

While extensive research on mass media audiences dates back to the Payne Fund Studies in the 1920's, published scholarly research on audiences of religious broadcasting is limited (Rogers, 1994, pp. 190-192).  The literature reveals that some of the earliest research concerning religious broadcasting began between 1950 and 1960 (Bennett et. al., 1954; Boyd, 1957; Weber, 1958; Lenski, 1961; Samuelson, 1964; and Smith, 1969).   These studies were comprised mainly of histories of religion and economics, as well as biographies of religious media personalities.  Televangelism, riding on the backs of religious movements, persuasion theory, and critical theory, caught the attention of the national media, and social science once again turned its attention to the role of religion in the media. For the purposes of this study, televangelism is defined as "the exclusive use of television or cable television for the transmission of the gospel by a television evangelist" (Schmidt and Kess, 1986, p. 5).  Religion has been a part of the American broadcasting mosaic of radio and, later, television for decades.  Despite this, intensive study of the phenomenon by communication researchers continues to be relegated to token efforts at best.

Religious programming has been part of the American landscape since the first religious service was transmitted over radio KDKA from Pittsburgh's Calvary Episcopal Church on January 2, 1921 (Ward, 1994, p. 208).  Religious broadcasting has been in existence for more than 75 years; however, its potential as a true growth industry evolved with the advent of commercial television in 1948 (Boyd, 1957).

A brief historical background concerning the alliance between mediated religion in Christian organizations and technology is required to fully appreciate this topic.  Communication historian David Paul Nord's (1985) technology research has carefully analyzed the appropriation of mass communication by religious elements in American history.   Nord's greatest influence on an appreciation of history is his examination of the power of religious communication for the purposes of evangelism and revenue generation.  His detailed examination of this topic asserts that the earliest religious media owners were leaflet- distributing Pentecostals and evangelicals after 1815.  These religious media practitioners were pioneers in the use of print technologies, and provided many people's first exposure to modern mass media.  The vast benevolent media-owner empire which evangelicals built in the 19th century paved the way for the radio and television evangelists of the future (Nord, 1990).

The shaping role of evangelical enterprises such as the American Bible Society, the American Tract Society, and other voluntary associations, through their sophisticated use of new printing, papermaking, and stereotyping technologies, played in the popularization of print and the creation of the mass media in America. (Nord, 1984, pp.1-2)

 

NBC recognized three faith groups--Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish--and divided (free) sustaining time for religious programs between them.  The program was called the National Radio Pulpit. The network considered the Federal Council of Churches to be the sole representative of Protestantism and would not sell airtime to evangelical or Pentecostal broadcasters. (Ward, 1994, p. 17)

 

Dr. Walter A. Maier became an owner/operator and established KFUO an acronym for Keep Forward, Upward, Onward, on December 14, 1924.  Maier's operation resulted in the first religious radio station, broadcasting from the attic of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. To finance the operations, appeals for money soon dominated this program.  Maier's fund-raising efforts soon became the model for others and ushered in paid religious electronic evangelism versus free time programs on a regular basis (Ward, 1994, p. 44).   Maier's station was only the beginning, as ministers and hucksters began flooding the spectrum to make their mark in religious radio. 

The problems created by religious broadcasters have been varied: attacks on minority groups, sentiments against labor, attacks on competing religious groups and their leaders, and more recently, the advocacy of political viewpoints, some quite outside of the mainstream.  According to legal scholar R. Smith (1969), these various abuses have been

…sufficiently dangerous, varied, and have occurred over such a long period of time that it is doubtful if anything short of external regulation can serve to prevent them. These experiences make us reluctant to extend "religious liberty" to broadcasting. When the evidence strongly suggests that we will pay for the liberty in terms of abuses if such liberty means the absence of regulation. (Smith, 1969, p.2)

Since the inception of radio, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a long history of wrangling with religious broadcasters over the issue of whether the over-all programming of a religious applicant or licensee will serve the public interest.  One of the earliest cases concerned the innovative use of radio by the first woman to gain a FCC broadcaster's license and deliver a sermon over the air in San Francisco.  Her name was Aimee Semple McPherson (Melton, Lucas, & Stone, 1997, p. 223).   McPherson brushed with Herbert Hoover, who at the time (1927) held the post of Secretary of Commerce which held regulatory authority over radio. 

Hoover criticized the evangelist for arbitrarily changing the frequency of her station (a common occurrence in the relatively unregulated milieu of early radio).  In response to this criticism, McPherson sent him a telegram that read:  "Please order your minions of Satan to leave my station alone.  You cannot expect the Almighty to abide by your wavelength nonsense.  When I offer my prayers to Him I must fit into His wave reception.  Open this station at once." (Melton, Lucas, & Stone, 1997, p. 224)

 

One journalist estimated in 1935 as many as 30 million listeners for some programs.  Even in 1932, after a single radio address about Herbert Hoover on February 14, 1935, the priest received one and one-quarter million letters, according to that same reporter.  When a single station, KSTP in St. Paul, deliberated about selling airtime for the programs, listeners were asked to write the station about the possible discontinuance of the series; the station received 137, 882 letters, all but 482 demanding that the series continue. (Brown, 1980, p. 202) 

Father Coughlin's stirring messages mixed his political views with strongly anti-Semitic commentary.  The president of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) had been placed under tremendous pressure by the FCC to "police" their own instead of getting government involved (Brown, 1980, p. 202).

Father Coughlin's programs were eventually curbed in 1938 when the radio station voluntarily agreed with NAB president Neville Miller to drop the programming or risk FCC interference in religious broadcasting. While a celebrated case, Father Coughlin's misdeeds were the exception.  Many religious broadcasters, such as Clayton Russell, just wanted to spread the Gospel.  Reverend Russell of KFOX, Los Angeles, earned the distinction of being the first African-American religious operator licensee, receiving his license in 1936 to transmit his church services (Ward, 1994).

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who had been well known since 1930 for his radio program The Catholic Hour, was the first media star "televangelist."  It was a Roman Catholic bishop, not a Protestant evangelical, who proved the value of personality and staging in the early days of televised religion during Sheen's shift to television in 1951 (Ward, 1994, p. 83).

A second forerunner of televangelism was Reverend Billy Graham, whose Hour of Decision began on radio but later switched to television. 

As a role model for other revivalists, Graham demonstrated the utility and applications of television as a new measure to stir religious enthusiasm.  On a trip to Portland, Oregon, in 1950, where he was conducting a revival in a specially constructed tabernacle, he initiated a weekly nationwide radio broadcast and a series of documentary and fictional motion pictures in which his revival sermons were the principle feature. (Frankl, 1987, p. 73)

 

Televangelism speaks to members of the family.  It is a family affair that excludes the unchurched outsider.  The church is "narrowcasting."  The whole body of Christ primarily speaks, to itself and I say that after serving as a member of the Board of Directors of the NRB for the last 24 years. (C. Richardson, personal communication, July 22, 1996)

 

The literature certainly seems to support Richardson's assertions, (Albert, 1980; Horsfield, 1984; Corry, 1987; Fishwick & Browne, 1987; Fore, 1987; Frankl, 1987; Hoover, 1988; Abelman & Hoover, 1990; Bruce, 1990; Schultze, 1991; Janis, 1996; Moore, 1994; and Wuthnow, 1994), and the dollar amounts generated for religious broadcasting are in the billions (Ferguson & Lee, 1997, pp. 70-76).

 The Roots of Mediated Religion in the Marketplace

 The church has not always been a business per se, but particularly in the area of mediated religion it has typically been entangled in the business mentality of the day. The German sociologist Max Webers (1958) conducted seminal work on the role of the business mentality of the Protestant Church and the spirit of capitalism.  The marriage of media and religion is the modern American version of such financial and religious amalgamation.  

Mediated religion's role in the marketplace of culture began in the 19th century as an effort to influence and in some cases ban Christians altogether from the bawdy markets that existed to make various forms of leisure and entertainment attractive. 

Religious leaders were not themselves selling anything.  Their censorship efforts and prescriptive commentary were intended to exert an independent control over what sorts of items and activities became available for consumption.  In these endeavors they extended the hand of cooperation to all laypeople who shared their values and their view that just because people might be willing to pay to do something did not mean that they ought to be able to. (Moore, 1994, p. 6)