Abstract
In the absence of research on religion and the Internet in Africa, this paper examines select African Pentecostal ministries that are developing websites as a major new interface for interacting with their membership, with potential converts, competing or partnering religious groups, and organs of the media and the state. It argues that this new media platform constitutes an important site for the constitution of Pentecostal leadership in the contemporary African and diasporic contexts.
Similar content being viewed by others
Further Reading
Anderson, A. 2004. An introduction to Pentecostalism: Global charismatic christianity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined communities. New York: Verso.
Asamoah-Gyadu, J. K. 2005. Anointing through the screen: Neo-Pentecostalism and televised Christianity in Ghana. Studies in World Christianity, 11(1), 9–28.
Asamoah-Gyadu, K. J. 2007. ‘“Get on the internet!” Says the LORD’: Religion, cyberspace and christianity in contemporary Africa. Studies in World Christianity, 13(3), 225–242.
Beckerlegge, G. 2001. Computer-mediated religion: Religion on the internet at the turn of the twenty-first century. In G. Beckerlegge (Ed.), From sacred text to internet. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Brasher, B. E. 2004. Give me that online religion. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Bunt, G. R. 2009. iMuslims: Rewiring the house of Islam. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Campbell, H. 2005. Exploring religious community online: We are one in the network. Berlin: Peter Lang.
Corten, A., & Marshall-Fratani, R. (Eds.). 2001. Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Dawson, L. L., & Cowan, D. E. 2004a. Introduction. In L. L. Dawson & D. E. Cowan (Eds.), Religion online: Finding faith on the Internet. New York: Routledge.
Dawson, L. L., & Cowan D. E. (Eds.). 2004b. Religion online: Finding faith on the Internet. New York: Routledge.
de Bruijn, M., Nyamnjoh, F., & Brinkman, I. (Eds.). 2009. Mobile phones: The new talking drums of everyday Africa. Leiden: Langaa and African Studies Centre.
Eickelman, D. F., & Anderson, J. W. (Eds.). 2003. New media in the Muslim world: The emerging public sphere. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
el-Nawawy, M., & Khamis, S. (Eds.). 2009. Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic discourses in cyberspace. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gifford, P. 2004. Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a globalising African economy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Gunner, L. 2005. Introduction: African imaginaries and transnational spaces. African Studies, 64(1), 1–7.
Hackett, R. I. J. 1998. Charismatic/Pentecostal appropriation of media technologies in Nigeria and Ghana. Journal of Religion in Africa, 26(4), 1–19.
Hackett, R. I. J. 2006. Religion and the internet. Diogenes, 211, 67–74.
Hackett, R. I. J. 2010. Devil Bustin’ satellites: How media liberalization in Africa generates religious intolerance and conflict. In J. H. Smith & R. I. J. Hackett (Eds.), The religious dimensions of conflict and peace in a neoliberal Africa. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Hadden, J. K., & Cowan, D. E. (Eds.). 2000. Religion on the internet: Research prospects and promises. Greenwich: JAI.
Højsgaard, M. T., & Warburg, M. (Eds.). 2005. Religion and cyberspace. New York: Routledge.
Hoover, S. M. 1988. Mass media religion: The social sources of the mass media church. Newbury Park: Sage.
Ihejirika, W. C. 2006. From catholicism to Pentecostalism: Role of Nigerian televangelists in religious conversion. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press.
Kalu, O. 2008. African Pentecostalism: An introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Karaflogka, A. 2006. E-Religion: A critical appraisal of religious discourse on the World Wide Web. London: Equinox.
Lawther, S. 2009. What is ‘on’: An exploration of iconographical representation of traditional religious organizations on the homepages of their websites. In C. Deacy & E. Arweck (Eds.), Exploring religion and the sacred in a media age. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Lyons, A. P., & Lyons, H. D. 1987. Magical medicine on television: Benin City, Nigeria. Journal of Ritual Studies, 1(2), 103–136.
Marshall-Fratani, R. 2001. The global and the local in Nigerian Pentecostalism. In A. Corten & R. Marshall Fratani (Eds.), Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in frica and Latin America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Marshall Fratani, R. 1998. Mediating the global and local in Nigerian Pentecostalism. Journal of Relgion in Africa, 28(3), 278–315.
Martin-Barbero, J. 1997. Mass media as a site of resacralization of contemporary cultures. In S. M. Hoover & K. Lundby (Eds.), Rethinking media, religion, and culture. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Maxwell, D. 2006. African gifts of the spirit pentecostalism and the rise of a Zimbabwean transnational religious movement. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Meyer, B. 2004a. Christianity in Africa: From African independent to Pentecostal-Charismatic churches. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, 447–474.
Meyer, B. 2004b. “Praise the Lord”: Popular cinema and Pentecostalite style in Ghana’s new public sphere. American Ethnologist, 31(1), 92–110.
Meyer, B. 2006. Impossible representations: Pentecostalism, vision, and video technology in Ghana. In B. Meyer & A. Moors (Eds.), Religion, media, and the public sphere. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ojo, M. A. 2006. The end-time army: Charismatic movements in modern nigeria. Trenton: Africa World Press.
Schulz, D. 2006. Promises of (im)mediate salvation: Islam, broadcast media, and the remaking of religious experience in Mali. American Ethnologist, 33(2), 210–229.
Slevin, J. 2000. The internet and society. Oxford: Polity.
Stolow, J. 2005. Religion and/as media. Theory, Culture & Society, 22(4), 119–145.
Ukah, A. F.-K. 2003a. Advertising God: Nigerian Christian video-films and the power of consumer culture. Journal of Religion in Africa, 33(2), 203–231.
Ukah, A. F.-K. 2003b. Mediating armageddon: Popular Christian video-films as source of conflict in Nigeria. In J. Smith and R. I. J. Hackett (Eds.), The religious dimensions of conflict in a Neoliberal Africa. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Ukah, A. 2008a. Seeing is more than believing: Posters and proselytization in Nigeria. In R. I. J. Hackett (Ed.), Proselytization revisited: Rights talk, free markets, and culture wars. London: Equinox.
Ukah, A. F.-K. 2008b. A new paradigm of pentecostal power: A study of the Redeemed Christian church of God in Nigeria. Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc.
van Binsbergen, W. 2004. Can ICT belong in Africa, or is ICT owned by the North Atlantic Region? In W. van Binsbergen & R. A. van Dijk (Eds.), Situating globality: African agency in the appropriation of global culture. Leiden: Brill.
van Dijk, R. 2004. “Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia”: Pentecostal Pan-Africanism and Ghanaian identities in the transnational domain. In W. van Binsbergen & R. van Dijk (Eds.), Situating globality: African agency in the appropriation of global culture. Leiden: Brill.
Westerlund, D. (Ed.). 2009. Global Pentecostalism: Encounters with Other Religious Traditions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Witte, M. de 2003. Altar Media’s Living Word: Televised Charismatic Christianity in Ghana. Journal of Religion in Africa, 33(2), 171–202.
Witte, M. de 2005. The Holy Spirit on Air in Ghana. Media Development, 42(2), 22–26.
Witte, M. de 2005. The spectacular and the spirits: Charismatics and Neo-Traditionalists on Ghanaian television. Material Religion, 1(3), 314–335.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hackett, R.I.J. The New Virtual (Inter)Face of African Pentecostalism. Soc 46, 496–503 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-009-9254-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-009-9254-1