Benedict in Berlin

the mediatization of religion

Hubert Knoblauch

pp. 143-158

in: Andreas Hepp, Friedrich Krotz (eds), Mediatized worlds, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Abstract

For a long time, it has been known that, when studying religion, one must consider the role of the media. In fact, one could argue that the science of religion started with the insight made into the difference between orality and literacy in the 19th century. As the science of religion and its literate objects have been more congruent, it took some time for the role of the electronic mass media to be accounted for. However, within the last decade, we have witnessed a rapid increase of studies in the media. Such studies include "electronic" mass media but, recently, also consider "internet" and digital media (Hoesgard, 2005; Krüger, 2012).