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Adult Books - Nonfiction - Business
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Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch College, Inc., and Museumworld.
Twitchell, James B. (author).
Sept. 2004. 320p. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, $26 (0-7432-4346-3). 658.8.
REVIEW.
First published September 15, 2004 (Booklist).
Twitchell, professor of English at the University of Florida (Gainsville) and the author of several books on culture and advertising, shows how branding and marketing have infiltrated American culture. Churches, universities, and museums now must use the power of advertising merely to survive. A new breed of megachurches, exemplified by Willow Creek Community Church, located 30 miles northwest of Chicago, treats parishioners as consumers. The 4,540-seat auditorium resembles a Cineplex theater, with a sound system rivaling a rock concert’s venue. The sermon is Christianity Lite, and you can pick up a copy on CD on your way to the food court. Our universities and museums, too, are catering more to popular tastes to draw in the paying public. Curricula have become less diverse to appear more mainstream, it is getting easier to get into all but a handful of Ivy League schools, and museums are displaying motorcycles along with Monets. Twitchell is not overcritical of this trend, yet he makes us aware that the merchants have entered the temples and there is no turning back. — David Siegfried
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