"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
"In this essay I have tried to show how, by taking as point of departure an understanding of religion as a practice of mediation, Pentecostalism has increasingly ‘taken place’, so to speak, in the public sphere as a result of Ghana’s turn to democracy and the liberalization and commercializati
...
on of the media. Relatively undisturbed by the state, but all the more indebted to the emerging image-economy, Pentecostalism has spread in space, disseminating signs and adopting formats not entirely of its own making, and been taken up by popular culture. In the entanglement of religion and entertainment new horizons of social experience emerged, thriving on fantasy and vision and popularizing a certain pentecostally oriented mood. This movement of spatial extension, as I tried to show, is at times criticized from within, as pastors and believers fear to loose control. Yet, the fact that, on the level of experience, distraction and devotion are kept apart cannot be summoned in defense of an ontological difference between cinema and church, entertainment and religion. At the same time it would be too easy to simply write off the public appearance of Pentecostal-derived images as mere entertainment, as if the format of entertainment would completely absorb the religious and, in a sense, put an end to religion. The point is that in Ghana, Pentecostalism is alive and kicking exactly because it casts religion in a new (postmodern?) form, which is geared to mass spectatorship and part and parcel of Zerstreuung. Zerstreuung is meant here in the sense of ‘the dispersed, centrifugal structure of mass phenomena’ (Weber 1996: 94) which, as Benjamin showed, is condensed in the technology of film as it blows apart the prison of metropolitan space by ‘the dynamite of the tenth of a second’ and offers adventurous travelling among the ruins (1978:236), and puts together its imaged elements under new laws, which require new ways of reception that parallel the process of recording." (Conclusion)
more
"The growing connections between media, culture and religion are increasingly evident in contemporary society, but until now have rarely been theoretically linked. The contributors to this volume effectively combine these areas into a coherent whole. The issues they examine include: the decline of r
...
eligious institutions during the late twentieth century; the increasing autonomy and individualized practice of religion; and the surge of media and media-based icons that are often imbued with religious qualities, and the ensuing effect on cultural practices." (Publisher description)
more
"[...] die Religion der Massenmedien ist ein gleicherweise komplexes wie diffuses Gebilde. Sie ist Welten entfernt von den klar geordneten Vorstellungen der monotheistischen Religionen. Sie ist eine Bilderreligion, auch da, wo sie mit bloßen Worten auskommen muss. Dem Bilderreichtum der Medienrelig
...
ion entspricht die Infantilisierung im Verhalten ihrer Gläubigen, besonders wenn diese sich dem Medienspektakel hingeben. Die Religion der Massenmedien manifiestiert sich als Religion des Spiels, als Glaube an die ungebrochene Dauer des Vergnügens. Dabei nehmen einzelne Gestalten das auf sich, was doch auch zur Realität menschlichen Lebens gehört und wovor die Vergnügten zurückschrecken: Armut, Krankheit, Tod werden religiösen Heroen wie Albert Schweitzer oder der Heroin Mutter Teresa überlassen." (Buchrücken)
more