"In this essay an attempt is made to reflect upon, and to provide, a general overview of the position of the media and religion and the relationship between these two sectors in Southern Africa. Instead of covering the vast Southern African region, it will confine itself to reviewing the position an
...
d interconnection of these elements in specific countries. Before contextualising religion and the media in a given region, there is a need to construct a theoretical framework that will assist the understanding and nature of this relationship." (Abstract)
more
"This book examines the incorporation of newly accessible mass media into practices of religious mediation in a variety of settings including the Pentecostal Church and Islamic movements, as well as the use of religious forms and image in the sphere of radio and cinema." (Publisher description)
"Nuestro interés particular por analizar lo sagrado en los medios de comunicación no se refiere a encontrar "huellas" religiosas - cristianas o no - en actividades seculares mediáticas, sino a entender cómo desde los medios se construyen discursos que dan sentido a una nueva significación de sa
...
cralidad en sociedades tercermundistas como las nuestras. Esta sacralidad estaría vinculada con nuevas rutas en la búsqueda de la utopía del Absoluto, con preguntas sobre el significado de la muerte, con búsquedas de alianzas y relaciones "fuertes" interpresonales con un objectivo común que trascienda lo individual, con espacios de encuentro ritual donde las personas encuentran nuevas maneras de construir identidades." (Introducción, página 7)
more
"This study examines how a Christian-oriented Western press organization [Forum 18 News Service, Norway] covers religion-related news in the Caucasus. Coverage in 2005 overwhelmingly focused on Christianity. Although governmental sources are more likely to be cited than religiously affiliated source
...
s, comments of religiously affiliated sources receive more prominence. The analysis also examined unnamed news sources and use of key words related to terrorism and violence." (Abstract)
more
"The list of critical terms selected and explicated in this book will signal many things to readers. It will certainly indicate that the study of media and religion is broadly interdisciplinary. Before the 1980s, the field, if it even was one, was largely the domain of historians of Christianity, Ch
...
ristian communicators, and seminary professors, geared toward the improvement of church communication policy and practice, education, evangelism, and preaching. Matters have changed since then. Though religious organizations scholarship has explored the subject. Anthropology, cultural studies, media studies, visual and material culture, film studies, and religious studies are among the next generation of disciplines drawn to the study of media and religion. The new paradigm that this book articulates has described itself under a triad of terms: religion, media, and culture. What the third term means will be considered in detail in the Introduction here and in several of the Key Word essays. For the time being, it is important to say that the religion, media, and culture approach is not limited to the tendency to focus on journalism and communication policy, which is the legacy of the older practice. The aim here is not to dismiss or ignore them but to expand the remit and to change some key assumptions about what “religion” and “media” are in academic study. The difference turns on the third term, culture. The dominant approach taken here is constructivist in nature." (Preface, page xii-xiii)
more
"This article explores what the study of witchcraft in an African setting can contribute to current efforts to theorize mass mediation and the imagination it fosters. Recent ethnographies of witchcraft discourses in Africa have continued to associate them with the formation of small-scale groups, bu
...
t evidence from Malawi shows how they enable subjects to imagine sociality on an indeterminate scale. The article deploys the concept of mediation to theorize how in this imagination witches mediate sociality as the unrecognized third parties who give rise to recognized social relationships of varying scale. The ethnography of witchcraft discourses in radio broadcasting and an impoverished peri-urban area demonstrates not only their relevance to apparently disparate contexts but also their potential to exceed the impact of the mass media. The case of a violent conflict involving Pentecostal Christians, South Asian entrepreneurs, Muslims, and members of a secret society provides an example of how arguments about witchcraft had a greater impact on the popular imagination than a mass-mediated report of the same conflict. The article concludes by arguing that witchcraft discourses should be accorded weight equal to the mass media in theorizing the imagination." (Abstract)
more
"This volume breaks down disciplinary walls in numerous ways. First, it combines information about the intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, and societal levels of communication into a single resource. At the intrapersonal level, new issues are raised about communication between individuals and deity
...
: Why is religious experience difficult to explain in rational terms? Why is silence more sacred than spoken prayer in some religious communities? What is the nature of “thought communication” in religious meditation? Why is the use of profanity justified in some religious circles? How does idolatry reinforce religious customs and values? Why was chanting one of the first forms of religious communication?
Religious information is also exchanged between individuals at the level of interpersonal communication. This volume identifies rituals that have not been adequately analyzed in terms of communication aspects: Why do some sects require public confession? Why is body decoration an acceptable form of worship in some religious groups, but not in others? How does dance communicate the sacred through metaphoric movement? What are the multiple forms of communication with the dead? Why are feasts a form of religious worship in all major religions? How does the study of organizational communication apply to religion?
This volume also aids study of mediated communication to larger groups both inside and outside religious denominations. Throughout history, technology has simultaneously aided and impeded communication processes; this also applies to religious culture: How did religion change during the historical transition from orality to literacy? How did printing contribute to the diffusion of religious values in the world? Why have religious novels grown in popularity? Is television considered a religious medium? How has the Internet affected religious congregations and communities? What is religious media literacy?
These are only a few of the questions addressed by this encyclopedia. Articles also deal with (1) concepts such as information, communication, and censorship, (2) denominations which exhibit different communication practices, and (3) the various media used in religious worship. Entries were contributed by scholars from various disciplines, including religious studies, communication, anthropology, sociology, ancient studies, religion and modern culture, theology, and many others." (Introduction, page xiii-xiv)
more
"Looking at the everyday interaction of religion and media in our cultural lives, Hoover's new book is a fascinating assessment of the state of modern religion. Recent years have produced a marked turn away from institutionalized religions towards more autonomous, individual forms of the search for
...
spiritual meaning. Film, television, the music industry and the internet are central to this process, cutting through the monolithic assertions of world religions and giving access to more diverse and fragmented ideals. While the sheer volume and variety of information travelling through global media changes modes of religious thought and commitment, the human desire for spirituality also invigorates popular culture itself, recreating commodities - film blockbusters, world sport and popular music - as contexts for religious meanings. Drawing on research into household media consumption, Hoover charts the way in which media and religion intermingle and collide in the cultural experience of media audiences." (Publisher description)
more
"The news media report global conflicts related to religion. New expressions of religiosity and spirituality appear in popular media culture. The relationship between media and the sacred has become an inevitable topic. This book offers new and fresh perspectives on the media, the sacred and religio
...
n. It has a Nordic voice. This means that it focuses on empirical data collected from the Nordic countries. Most of the authors are from the Nordic region, critical views from other corners of the world are brought in as well. This book creates a platform for a genuinely multidimensional and crossdisciplinary discussion on the subject of the media, the sacred and religion in the context of (post)modern media." (Back cover)
more
"Increasingly, Pentecostal, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and indigenous movements all over the world make use of a great variety of modern mass media, both print and electronic. Through religious booklets, radio broadcasts, cassette tapes, television talk-shows, soap operas, and documentary film
...
these movements address multiple publics and offer alternative forms of belonging, often in competition with the postcolonial nation-state. How have new practices of religious mediation transformed the public sphere? How has the adoption of new media impinged on religious experiences and notions of religious authority? Has neo-liberalism engendered a blurring of the boundaries between religion and entertainment? The vivid essays in this interdisciplinary volume combine rich empirical detail with theoretical reflection, offering new perspectives on a variety of media, genres, and religions." (Publisher description)
more
"The communication dimension of Interreligious Dialogue has never been especially addressed and studied. Because of this the FABC Office of Social Communication organized the fifth Bishops' Institute for Social Communication (BISCOM V) in Bali, Indonesia from November 22 to 27, 2005 under the theme,
...
Interreligious Dialogue As Communication. The theme was approached in four steps: First, we had an overview about Interreligious Dialogue from the Vatican and FABC perspective. This was followed in a second step by Interreligious Dialogue experiences from different Asian countries. Third, was a discussion of the use of modern means of communication for Interreligious Dialogue. And the fourth was an attempt to understand social communication in different Asian religions. The understanding of social communication follows the approach of Vatican II's Inter Mirifica, where this expression is proposed since the concern of the Church goes beyond mass media, audiovisual means, media of diffusion or other similar expressions. This understanding pertains to the communication of and in human society which includes all means and ways of communicating between people. Such an understanding is essential also for Interreligious Dialogue which very often happens between individuals and persons or smaller groups of people in many different ways - verbal and non-verbal, in action and in silence, through drama and dance." (Publisher description)
more
"Each of the eleven chapters in Quoting God pairs an academic and a journalist. First, the scholar holds forth, followed by a "View from the News Desk." Together, they represent many and diverse voices. Badaracco's book shows the relationship between media culture and spiritual culture, recognizing
...
how news and religious values influence political life, and how science, modernity, and disbelief come together to suggest social fragmentation or consolidation. Through the media, audiences learn, often with passion, what they believe, what they resist religiously, how to respect other religious ideas, and how to construct their own religious identity in a world of both mediated and actual communities. The book's conceptual and theoretical frame addresses emerging religions as well as traditional faiths. The first four chapters focus on the legal and constitutional frames informing national identity and the ideological climates of newsrooms where journalists "construct the mediated religious public square" (Page 14). The next four chapters discuss cross-cultural reporting in which a reporter navigates between two (or more) cultures in the required roles of being fair and balanced. The next three chapters explore faith and reason, science and religion, and the complexity of religious issues. The volume concludes with Gustav Niebuhr, formerly with the New York Times and now a member of the academy at Syracuse University, summing up the care and commitment of the journalist who covers religion in American life." (https://www.h-net.org/reviews)
more
"Interreligious dialogue schemes based upon different faith traditions exist; however, to chose one scheme over another can generate religious tensions, possible accusations of bias and even event-cumreligion snubbing. One way of circumventing this potential problem is to adopt a generic, non-sectar
...
ian model based upon human communication science. The critical literature was reviewed and Taylor et al. 's (1977) classic transactional communication model (TCM) was explicated. This eight-element model comprising of (1) Source, (2) Stimulus, (3) Receiver, (4) Sensory Receptors, (5) Interpretation/Response, (6) Noise, (7) Feedback and (8) Situation/Context was applied to a hypothetical bi-lateral dialogue to demonstrate its methodological viability. This scientific (re)conceptualisation of dialoguing redefined its constitutive elements, provided new insights into the theoretical foundations of the enterprise, and highlighted important praxis requirements for the design, organisation and running of future events." (Abstract)
more