Conservative Christianity and the Creation of Alternative News: An Analysis of Focus on the Family's Multimedia Empire

In this article, I explore how, from 1977 through 2009, the conservative Christian media empire, Focus on the Family, acted as a model for and a creator of alternative news long before the 2016 election. In particular, since 1977, Focus linked proper Christianity with recognition of a world of hazar...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ridgely, Susan B. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Cambridge University Press [2020]
In: Religion and American culture
Year: 2020, Volume: 30, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-25
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Focus on the family / Conservatism / Canards / Conspiracy theory
IxTheo Classification:CG Christianity and Politics
CH Christianity and Society
KBQ North America
ZC Politics in general
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:In this article, I explore how, from 1977 through 2009, the conservative Christian media empire, Focus on the Family, acted as a model for and a creator of alternative news long before the 2016 election. In particular, since 1977, Focus linked proper Christianity with recognition of a world of hazards by defining danger as those people and institutions who refused to submit to God, especially feminists, secular universities, and the welfare state. Through the creation of a closed-media network, Focus taught Christian conservatives to see the mainstream news as undermining biblical Truth by espousing stories that supported postmodern relativism over God's singular truth. Simultaneously, Focus generated its own news sources to fill the vacuum left by the mainstream with stories highlighting the political and social structures needed to support the Focus-defined traditional family. Soon, other conservative media outlets began using these frameworks to attract listeners and to add veracity to their stories. Although mainstream media portrayed Focus as passé by 2009, I argue that the model that Focus developed led seamlessly to the creation of Fox News and, later, to the formation of internet communities around outlets such as Breitbart and to the believability of Russian bots.
ISSN:1533-8568
Contains:Enthalten in: Religion and American culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/rac.2020.1