RELIGIOUS TELEVISION AND THE CREATION OF MEANING: A STUDY OF EVANGELICAL PROGRAMMING Janice Anne Peck B.A., University of Utah, 1979 MA,University of Washington, 1983 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of Communication @ Janice Anne Peck SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY April 1988 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. APPROVAL Name: Janice Peck Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (Communication) Title of Thesis: Religious Television and the Creation of Meaning: A Study of Evangelical Programming Examining Committee Chairperson: Dr. Robert Anterson, Associate Professor \ Assistant Professor Senior Supervisor Dr. William hiss Professor - Dr. Roger Sirnpson Associate Professor Department of Communications University of Washington Dr. Jerald Zaslove Associate Professor Department of English Simon Fraser University External Examiner - - Dr. Charles Anderson Associate Professor and Head, Department of Religious Studies University of British Columbia External Examiner Date approved: f?jIhr(d.7 PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENSE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis or dissertation (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. - Title of Thesis/Dissertation: Religious Television and the Creation of Meaning: A Study of Evangelical Programming Author: - fly - - ~ flgnature Janice Peck name April 29, 1988 date Janice Anne Peck Religious Television and the Creation of Meaning: A Studv of Evangelical Pronramminq Professor Martin Laba. Senior Su~ervisor The dissertation is an interpretive study of evangelical television programming in the U.S., and of the orthodox Protestant belief system that informs it It outlines and interprets the "structure of appeal" of that belief system and of its specific manifestation in two programs: "Jimmy Swaggart" (a Sunday revival) and the "700 Club" (a weekday talk showhews magazine). I define appeal as an interdependent relationship between the production of specific meanings and the consumption of those meanings by .- - - particular audiences. - - --- -- / --/ The study treats evangelical television as persuasive communication and takes an interpretive approach which treats both the programs and the evangelical belief system as "texts." The theoretical foundation draws on cultural anthropology, rhetorical criticism, and media analysis. It describes the recent history of conservative Evangelicalism, analyzes the contemporary conservative Christian movement as a symbolic struggle over public definitions, and outlines general characteristics of evangelical television (economic structure, programming strategies, variations in format and content, audiences). The heart of the study is a detailed formal and substantial analysis of "Jimmy Swaggart" and the "700 Club." I employ analytical categories and methodologies from media analysis and rhetorical criticism to contrast these shows as representations of the two poles of conservative Evangelicalism. "Jimmy Swaggart" is the traditional, separatist, ascetic, charismatic pole; the "700 Club" is the contemporary, assimilative, materialist, technical pole. The program analysis fleshes out this theme of "outsiders" and "insiders," comparing the personas of Swaggart and Pat Robertson, the programs' main iii themes, the audiences, and formal elements including performance style, use of voice, modes of address, setting, ritual components. rhetorical strategies, and use of televisual framing techniques. The study concludes that the programs' "structure of appeal" is a synthesis of speaker's motives and listeners' patterns of experience, of form and substance, of production and consumption, and of ethos and world view. I argue that the persuasiveness of these two versions of evangelical belief is related to their different responses to the larger, dominant "narrative" offered by modern, secular consumer society. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to my committee members for their collective support and interest and for their individual contributions. Bill Leiss asked difficult questions in the beginning of this project that helped me think more deeply and critically about the nature of persuasion. He also gave me valuable specific ideas about the relationship between the palatable form of the "700 Club" and the "raw" appeal of Jimmy Swaggart. Roger Simpson has been both a dedicated reader and an equally dedicated friend during this study; his generosity and encouragement have buoyed my spirits throughout my career as a graduate student My ongoing collaboration with Martin Laba helped get this project off the ground and made its completion a possibility. His enthusiasm for the subject was contagious and helped sustain my belief that it was a meaningful endeavor. I'm also grateful for his early suggestion to pay attention to the "700 Club;" that conversation led me to a key thesis about the contrasts in evangelical TV programs. Other faculty and fellow students in the Communications Department contributed to this work by creating a stimulating and supportive environment in which to ask questions and seek answers. I thank all of them for that experience; every student should have it so good. - A handful of people have been especially important, not only to the specific work of this study, but C to my own process of struggle and growth in which this project took form. I would like to thank: Norbert Ruebsaat, who opened my eyes to the relationship between writing and truth; Hildi Westerkamp, who opened my ears to the world and to myself; Lynda Drury, who taught me the value of struggling to find the connection between heart and mind; Dotty Armstrong, who has helped me recognize my own sources of courage; and Patty Somlo, who has never given up on me or on herself. I also thank Richard Pinet and Alison Hearn for their ideas, encouragement and friendship, Lynne Hissey for her unfailing personal and technical support, Richard Smith for generously rescuing me from technological dilemmas, and Susan Sullivan for sharing her experience of and insights into evangelical Christianity. Finally, I am grateful to Bill Riordan for the many conversations that helped shape this specific project, for his company in my larger "project" in life, and for his recognition and affirmation of my quest to find the connection between being and meaning. TABLE OF CONTENTS Approval .......................................................................................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................................. iii -, Janice Anne Peck .............................................................................................................................................. iii Aeligious Television and the Creation of Meaning: A Study of Evangelical Programming ............. iii Professor Martin Laba, Senior Supervisor ................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements .........................................................................................................................................................v FORWARD .................................................................................................................................................................... x I . Televangelism and the Creation of Meaning ............................................................................................... 1 n . THE PROBLEMS OF MEANING. PERSUASION AND CONSUMPTION ................................... 15 Religion as a Symbolic System: The Problem of Meaning ..................................................................... 15 Religious Communication as Rhetorical Form: The Problem of Persuasion ....................................... 24 Production and Consumption of Religious Programs: The Problem of Conversion .......................... 31 111. A HISTORY OF EVANGELICALISM'S SACRED CANOPY ............................................................ 41 Revivalism as Ritual ......................................................................................................................................... 44 . The Transition from Progress to Apocalypse .............................................................................................. 46 C The Fundamental Split in Protestantism ..................................................................................................... 50 The Crisis of Modernism and Development of a Parallel World View ................................................. 53 Evangelicalism and the Crisis of Meaning ................................................................................................... 56 IV . THE STRUGGLE OVER SYMBOLIC PRODUCTION .......................................................................