CFP for 2012 International Media, Religion & Culture Conference

The International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, organized every two years by the International Society for Media, Religion, and Culture, invites papers for its July 8-12, 2012 conference to be held in Eskisehir, Turkey (outside of Istanbul), at Anadolu University.

 

 

Deadline for paper, panel, workshop, and roundtable proposals: January 31, 2012

In contemporary societies, electronic media such as smart mobile phones, satellite television, radio, and laptop computers have become ubiquitous. Although historians point out that world religions have always been mediated by culture in some way, people have incorporated these electronic media into everyday practices, and industries and state organizations have arisen to profit from those practices, in ways that are unprecedented. Today's media can connect people and ideas with one another, but they also foster misunderstandings and reinforce societal divisions. They may provide the means for the centralization of religious authority, or the means to undermine it. Scholars of religion, as well as scholars of media and of culture, must consider how these various societal institutions of the media interact with one another and with systems of religion, governance, and cultural practices, as our societies demand better means by which to understand emergent concerns in an increasingly interconnected, globalized context.

The contemporary location of Turkey has long been the meeting place between Eastern and Western culture, religion, trade, and communication. This conference provides a crossroads for scholars, doctoral students, media professionals, and religious leaders from a variety of religious and secular traditions to meet and exchange ideas. Interdisciplinary scholarship is welcome, as is comparative work, theoretical development, and in-depth ethnographic studies that shed light on contemporary phenomena at the intersection of media, religion, and culture.

Papers, panels, workshops, and roundtable proposals could address, but should not be limited to:

* Global and Glocal Media and Religion(s)

* Mediation and Mediatization of Religion

* Media and The Boundaries of the Religious and the Secular

* Media, Power, Religion and Democracy

* Religion and Visual Expression

* Crossroads of Old/New Media and Religion

* Religion, Gender and Media

* Dialogue/Conflict: Media and Religion

* Islam and Media/ Islamic Media

* Social Media, Religion and Cultures

More Information about the International Media, Religion, and Culture Conferences can be found here.

CFP for Australian Journal of Communication Special Issue on Media & Religion

Call for papers

SPECIAL ISSUE
Australian Journal of Communication
Issue 39(1) 2012

Media and religion: The changing landscape

From a situation just a decade ago where it was considered religion had all but disappeared, religion is back as a significant social, political and economic force. This resurgence is more than just traditional institutions flexing their muscles or rejuvenating their media practices - it reflects a significant reworking of religion within the media marketplace. New religious entrepreneurs are using new media effectively to build global audiences with packages of branded religious and secular content that ignore old religious loyalties and sensibilities and cross previously defined boundaries of sacred and secular. Online networking is making possible de-institutionalised and eclectic experimentations with religious and spiritual themes that are producing new hybridisations of religious ideas and practices. Commercial media organisations are also realising the potential market for spiritual and metaphysical themes, and are producing commercial programs and products in competition with religious bodies to capitalise on this significant market. In the process, old frames of institution-based authority and management are giving way to market-defined religion based on charisma, the attraction and maintenance of audiences, the management of brand, and offering competitive material of consumer value - ideology, images, solutions and products. This special issue will examine this convergent media-religious-cultural landscape and contributions are sought that explore aspects or present research that maps the terrain.

Final date for submission of full papers 31 OCTOBER 2011

Send abstracts, any enquiries and completed submissions to the Special Issue Editor:
Professor Peter Horsfield
School of Media and Communication
RMIT University
GPO Box 2476V
Melbourne Vic 3001 Australia
peter.horsfield@rmit.edu.au

Review of When Religion Meets New Media

Today I came across a review of my new book When Religion Meets New Media that appeared this month in Communication Research Trends, a quarterly journal focused on state of the field and review essays on research related to media, religion and culture. I was pleasantly surprised to find this summary and assessment written by Claire Badaracco of Marquette University online, and honored by her description of my book stating...


Heidi Campbell examines how religions negotiate borders and the social and cultural    processes of meaning-making using new media technology. This work has advanced the field as Campbell makes a compelling case for her argument that a robust scholarly approach within the study of media, religion, and culture is needed as it applies to media technology. The author provides the rigorous, comprehensive level of analysis grounding her discussion in the history and traditions of the community as determinative of the currency and wisdom informing new media use, and how orthodox and fundamentalist believers' "core values" (p. 88) contextualize their uses of new media.


To read the full review which provides a detailed description of the book's contents check out this link.

Fellowship opportunity in NYC on The Mediation of Meaning

CrossCurrents, an international, interdisciplinary, interreligious journal of opinion and the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life invites applications to is annual research colloquium.

It allows scholars to spend the month of July in New York working on a research or writing project of your choice with access to libraries and research facilities at Columbia University, Union, Auburn, and Jewish Theological Seminaries. They are now receiving fellowship applications. Queries are welcome at any time; the application deadline is March 1, 2010.

This summer we are encouraging, among others, projects that touch upon a broad theme:
The Mediation of Meaning.

Acknowledging the force of Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum -- the medium is the message -- we invite projects that update, challenge, or problematize his thesis. Interdiciplinary work that draws upon the sciences, religion and the arts is most welcome. We also encourage applications from people outside the academy ... artist, writers, journalists, those working within the communications industry, those who have expertise in computer mediated communications technology, gaming or virtual reality. Projects do not need to be focused on the contemporary period; applicants can suggest research that explores how cultures have been shaped by communications technologies of the past.

To that end we invite applications for a fellowship that will allow you to spend a month in a collaborative learning community, diverse in race, age, gender, religion and intellectual discipline working on a project of your design.

For more information about the colloquium and how to apply click here.

Or email: Charles Henderson, Executive Editor, CrossCurrents cph@crosscurrents.org

Providing Spiritual Relief through Solar-Powered Audio Bibles

An organization called Faith Comes By Hearing is sending a unique type of technological aid to disaster victims in Haiti in the form of solar-powered Audio Bibles known as Proclaimers that can transmit the scripture in Haitian Creole to crowds of up to 300 listeners at one time. The group also offer an MP3 Bible is a collection of compressed audio files that can be uploaded to your personal computer and Biblesticks which are digital audio players that come pre-loaded with an entire Audio New Testament. The organization's aim is to use digital audio technology to disseminate bibles into the developing world. This is a unique missionary response to the current situation in Haiti.

Day Conference on Virtualisation and Society in Edinburgh

If you find yourself in Edinburgh, Scotland next week you might be interested in a free day conference sponsored by the Church of Scotland.

The conference is on Virtualisation and Society and the aim is to reflect on how society and the Church are being impacted upon due to the rise of digital networked technologies. They have assembled an interesting panel of scholars and researchers to talk on a variety of issues related to virtuality and technology and I have been asked to speak on religion and the internet, albeit virtually via skype.

The event will be held Thursday Jan 21st and is open to the public (but you have to RSVP). For more details check this link at the CofS website.

Conference: Divining the Message, Mediating the Divine

Divining the Message, Mediating the Divine is a conference hosted by the Columbia University Religion Graduate Students Association, 1-3 April 2010 at Columbia University in New York City.

Whether sacred symbols or sanctioned authorities, intermediaries have been both conduits for and barriers to access to the divine. Mediating objects, forms, rituals, and people have long been central to religious practice and belief. They are conditions of both possibility and impossibility, at one and the same time providing glimpses of the heavens and anchoring us to the earth.

New media technologies have transformed not only how people commune with one another, but also how they communicate with the divine. With the printing press and telephone wires, and with television and the internet, we can now consider whether our message to the divine is best delivered by letter, email, voicemail, or text message. While many still attend brick and mortar churches, build a sukkah in their backyard, or chant at a Shinto shrine, the current moment of technological acceleration has changed the ways in which many people practice religion. Some study Buddhism in the virtual gaming world of Second Life, others visit a satellite campus of Saddleback Church to see Rick Warren's Sunday sermon streamed in from the other side of Orange County, and still others sit on the beach while reading the New International Version of the Bible on their Amazon Kindles. As intermediaries proliferate, and as our relationship to old mediations changes, so do the ways in which we practice religion, imagine the divine, and imagine ourselves.

The 2010 Columbia University Religion Graduate Students' Conference seeks to bring together papers from a wide range of disciplinary, theoretical, historical, and geographical perspectives that examine varying conceptions of mediation, including:

1. The media of mediation (print, TV, internet, cinema, icons, translation, etc.)
2. The institutions of mediation (Church, state, theology, tradition, economy, culture)
3. The people who mediate (the Pope, gurus, pastors, priests, seance mediums, other spiritual leaders, and the spirit possessed)
4. Temporal mediations (prophecy, mourning, melancholy, and trauma, as mediating the past, present, and future)

Click here for more info.

PhD scholarship in Popular Culture and Spiritual Development/Lifelong Learning

Clive Marsh at the University of Leicester has posted an opening for a PDA\MPhil in Popular Culture and Spiritual Development/Lifelong Learning. He is especially interested in students wishing to work in music reception with interest in Music fan sites. This looks like a great opportunity. The application deadline is 15 Feb 2010 with a projected start date of April 2010.

Virtual Center on New Media, Religion & Digital Culture

Thanks to a small grant from my university's Digital Humanities program I am in the process of starting a Virtual Center for the Study of New Media, Religion and Culture. The aim is to create an online, interactive resource center for scholars and students working in this interdisciplinary area. In an effort to best meet the needs of researchers I have developed an online survey to gather thoughts on the design and development of this center. I would be grateful if you could take a few minutes to fill this out at: Click here to take survey.

Also in case you did not know I have started a facebook group as a precursor to this center, so if you are interested you can also check this out on facebook groups under "New Media, Religion and Digital Culture"

CFP: Israeli Conference for the Study of Contemporary Spiritualities

The 1st Israeli Conference for the Study of Contemporary Spiritualities was held at the University of Haifa in March, 2009. Topics included spiritual development, contemporary Kabbala, East and West, spirituality in business, spiritual teachers, spirituality in psychotherapy, Shamanism, spirituality in the media, and more. The conference included about 70 presenters from varied fields of study, aroused wide interest, drew 350 participants, and won vast media coverage.

The abundance of varied phenomena which reflect contemporary spiritualities worldwide and especially in Israel, is highly impressive. These phenomena draw increasing academic attention by a large number of researchers from various disciplines including, Religious studies, Philosophy, Judaism, Anthropology, Psychology, Social work, Sociology, and Political sciences.
A comparative and interdisciplinary consideration of the different facets of contemporary spiritualities can contribute to the understanding of these phenomena. This is the rationale for the 2nd Israeli Conference for the Study of Contemporary Spiritualities. We invite researchers and graduate students from different disciplines to submit proposals for papers or panels. The conference will include lectures both in Hebrew and in English.

Proposals for lectures should include: Name, academic status (Graduate Student, Assistant professor, etc.), academic institution (or a different affiliation), E-mail address, abstract (350-500 words) and a list of 10 references.

Proposals for Panels should include: Name, academic affiliation, 3-4 abstracts of lectures according to the format above, panel's rationale (50-100 words) and a proposed chair

Deadline for Submissions November 20, 2009 . Responses will be sent via E-mail until January 10, 2010. Send submissions via Email to: spirituality@construct.haifa.ac.il for Pninit Russo-Netzer, Conference Coordinator. Address inquiries to this email too.

Christian Century: Navigating New Media

I just got a head's up via Stewart Hoover FB status that The Christian Century published an article last month on: Navigating the new media. The article focuses on reflecting on the impact of new media on the production and circulation of news with some notable opinions shared by Mark Silk, Martin Marty and Stephen Prothero whose book American Jesus I recently read and found very provocative. I encourage you to check it out.

Religion and New Media Google Group

I was just invited to join a Religion and New Media Google Group a few days ago. I encourage you to check it out this endeavor to create an international group for the study of religion and new media. There was a plug today on it for my blog and even a link to info on my forthcoming book, for which this blog was named, that I myself did not know about yet.

Parsis use new technology to keep religion alive

A friend sent me a link to this article how India's Parsis are turning to new media in order to keep their ancient Zoroastrian religion alive. This compliments some of the reading I have been doing the past 2 weeks about how ethnic enclaves employ media to solidify and maintain their religious identities in a diffused network society.

If you are interested in this topic I recommend also checking out:

P.H. Cheong & J.P.H. Poon (2009) Weaving Webs of Faith: Examining Internet Use and Religious Communication Among Chinese Protestant Transmigrants, Journal of International & Intercultural Communication, 2(3), pp. 189-207.

Cowan's Reflections on Sacred Space and Sacred Visiion

Douglas Cowan at University of Waterloo and author of Cyberhendge:Modern Pagans of the Internet and co-editor of Religion Online has been interviewed by Theofantastique on his forthcoming book on myths in popular science fiction. While not primarily focused on new media he offers some interesting insights on cultural constructions of space and the sacred in a media-ted world. Check out the \interview here and his thoughts on transcendence.

It is finished...

After five long years of researching, reading and writing about Judaism, Islam and Christian engagment with new media the draft of "When Religion Meets New Media" is finished. It is now in the hands of the series editors of Routledge's media, religion and culture series for review and evaluation. I probably won't hear anything definitive for a few months so for the moment I am rejoicing that it is off my desk at long last and am hoping the editors will be as excited about it as I am. I will keep you posted as the book hopefully moves forward.

Selling Religion...

...with half-naked Mormons?! Okay this post is not about new media but one of my students (Thanks Nyomi!) sent me a link today to an interesting story from Rolling Stone that I had to comment on. It is about a young Mormon entrepreneur who has just published a calendar called "Men on a Mission" featuring bear chested "open minded" former Mormon missionaries. Talk about an interesting mix of religion, media and popular culture--a calendar that both generates interest in religion and challenges it by addressing stereotypes of people of faith. Also check out what the Dallas Morning News & MSNBC had to say. The proceeds are to be fed back to various charities where the young men did their mission work. I wonder if we would ever see one featuring evangelical hunks on outreach or sassy Jewish gals on shabbat...

Media, Religion & Culture Conference start today

Greeting from Stigtuna Sweden. The Fifth International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture starts today. I am looking forward to learnign new things and meeting new colleagues from aroudn the world. I have already had several great chats with people from Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada and Britian and am looking forward to more. I will keep you posted with conference highlights.

Conferences on Fundamentalism and Media

There are 2 interesting upcoming conferences focused around the theme of Fundamentalism and Media.

Fundamentalism and the Media is sponsored by the The Center for Media, Religion, and Culture at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA will be held 10-12 October 2006. It will center on research and discussion of how best to address religious misunderstanding and conflict in the media.

And the conference Global Communication of Fundamentalist Knowledge will be held 14-16 December 2006 at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. One of the conference themes focuses on Media and fundamentalist knowledge and how people use different forms of media to serve various religious, naitional and ethinic interest.