Doctoral Dissertation Research: Globalizing the Gospel: The Technology of American International Religious Broadcasting, 1931-1980

博士论文研究：福音全球化：美国国际宗教广播技术，1931-1980

• 批准号: 0426019
• 负责人: John Krige
• 金额: $ 0.53万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-07-01 至 2006-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0426019&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Globalizing; Gospel

In the three decades following WWII, American evangelical broadcasters rose to positions of global prominence, supplanting commercial firms and passing state-run services in the number of program languages, transmission hours, and letters received. Drawing on archives that scholars have not consulted, this STS Dissertation Improvement Grant, provides a previously untold history of this phenomenon. The project begins with the establishment of the first Protestant station overseas in 1931 and charts the rise of four major evangelical broadcasters from the early 1950s to the dawn of the global era. The dissertation compares missionary radio with the activity of the Voice of America, which adopted religious broadcasts in 1950 for propaganda purposes. Contrary to widespread conceptions, evangelical broadcasters did not function as backward-looking reactionaries, but acted as dynamic technological users, selectively appropriating modern technological systems to creatively proselytize their traditional message around the world. Employing a social constructivist approach, the project demonstrates how evangelical and VOA broadcasters constructed listening audiences in the 1950s through projects to build and distribute pre-tuned "Portable Missionary Receivers" in remote rural areas of developing countries. Engaging a collection of letters from listeners in broadcaster archives, the study provides insight into the how broadcasters perceived their listening public and how radio broadcasts were publicly received by an important subset of enthusiastic listener converts. "Globalizing the Gospel" shows how evangelical American broadcasters responded effectively to changing political and technological conditions in the developing world beginning in the 1970s by localizing their mission and practice. Rather than build a single global "virtual" community, evangelical world radio in the late twentieth century fostered a mosaic of communities based on overlapping religious, national, and ethnic identities. Setting missionary radio against the backdrop of the global revival of the church in Asia, Africa, and Latin America which began in the 1970s, the project demonstrates the "stamina of local culture" against the hegemony of Americanized religion and the distancing effects of global technology. This study will add significantly to existing scholarship on international broadcasting by exploring new subject matter, examining hitherto largely unused source material, and adopting a novel private/public comparative framework. Working at the intersection of religion and radio, the project will open up an under-appreciated but important source of American cultural influence abroad, American evangelical religion, tracing its effects on institutions and individuals overseas. This project will use international religious broadcasting as a case study to broaden scholarly understanding of the ways in which traditional groups accommodate modern life through the appropriation and mediation of technology.

在二战后的三十年里，美国福音派广播公司在全球占据了重要地位，在节目语言数量、传输时间和收到的信件数量上取代了商业公司并超过了国营服务。 这项 STS 论文改进补助金利用学者们未查阅过的档案，提供了这一现象以前不为人知的历史。 该项目从 1931 年在海外建立第一个新教电台开始，描绘了从 20 世纪 50 年代初到全球时代黎明期间四大福音派广播公司的崛起过程。 该论文将传教士广播与美国之音的活动进行了比较，美国之音在 1950 年出于宣传目的采用宗教广播。 与普遍的观念相反，福音派广播公司并没有充当落后的反动派，而是充当动态的技术用户，有选择地利用现代技术系统，创造性地在世界各地传播他们的传统信息。 该项目采用社会建构主义方法，展示了福音派和美国之音广播公司如何在 20 世纪 50 年代通过在发展​​中国家偏远农村地区建造和分发预先调谐的“便携式传教接收器”项目来构建听众。 该研究收集了广播公司档案中的听众信件，深入了解广播公司如何看待其听众，以及广播电台广播如何被一群重要的热情听众公开接受。 《全球化福音》展示了美国福音派广播公司如何通过本地化其使命和实践，有效应对自 20 世纪 70 年代以来发展中国家不断变化的政治和技术条件。 二十世纪后期的福音派世界广播并没有建立一个单一的全球“虚拟”社区，而是在重叠的宗教、国家和种族身份的基础上培育了一个马赛克社区。 该项目以 20 世纪 70 年代开始的亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲教会全球复兴为背景，以传教电台为背景，展示了对抗美国化宗教霸权和全球技术疏远效应的“本土文化的耐力”。 这项研究将通过探索新的主题、检查迄今为止基本上未使用的源材料以及采用新颖的私人/公共比较框架，显着增加国际广播方面的现有学术成果。 该项目致力于宗教和广播的交叉点，将开辟美国福音派宗教这一美国文化在海外影响力的重要来源，这一来源虽然未被充分重视，但却很重要，追踪其对海外机构和个人的影响。 该项目将以国际宗教广播作为案例研究，以扩大对传统群体如何通过技术的挪用和调解来适应现代生活的学术理解。