The 'on and off' of faith in hypermodernity: religion and the new interfaces of the sacred in the media era (original) (raw)
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Espaço e Cultura, 2018
Based on the post-1989 Cultural Geography studies and the Geographic studies of Religion, the present essay aimed to explore the relationship between religion and media in the age of 2.0, the age of social networks, and the diffusion of media. In order to achieve this goal, we tried to understand how these new social relations occur through hypermodernity, which is characterized by the culture of excess, the intensification of values, and greater diversification of production aimed at consumption. We have also discussed how the process of development and propagation of the media and cyberspace creates new strategies for the diffusion of faith. Through political, economic, and local dimensions, we were able to understand the new connections between the sacred, the faith, and the new dynamics of hypermodern society. The Roman Catholic Church in Brazil and the new spatial and territorial transformations through cyberspace and media are empirical examples of the present research.
“And the Word Became Net”: An Analysis of the “Catholic” in Socio-Digital Networks in Brazil
In societies in mediatization, the Internet becomes an ambience for experiencing and practicing faith. A neither simple, nor automatic process of “digitization of the sacred” marks the logic and dynamics that underlie these religious practices. From the Latin-American perspective on mediatization, specifically on the mediatization of religion, this paper presents the results of a research on the intersections of digital media and religion. The investigation analyzed the interactions between users and digital systems in online rituals of a Catholic website from Brazil. In a second moment, this paper presents inferences for a new research on a broader phenomenon, the circulation of the “Catholic” – i.e. symbolic constructs socially related to the Catholic Church – in socio-digital networks in Brazil. In order to examine the appropriation of the Internet by Catholic religious institutions, groups, and individuals, it analyses the interfaces, the protocols and the reconnections that are present in an official page and a nonofficial page of the Catholic Church on Facebook in Brazil. In conclusion, it is noted that the religion that is born in the online environment is lived, practiced, experienced, and reconstructed through new modalities temporalities, spatialities, materialities, discursivities, and ritualities that are marked by the logic and the dynamics of the socio-digital networks, a process defined as “mediamorphosis of faith”.
Matrizes, 2021
The increasing number of studies on media and religion has favored the emergence of different views on the phenomenon, resulting in different methodologies, theories, and concepts. This paper discusses the recurrent concepts used by researchers in this area, especially in Brazil, showing how they help us understand particular aspects of this problem, as well as its possible limitations. Through a bibliographic review, we reflect on the productivity of general concepts like the electronic church, media religiosity, mediatized religiosity to think on the transformations of contemporary religion in its interconnections with the media.
2016
Within the process of mediatization, the Catholic Church and society in general produce new modes of communication on the internet, in which there is a widespread network of relationships between symbols, beliefs, and practices linked to Catholicism, i.e., the “Catholic.” From this context, this paper analyzes the organization of the mediatic circulation of the “Catholic” in socio-digital platforms as Facebook. The theoretical reflection articulates studies on mediatization of religion, especially from the Latin-American perspective, and online communicational networks. The empirical analysis involves a multiple case study on Facebook, with focused semi-structured interviews with professionals of the Catholic communication in the Vatican and in Brazil, in three different levels: a Vatican institutionality (page Rádio Vaticano – Programa Brasileiro, the first presence of an office of the Holy See on Facebook); a socio-institutionality (page Jovens Conectados, a youth project promoted by the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil); and a peripheral minority (page Diversidade Católica, a Brazilian Catholic gay network). In conclusion, it identifies a social process of reconstruction of Catholic meanings, that emerges from a socially shared symbolic-religious know-how and power-of-doing, going beyond the action of the institutional Church or media corporations.
Religious Networks, Globalization & New Media
The purpose of this essay is to shed some light on the relationship between the media and religion. More specifically, it will focus on the way new media and religious organizations intertwine and how this has altered the structure and functions of religion in the contemporary world. Along the way, we will seek to engage with current debates on the theoretical model that we need to properly evaluate the empirical record on religion and media, with the hope that this work will serve as a basis for my future research on the topic.
Facebook as a Third Space of Digital Catholicism: The "Catholic" in Circulation and Reconstruction
The Third Spaces of Digital Religion, 2023
This chapter discusses the concept of “third spaces” of digital religion, specifically examining the Brazilian Catholic “digital thirdness.” The analysis involves multiple case studies and semi-structured interviews in the Vatican and in Brazil, from three different levels of Brazilian Catholic networked practices: a macro-institutional level (Rádio Vaticano—Programa Brasileiro, the first page of an office of the Holy See on Facebook); a socio-institutionalized level (Jovens Conectados, a page of a digital Catholic youth project); and a minority level (Diversidade Católica, a page of a Brazilian Catholic LGBT+ group). Through these processes, society mediatically reconstructs the meanings, symbols, and practices on Catholicism, giving birth to “the Catholic,” i.e. a diverse and diffuse network of relationships between socially constructed beliefs linked to the Catholic religious experience, the historical tradition of Catholicism, and/or the Catholic Church institution. In conclusion, it states that these “third spaces” of digital religion empower new voices, forces, and sources of insight and meaning on Catholicism, especially from the practices of “lay-amateurs,” understood as emergent mediatic-religious subjects. In this religious polysemy, these inter-agents construct a communicational-religious system of values and practices based on their networked actions, in an autonomous manner in relation to their religious institution.
Mediatisation of Catholicism in Croatia: A Networked Religion
This paper deals with the topic of mediatisation of religion. It is seen as a process wherein the structural logic and communicative characteristics of the media play a significant role in religious communication, thus exerting an influence on the success of the transmission of such messages and on religion as a whole. Consequently, it is argued that contemporary social transformations of religion cannot be properly analysed and understood without the acknowledgement of the increasing mediatisation of religion and its effects. Having in mind the overarch-ing importance of the Internet as a communication platform, the authors investigated whether the Internet presence of Catholicism in Croatia can be identified as a networked religion with its main components (networked communities, sto-ried identities, shifting authority, convergent practice and multisite reality). Media content analysis using a sample (N = 200) of various categories of Catholic websites and Facebook pages was employed. Even though noteworthy differences were found between the sites affiliated, semi-affiliated and non-affiliated with the Catholic Church in Croatia, as well as between such websites and Facebook pages, the findings suggest that in the case of Catholicism in Croatia, Internet religious communication bears close connections to the offline world, does not challenge formal religious authorities, nor does it lead to new interpretations of religious doctrines and texts. The authors concluded that the Internet presence of Catholicism in Croatia leads to the re-affirmation and deepening of the existing forms of religion in the new media environments.
The Regionality of Church Media as a Manifestation of Their Domestication
2013
The study deals with the effect of the technological communication revolution and cultural expansion on regional media. Media regionality and communication process are not studied traditionally from geographical point of view, but rather on holistic and culturological principles. The study pays special attention to Church media that constitute an autonomic media subsystem with a ritual communication model, compatible with Church doctrines. The Church, by means of the Pontifical Commission for Mass Media issues, stipulates Church media policy (for example the pastoral instruction Communio et progressio, included in Inter mirifica of May 23 rd , 1971); and via Church hierarchy monitors proper application of its doctrines in media communication. The regionality of Church media becomes compatible with the attributes of regional and local media only secondarily. The objective of this study is to highlight the fact that in this new media epoch, regionality takes on a new meaning, determined by new phenomena-particularly by fragmentation of mass media audience as well as global media domestication. Regionality undergoes a metagenesisfrom a perception of geographic locality and region it moves closer to the so-called cultural and holistic lines. "Local or regional" is a type of communication rather than locality (interest groups in a role of local audience).
El lugar de la mediación religiosa: una aproximación por métodos mixtos
Revista Internacional de Sociología, 2019
El artículo analiza el rol de la mediación religiosa (religious brokage) a partir de la preeminencia del capital cultural y social. Una ciudad como Barcelona deviene lugar de llegada y asentamiento de población con trayectorias y prácticas plurales. Creemos que el lugar urbano de la intermediación es un atributo cultural a la vez que social de la actividad de la mediación. Nuestros casos de estudio son tres comunidades religiosas de la ciudad: la comunidad musulmana pakistaní, la comunidad sikh y la filipina católica. A partir de una investigación basada en métodos mixtos, con entrevistas semiestructuradas, observación y análisis por redes sociales (ARS), delimitamos el lugar de la mediación y la composición de sus redes personales. Los resultados obtenidos nos llevan a considerar la sociabilidad y el sentido del lugar como atributos necesarios de la mediación religiosa.
Religion and the internet: digital religion, (hyper)mediated spaces, and materiality
Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik
This article offers theoretical reflections on the study of religion and the Internet by critically discussing the notion of “digital religion” (Campbell 2012). In particular, it stresses the importance of integrating material and spatial approaches to the study of digital religion. In doing so, it proposes the theory of “hypermediated religious spaces” to describe processes of religious mediation between online and offline environments by taking into account materiality and space. The article discusses theoretical perspectives by means of case studies: first, the importance of materiality within Internet practices is illustrated through the example of Neo-Pagan online rituals; second, the notion of space, and “third space” in particular, in relation to Internet practices is analyzed through the case of the hashtag #Nous-Sommes-Unis, circulated by French Muslims; third, the theory of hypermediated spaces is exemplified by the analysis of a live-streamed mass in the Italian city of M...