How evangelical ministries create social identity on college campuses: An analysis of The Salt Company

My initial interest in researching college evangelical ministries spurred from my own experience with a ministry on my campus, The Salt Company. As I dug into their media presence, I became fascinated with how The Salt Company creates and performs their social identity as a larger community. The current research over evangelical ministries on college campuses focuses primarily on students involved within the ministry, but there has been little to no research of how these evangelical ministries and their social power affect students who are not members of the ministries. I used media from The Salt Company’s website to do a rhetorical analysis of how members create and maintain their identity through Goffman’s (1959) performance theory. I then analyzed how these performances create identity for Salt members at the University of Northern Iowa. I conclude by arguing that the performance of Salt Company members is created to be in conflict with the larger campus culture, leading to the oppression of already marginalized students