Neopentecostalism, Marketing, and New Technologies of Self

Author(s):  
Virginia Garrard

Chapter 5 explores the instrumentality of South America’s megachurches, with particular emphasis on how they have translated global Pentecostal doctrines, most notably the near-magical tropes of church growth and of prosperity gospel, to address culturally specific concerns within the larger context of late modernity and neoliberalism. The churches’ tropes of evangelization, church growth, education, improved family dynamics, and other capacity-building techniques, often framed in religious language and methods, can and often do provide believers with what I call “new technologies of self” that help them cope in a secular world that they philosophically abjure. In particular, the Brazilian megadenomination Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus uses modern R&D strategies to position itself in a given spiritual marketplace, as evinced here by a case study in the church’s work among Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-493
Author(s):  
Dominika Popielec

"Social Media Muckraking" on the Example of the Documentary Film Don't Tell Anyone - Characteristics and Directions of Impact In this paper the author has analyzed the phenomenon of investigative journalism in social media on the example of Tomasz Sekielski, which was defined by the author’s term “social media muckraking”. Muckraking, which dates back to the so-called “golden age of journalism” in the United States is one of the most ennobling terms for investigative journalism. The proposed term is the result of observing the increasingly popular practice of using social media in the work of an investigative re­porter also in the context of increasing publicity of the pedophile theme among priests, which was presented in the documentary film Do Not Tell Anyone. Therefore, social media content analysis and case study were used. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the activity of Tomasz Sekielski reflects the nature of the concept of “social media muckraking” which is one of the possibilities of practicing investigative journalism in the era of new technologies.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer

This paper focuses on gendered mobilities of highly skilled researchers working abroad. It is based on an empirical qualitative study that explored the mobility aspirations of Austrian scientists who were working in the United States at the time they were interviewed. Supported by a case study, the paper demonstrates how a qualitative research strategy including graphic drawings sketched by the interviewed persons can help us gain a better understanding of the gendered importance of social relations for the future mobility aspirations of scientists working abroad.


2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.


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