#1 Circuit of Culture
Visible components — representation and identity
Not Visible components— production, consumption, and regulation
Hillsong Church offers an unconventional intersection within the circuit of culture because it is a religious institution, but is deeply influenced by the progressive and evolving values of popular culture.
Production has to do with the fabrication, invention, and distribution of the artifact — and in the case of Hillsong (which exemplifies the commodification of religion), Joel Houston, the son of the original founders Brian and Bobbie Houston in Sydney, Australia, brought Hillsong to North America, and distributed it through social media and an online presence. The primary mode of marketing remains through music (their worship sector and bands Hillsong UNITED and Y&F), which have amassed over a hundred million streams on Spotify, and include live performance circuits. Young & Free is distinctly demonstrative of Hillsong’s efforts to modernize their content by presenting electronic-style songs and flashy videos that could pass for Top 50 radio-play without regard to their expressly Christianized content. Hillsong’s funding primarily comes from donations and revenue (books, DVD’s, t-shirts, conferences), and amounted to over $100 million (tax-free) in 2014 according to their annual report (see below).
Consumption pertains to the actual buying, using, as well as becoming a part of the actual world of the artifact. Identity has to do with the agents involved in producing and creating the artifact, and how they became involved. The creators of Hillsong — the Houstons — as well as prominent pastors such as Carl Lentz (who heads the New York chapter) are at the top of the circuit, but it is crucial to identify the celebrity involvement from members such as Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, and the Kardashians, that impact the consumption and identity related to the church. Hillsong’s prominence grew in part of its social media dissemination by celebrity members with a high degree of cultural capital. People will attend because of what they have heard (according to Vanessa Hudgens “It feels like seeing Arcade Fire- it’s epic like that), and stay because the message impacts them so heavily. While Hillsong as a church is consumed literally in worship service in over 23 city centers, emulating a club-like atmosphere, it is also primarily experienced through music avenues like Spotify and YouTube, reaching a wider, non-denominational audience. The celebrity identity associated with Hillsong has been a notable contribution to the consumption of it as a cultural artifact.
Representation pertains to how a cultural object is given meaning and how the surrounding presumption sets the groundwork for stereotyping. Hillsong is an evangelical Christian church insinuating a very distinct meaning that stems from entrenched religious ideals around what it means to follow God’s word literally. But existing in tandem with this stereotype, Hillsong succeeds in establishing a millennial, hipster culture that appeals to a primary subset of their audience. Regulation suggests the formal and informal rules that modulate how the artifact is enforced within the capitalistic confines of neoliberalism. Hillsong is unique in that as a Christian church, it is already self-regulated by the structure of the religion and what the Bible preaches, as well as externally by the presiding cultural framework that it privileges in its delivery. Hillsong’s rules are defined by the standard of religion it attends to, and further regulated through its contemporary cultural integration. Collectively, these tenets cement Hillsong Church as patently relevant at the intersection of popular culture and religion.
Links
Photos:
Circuit of Culture diagram — https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Circuit-of-Culture_fig1_312938261
