ABSTRACT
During the 1980s, the power of religious television became an important issue in American national politics. While the Federal Communications Commission has always encouraged religious broadcasting, changes in communications regulation, broadcast technology, and the political climate have brought the televangelists into a position of high visibility in recent years (Hadden and Swann 1981; Hoover 1988). Although easier access to electronic media has allowed religious programming of several types to be seen on television, the most visible and largest (in terms of audience) programs have been associated with evangelical Protestantism. Such programs as "The Old Time Gospel Hour," "The 700 Club," "Hour of Power," and "PTL Club" have combined an explicitly evangelical, "old-fashioned" religious message with the techniques of modem mass communication. (For a comparison of modern televangelism with the recurring historical phenomenon of urban revivalism, see Frankl 1987.)
