Religion Media and the Public Sphere

<p>. . . one of those rare edited volumes that advances social thought as it provides substantive religious and media ethnography that is good to think with. --Dale Eickelman Dartmouth College<br /><br />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.</p>