Residual and Resurgent Protestantism in the American Media (and Political) Imaginary

Abstract

This essay seeks to introduce more substantive attention to religion into the field of media studies. It argues that religion persists in culture and politics, as demonstrated by political upheavals in the North Atlantic West, and that media scholarship lacks critical theoretical and conceptual resources to address that fact. The essay calls for careful historicism and, as a heuristic, interrogates American Protestantism as a cultural, political, and media project. It references emerging scholarships to suggest ways that Protestantism is expressed as a politics in relation to the public and domestic spheres.