Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

"... 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

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.