Author: Brett T. Robinson

Brett T. Robinson is a Visiting Professor of Marketing at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Appletopia: Media Technology and the Religious Imagination of Steve Jobs (Baylor University Press). He has published articles in EME: Explorations in Media Ecology and Drugs and Media: New Perspectives on Communication, Consumption and Consciousness. He holds a Marketing degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Georgia.

Through the Looking Glass of an iPhone

The call of Pope Francis to take the Gospel to the streets also includes the digital ones. The first message of Pope Francis for World Communications Day is consistent with the Holy Father’s concern for reaching individuals where they are. Today that often means the virtual confines of the digital environment. The Holy Father’s message […]

The Marriage of Religion and Technology: Reading Apple’s Allegorical Advertising

Steve Jobs invited a number of lofty comparisons during his career. The New York Times likened him to Thomas Edison. Others have called him the Leonardo da Vinci of our generation. Jobs also had a lot in common with the early American philosopher-inventor, Benjamin Franklin. He inherited Franklin’s “Protestant ethic” of mixing morality and capitalism […]

The New Cathedrals: An excerpt from Appletopia

The following is an excerpt from Brett T. Robinson’s new book Appletopia: Media Technology and the Religious Imagination of Steve Jobs (Baylor University Press), available starting August 15th. In 2011 by one estimate the most photographed landmark in New York City was not Rockefeller Center or Times Square; it was the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. […]