Book: The Rosary and the Microphone
Chapter: Preface
Blurb:
The Rosary and the Microphone explores U2 as a politically engaged band that manifests a particular brand of Christianity through the band’s mediation in a global context and for a global audience.
Through the primarily semiotic study of U2’s various mediations, this book maps the band’s strategies for negotiating its place in the world as a global band—and mediated brand—and as a proponent of a kind of cosmopolitanism, or global care. U2’s brand is heavily informed by Bono’s own personal religious formation. This religious viewpoint is expressed in a global concern—a Christian cosmopolitanism—that looks outward and draws others to do the same.
The Rosary and the Microphone explores U2 in live performance, through music video and in unique media offering, such as the feature length music video Linear.