Altar Media's 'Living Word': Televised Charismatic Christianity in Ghana

bibliographic database
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Periodical article

Title:	Altar Media's 'Living Word': Televised Charismatic Christianity in Ghana
Author:	Witte, Marleen de
Year:	2003
Periodical:	Journal of Religion in Africa
Volume:	33
Issue:	2
Pages:	172-202
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ghana
Subjects:	Baptist Church television Religion and Witchcraft Literature, Mass Media and the Press
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1581654
Abstract:	In many parts of Africa, charismatic Pentecostal churches are increasingly and effectively making use of mass media and entering the public sphere. This article, which is based on fieldwork carried out in Accra in 2001 and 2002/2003, presents a case study of a popular charismatic church in Ghana and its media ministry. Building on the notion of charisma as intrinsically linking religion and media, the aim is to examine the dynamics between the supposedly fluid nature of charisma and the creation of religious subjects through a fixed format. The process of making, broadcasting and watching 'Living Word' shows how the televisualization of religious practice creates charisma, informs ways of perception, and produces new kinds of religious subjectivity and spiritual experience. Through the mass mediation of religion a new religious format emerges which, although originating from the charismatic Pentecostal churches, spreads far beyond and is widely appropriated as a style of worship and of being religious. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]