Still in Denmark: Learning about Mediatization in terms of Media, Religion & Culture

Hi, still from Copehnagen! After a day break after AoIR I am now involved in a facinating short conference sponsored by the Nordic Research Network on the Mediatization of Religion and Culture which is a facinating group of scholars who meet as part of a research grant to explore the interconnectedness between media, religious activities and beliefs, and broader cultural dynamics. This is the last of a series of event which is looking at Researching Media and Religion: Future Directions of Mediatization Theory and Analyses.

Today I have been learning a lot about the idea of mediatization, which is a contested term but generally describes the process which begins with a change in communication media and proceeds to subordination of the power of prevailing influential institutions .

Stig Hjarvard & Knut Lunby took different theoretical approaches to look at issues of how media transforms social networks of relations and the contrast between new and old media and how they may influence such discussions. I gave a talk on the how the iPhone has been framed as the Jesus phone as an example of the complexities of the circulations of meaning in mediatization.. My colleague Eric Rothenbuhler asserted that ifmediatization is a industrialized, technologization of the basic idea of human communication, designed for different purposes, outcomes and expectations-- then we maybe should expect media to be a generator of communicative forms
And Lynn Clark spoke about the need to consider how media contribute to an ongoing tranformaion of societal institions by thinking about how issues such as our understanding of time, space anf family may shape these. more facinating discussion to follow...