Overview

Religion Across Television Genres: Community, Orange Is the New Black, The Walking Dead, and Supernatural connects communication theories to the religious content of TV programs across an array of platforms and content genres, specifically the NBC comedy Community, the critically acclaimed Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, AMC’s international megahit The Walking Dead, and the CW’s long-running fan favorite Supernatural. Its contemporary relevancy makes Religion Across Television Genres ideal for use as a library resource, scholarly reference, and textbook for both undergraduate and graduate courses in mass media, religious studies, and popular culture.

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9781433152801

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Reviews

Joseph M. Valenzano III and Erika Engstrom offer us a deep dive into the way that religion is integral to the storytelling of four very different television worlds. Their rich narrative analysis of each media text offers us new insights into the role of religion in TV, a look at TV's fresh approach to some of our culture's deepest questions, and a reflection on the intersection between faith, values, politics, justice, and religious practices in our contemporary world. In the end, this book shows us that religion is far from dead in our culture but is indeed very much alive. -Meghan Henning, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton 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

Joseph M. Valenzano III and Erika Engstrom offer us a deep dive into the way that religion is integral to the storytelling of four very different television worlds. Their rich narrative analysis of each media text offers us new insights into the role of religion in TV, a look at TV's fresh approach to some of our culture's deepest questions, and a reflection on the intersection between faith, values, politics, justice, and religious practices in our contemporary world. In the end, this book shows us that religion is far from dead in our culture but is indeed very much alive. -Meghan Henning, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton 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 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

Author Information

Joseph M. Valenzano III (PhD, Georgia State University) is Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Dayton. Erika Engstrom (PhD, University of Florida) is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

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