Religion Across Television Genres

“Through their close analysis of the ‘sign-vehicles’ within television programs across a range of genres, Joseph M. Valenzano III and Erika Engstrom show us how television both mirrors how religion is lived in America and performs a subtle but significant sermonic function in authorizing and adumbrating religious belief. Religion Across Television Genres would greatly enrich any course in religious communication or mass media and society. I recommend it highly.” —Dennis D. Cali, Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Texas at Tyler
“Religion Across Television Genres persuasively and perspicaciously illustrates that television is equipment for living. In this thoroughly researched and elegantly evaluated volume, Joseph M. Valenzano III and Erika Engstrom argue that implanted in our current pop culture television programming is an abiding sense of religion and religiosity, expressed through multiform genres. In only the way sapient teachers can, Valenzano and Engstrom demonstrate how the influence of context on content is a dialectical process. In 1985, Neil Postman penned his prophetic Amusing Ourselves to Death. The cultural discoveries unveiled by Valenzano and Engstrom’s Religion Across Television Genres may suggest that in terms of religious content displayed on television in the twenty-first century, we may be ‘Amusing Ourselves to Life.’ However, this renewed faith life is not in any one particular institutionalized religion but a more ubiquitous faith in the human values of community, tolerance, self-reliance, and love of family and friends. Scholars and students of communication, cultural studies, mass media, and religion will find this work unique, timely, and conducive to binge reading.” —Christopher J. Oldenburg, Associate Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Illinois College
"Religion Across Television Genres is a must-have book for anyone who studies pop culture and religion; it deserves a spot on every TV connoisseur's bookshelf." —Jarret Keene, Popular Culture Review, 30/2019