Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion, and Culture

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Columbia University Press, 2002 - Religion - 386 pages

Increasingly, the religious practices people engage in and the ways they talk about what is meaningful or sacred take place in the context of media culture--in the realm of the so-called secular.

Focusing on this intersection of the sacred and the secular, this volume gathers together the work of media experts, religious historians, sociologists of religion, and authorities on American studies and art history. Topics range from Islam on the Internet to the quasi-religious practices of Elvis fans, from the uses of popular culture by the Salvation Army in its early years to the uses of interactive media technologies at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance. The issues that the essays address include the public/private divide, the distinctions between the sacred and profane, and how to distinguish between the practices that may be termed "religious" and those that may not.

 

Contents

Mediation in Popular Religious Practice
35
The Mediation of Religion in the Public Sphere
87
Religion Made Public Through the Media
163
The Southern Baptist Controversy and the Press
188
Implicit Religion and Mediated Public Ritual
201
Ritual and the Media
219
Explicit and Public Expression in New Media Contexts
235
Specific Religions and Specific Media
291
Contributors
361
Index
367
Copyright

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