This study examines the process of technological change in the religious television environment. The study also focuses on managerial response to said change. Through the use of a survey instrument, a quantitative examination is given, illustrating a managerial embrace of change principles, a positive attitude toward the idea of change, and a system of change behavior that matches several previously theorized change models. Also examined is how different station funding types correspond with types and rates of technological change, with the results reflecting that more funding sources for a station generally indicate a greater likelihood of technological change.

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Capturing Believers provides a history of the reception of American conservative evangelical missionary broadcasting from its inception in 1931 through the rise of the commercial era in 1970. The dissertation narrates accounts of two major Protestant stations, HCJB and ELWA, located in Ecuador and Liberia, respectively, as well as the U.S.-based project to build a custom transistor radio for the mission field. Employing a case-study approach, the thesis demonstrates the innovativeness of religious broadcasters who formulated a range of pragmatic responses to the drastic shortage of receiving sets in the southern hemisphere, including the use of social convention and the development of pretuned receiver technology. Missionary stations imported not only radios, but a constellation of American values into host countries through their reception activities. Overall, officials employed creative methods to construct a particular type of listener experience known as radio capture, characterized by regular listening in a domestic setting. By penetrating into the home or village and exposing listeners to proprietary broadcasts on a continual, even daily, basis, missionary receiver programs legitimized American conservative evangelicalism abroad and sowed seeds for a widespread revival of Protestantism in Latin America and Africa after 1970.

臺灣目前共有七家宗教頻道，而慈濟所屬的大愛電視，自1998年成立後，透過衛星播出，遍及全球，現已成為全球華人世界第二大電視臺（僅次於大陸中央電視臺）。不過到底是宗教臺？或是公益頻道？證嚴法師言明大愛電視不是以宗教立場為出發點的電視媒體經營。因為在她的解讀中，每個人都須要有宗教的依靠；「宗」是生活的宗旨，「教」是生活的教育。慈濟號稱有五百萬以上的會員，志業範圍遍及全世界近50個國家，其組織與義工型態發展，點點滴滴都在累積社會信任的資本。 大愛電視有四套關於證嚴法師的節目，本研究以即時性最強，且兼具紀實教育功能的《人間菩提》節目收視作為研究對象；運用接收分析理論，採取質化方法研究，先抽選《人間菩提》兩集主題進行分析；接著以深度訪談方式，訪問八位觀眾。這些觀眾對慈濟事務，有高涉入和低涉入的差異；觀看節目也有高收視和低收視之不同，藉以瞭解不同背景的觀眾如何透過《人間菩提》這樣的節目，去建構日常生活中對社會真實的解讀與詮釋；並瞭解當觀看《人間菩提》節目，出現感動反應後，如何產生收視之後續行動。 本研究發現，《人間菩提》節目對觀眾而言，確實具有其宗教價值與行善助人雙重元素，但不會讓觀眾認為它是傳統印象中的宗教節目，反倒能連結至受眾個人的情感與生活體驗，帶動出一股慈善力量的動能。 / In Taiwan, there are seven local religious channels, DaAi TV is owned by the Tzuchi Foundation. DaAi TV was established in 1998. Through satellite broadcasting, it has already become the second largest television station among the global Chinese population. (next to the Central Committee Television in the mainland China). The Tzu Chi Foundation is a volunteer-based, nonprofit, spiritual and welfare organization that was founded in 1966 by Dharma Master Cheng Yen. For over 40 years, the Foundation has been contributing to improved social and community services, medical care, education, and humanism in Taiwan. Tzu Chi is an international organization with over 5 million supporters. Today, Master Cheng Yen's influence on the world is revealed through inspiring stories. There are four different programs about Master Cheng Yen on DaAi TV. The change Cheng Yen attempts to initiate in society begins with the individual. Among the four programs, the content of “Life Wisdom" is the most direct. Master Cheng Yen provides “living wisdom" daily for 12 minutes. The wisdom is a record of actual events and it is updated daily. This research adopts reception analysis, thorough interviews to understand how the audience watches this type of religious program. Further, it studies the manner in which the audience interprets the content and applies it in their daily lives, in order to construct a perspective of the real world. The present research also examines the reactions of the audience upon watching the program and the manner in which the act of watching Life Wisdom influences the larger community to work toward the betterment of society.

This thesis offers an important reconsideration of the place of the Second World War within larger narratives of religious change in the twentieth century. While many scholars have subsumed these crucial war years within accounts of inter-war change, or dismissed them as a period of mellow or austere religion, the Second World War provides a significant opportunity for an analysis of religious change that relies on a confluence of vectors. International geopolitics, political consensus, myths of national cohesion, physical constraints, technological developments and currents in ecclesiastical thought each played a role in shaping the religious culture of wartime, one that the author describes as a “spiritual consensus” that prized unity and commonality over difference. This thesis also opens up an important new front for the history of modern Christianity in Britain. The relationship between mass media, religion and national culture has been under-examined by scholars, as has the particular ways that media shapes mental environments. The relationship between the Churches and the Ministry of Information seems to have sat in a penumbra between disciplines, leaving the rich trove of documents at the National Archives about the activities of the Religions Division of the MOI relatively unexamined. This thesis discusses in detail the global and domestic role afforded to an ecumenical Christianity in MOI propaganda. It also adds to existing scholarship that has emphasised the significant place afforded to Christianity in identity construction during the war, and its importance in the articulation of the narratives through which the urgency and necessity of the conflict was understood. / This is a study of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s religious broadcasting practices during the Second World War and its aftermath. Using documentary sources from the BBC Written Archives Centre and the National Archives, this thesis argues that the wartime context allowed the articulation and development of a particular kind of “BBC Religion,” one that celebrated commonality over difference, emphasized the importance of accessibility, and focused on individual rather than communal worship. BBC Religion was an important site of national propaganda and national identity construction, and was central to the celebration of key civil religious festivals, including the National Days of Prayer. BBC Religion provided listeners with daily prayers, devotionals, talks and entertainments to offer psychological and spiritual support during a time of crisis. Religion can be an effective tool of persuasion, particularly when propaganda builds on pre-­existing beliefs and loyalties. The Ministry of Information and BBC used a generic, practical Christianity as an “ecumenical weapon” to foster unity in Britain and between Allies. This thesis argues that the medium of radio and the technological and physical constraints of war shaped the particular articulation of BBC Religion. While the BBC helped foster a “spiritual consensus” during the war, this consensus quickly degraded in the in the aftermath of the conflict. Instead, the BBC articulated principles of tolerance and liberty in a more straightforward way, celebrating the return of regional and religious diversity in radio programming. In 1948, the BBC broke with its former “ban on controversy” to allow Bertrand Russell to openly question the existence of God on the air for the first time. This study offers a revision to “caesura” and “gradual-­declinist” narratives of religious change by suggesting that religious change in the mid-­twentieth century may be more episodic in nature, and that current historiography would benefit from an approach that considers the formation, development and adaptation of multiple discursive Christianities. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This is a study of the place of religion in British public life during the Second World War. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was tasked with creating popular, upbeat entertainment that could boost the morale of the nation while reminding listeners of the reasons to stay committed to the fight. They created a “BBC Religion” during the war, one that emphasised unity by stressing commonalities between all kinds of Christians, and offered psychological and spiritual comfort to listeners in a time of crisis. The Religious Broadcasting Department created engaging content that prized accessibility and simplicity above all, commissioning beloved programmes, including C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Man Born to be King, and Lift Up Your Hearts, a precursor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. When the urgency of the conflict passed and victory became assured, this BBC Religion ceased to serve a propagandistic function. Instead, the post-­war BBC celebrated diversity and respected differences in religious belief and interpretation instead of forcing conformity.