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"Loosely divided into three sections that focus on the past, the present, and the future, the papers in the proceedings of the 2005 Bibliophilia Africana conference offer a wide variety of contributions on the state of the book in Africa, and on topics such as promoting a reading culture, book and n ... more

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Mediating Religion and Film in a Post-Secular World

Stephen Hughes, Birgit Meyer (eds.)

Postscripts, volume 1, issue 2-3 (2005), pp. 149-374

"This special issue seeks to explore the common ground shared by practices of filmmaking and religious institutions located within postcolonial settings and increasingly linked in global infrastructures. The articles presented here converge in combining theoretical reflections about the interface of ... film and religion with specific examples or historical and ethnographic cases. Written by authors with backgrounds in film studies, religious studies, and anthropology, the contributions to this multidisciplinary issue are based on two common, more or less explicit, points of departure. One concerns the realization that the actual entanglement of religion and film highlights the limitations of a modernist view proclaiming the retreat of religion from the public sphere as an inevitable consequence of the processes of modernization and secularization. In our perspective, the interface of film and religion can more fruitfully be addressed from a postsecularist perspective, which seeks to overcome the unproductive, teleological, and normative understanding that religion should be confined to the private sphere. As the contributions to this issue show, in contexts as diverse as India, Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil, and postsocialist Poland, the accessibility of modern mass media in conjunction with the politics of neo-liberalism actually facilitate the proliferation of religion in the public sphere. This implies not only that religions may assume a strong public presence, but also that religion and entertainment are increasingly difficult to distinguish from each other. For example, as Maria José de Abreu shows, the Catholic Charismatic priest, pop-singer, and film actor Marcello Rossi embodies this convergence. Not only has film become a prime medium of religious expression, films also often address a religious audience which in turn is seen to authorize audiovisual representations of the transcendent or divine as truthful and authentic. Ravi Vasudevan argues here how Hindu devotional films represented their own religious spectators as a kind of selfauthenticating redefinition of the social with the divine. Whether this authorization actually occurs, as the articles by Birgit Meyer on Ghanaian pentecostally-oriented video-films and by Matthias Krings on Hausa videos in Northern Nigeria show, is a matter of an intense politics and aesthetics of persuasion that may or may not be successful. While in our era of globalizing media the condition of the possibility for religion to assume a public role appears to depend on the successful accommodation of filmic media, the incorporation of such media also threatens to transform religious practice into a form of mass entertainment. The fear of being made subject to superficial visual regimes, as the articles by Mattijs van de Port and Marleen de Witte highlight, may lead religious practitioners to be highly suspicious about the formats and styles that go along with audiovisual mass media. In addition to this postsecular stance, the articles presented in this special issue also share a commitment to moving beyond the assumption of an ontological difference between religion as a domain of the transcendent, on the one hand, and film as a domain of neutral technology, on the other. In this regard, we prefer the notion of mediation as a more open-ended, non-determinist solution for exploring the multiple relationships between religion and film. For example, once religion is understood as a practice of mediation, media appear not as alien to the realm of religion, but as an inalienable element on which any attempt to access and render present the transcendental ultimately depends. By using “mediation” we hope to shift our emphasis away from religion and film as abstract substantialized essences towards a non-dualist emphasis on the relational and contingent practices in which film and religion overlap and engage each other. Brent Plate, in his contribution to this issue, coins the term “religious cinematics” to stress explicitly this point where religion and film merge through the embodied practices of the human senses." (Guest Editors’ Preface, pages 150-151) more

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UNOWA Workshop on Reporting for Peace: Strengthening Media and Civil Society Awareness of Conflict Prevention and Peace-Building Cross-Border Issues in West Africa. 4th May 2005, Dakar, Senegal

Dakar: United Nations Office for West Africa (UNOWA) (2005), 9 pp.

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Comunicador: ¿quién es tu prójimo? Tercer congreso de comunicadores

Ana María Martínez (ed.)

Buenos Aires: Paulinas (2005), 143 pp.

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Outbreak Communication: Best Practices for Communicating with the Public During an Outbreak. Report of the Expert Consultation on Outbreak Communications Held in Singapore, 21-23 September 2004

World Health Organization (WHO) (2005), v, 59 pp.

"The report has two parts. The first, devoted to outbreak experience, describes the special case of outbreaks and the many difficult challenges they present for communicators. It also summarizes presentations during the consultation that looked at recent outbreaks in terms of what they have to say a ... more

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Why We Write: The Politics and Practice of Writing for Social Change

Jim Downs (ed.)

New York; Abingdon: Routledge (2005), 191 pp.

"This volume grew out of the Why We Write conference held at Columbia University in the spring of 2003. The conference was the second part of a series of conferences organized by graduate students in the history department that explored issues related to history, social change, and the politics of w ... more

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Construire la paix dans la région des Grands Lacs: L'engagement des medias. Actes de l'atelier inter-régional de Bagamoyo

Paris: Panos Paris (2005), 123 pp.

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International Donors Policy Forum on Media Development, 13 and 14 October 2005

London: Open Society Foundation, Network Media Program; Department for International Development (DFID) (2005), 85 pp.

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Intergovernmental Council of the International Programme for the Development of Communication (Twenty-Fourth Session) Paris, 31 March - 2 April 2004: Final Report

Paris: UNESCO, International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) (2004), 36, 4, 22 pp.

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Protecting Minority Rights and Defending Diversity in South Asia: Regional Workshop for Human Righs Organisations 4-9 October 2003

Québec; Colombo: Canadian Human Rights Foundation; International Centre for Ethnic Studies, revised ed. (2004), 167 pp.

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Assistance to Media in Tension Areas and Violent Conflict: International Seminar in Stockholm, 25-24 May 2003

Stockholm; Paris: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); UNESCO (2004), 44 pp.

"In May 2003, UNESCO and Sida jointly organized a seminar on ”Assistance to Media in Tension Areas and Violent Conflict”, bringing together a select number of NGOs, UN agencies and donors for two main purposes: first, to discuss various experiences and perspectives on assistance to media in conf ... more

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Versöhnung in Afrika und Europa: Eindrücke von einem Workshop. Bonn, 10. Februar 2004

Gerhard Pauli, Heinz Werner Wessler (eds.)

Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) (2004), 84 pp.

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Estrategia de comunicación de las organizaciones de mujeres

Ciudad de Guatemala: Centro de Reportes Informativos sobre Guatemala (CERIGUA) (2004), 42 pp.

"El estudio presenta los resultados de reuniones sostenidas con organizaciones de mujeres, con periodistas y trabajadores de varios medios de comunicación de 13 departamentos, incluida la capital, quienes expusieron sus puntos de vista sobre el problema, lo que permitió identificarlo y presentar s ... more

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Support to Media in Developing Countries: Stockholm 4-5 March 2004

Bhanu Bhatnagar

Stockholm: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) (2004), 13 pp.

"Minutes of a joint workshop of Sida (Sweden), Norad (Norway), Danida (Denmark), the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SDC (Switzerland) and UNESCO Communication Sector. Planned activities include research "on the links between poverty reduction and support to the media sector in developing count ... more

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BCC Network for HIV/AIDS: First Regional Meeting for East, Central and Southern Africa. Renewed Emphasis on Behaviour Change Communication for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care

Kampala: Family Health International (FHI) (2004), 101 pp.

"The concept of a Regional BCC Network for HIV/AIDS for East, Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) grew out of a common interest and understanding among a number of BCC practitioners dealing with HIV/AIDS in the region that something needed to be done to help address common challenges and needs, impro ... more

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Friends or Foes? Peacekeeping Forces, Humanitarian Aid and Media Development: International Media Support Conference, November 2004

Copenhagen: International Media Support (IMS) (2004), 20, 4 pp.

"The International Media Support (IMS) Conference, entitled ‘Friends or Foes? - Peacekeeping Forces, Humanitarian Aid and Media Development’ was held in Copenhagen on 26 and 27 November 2004. The theme of the Conference was the dilemma facing media development in the wake of peacekeeping and hum ... more