Media and Religion in Brazil: The rise of TV Record and UCKG and their attempts at globalization

• Autor(a) principal: Reis, Raul
• Data de Publicação: 2006
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Brazilian journalism research (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://bjr.sbpjor.org.br/bjr/article/view/89
• topic: Brazil; mass media; television; religion; Pentecostalism

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a neo-Pentecostal religious group originally from Brazil, has attracted a great deal of attention since it was founded by Pastor Edir Macedo in 1977. Part of that attention is due to the group’s and its leaders’non-traditional religious practices, which include syncretic versions of Christian Pentecostal, shamanistic, and Afro-Brazilian Umbandan rituals. A great deal of scrutiny, however, centers on the fact that since the UCKG purchased TV Record in the early 1990s, the group has become a major player in the very desirable and profi table Brazilian broadcasting market. This paper examines the rise of UCKG as a major media player in Brazil, and also sheds some light into the Church’s attempts at globalizing (or at least expanding) its television and radio holdings to other countries and regions.