The media are ubiquitous and constantly changing, causing social and cultural shifts. This book examines how processes of mediatization affect almost all areas of contemporary social and cultural life, and takes the theoretical debate on mediatization in communication studies and media sociology to a critical edge.

As Scandinavian societies experience increased ethno-religious diversity, their Christian-Lutheran heritage and strong traditions of welfare and solidarity are being challenged and contested. This book explores conflicts related to religion as they play out in public broadcasting, social media, local civic settings, and schools. It examines how the mediatization of these controversies influences people's engagement with contested issues about religion, and redraws the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion. FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS Lynn Schofield Clark, Professor of Media, Film, and Journalism at the University of Denver, Colorado, USA Marie Gillespie, Professor of Sociology at the Open University, UK Birgit Meyer, Professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands

This handbook on Mediatization of Communication uncovers the interrelation between media changes and changes in culture and society. This is essential to understand contemporary trends and transformations. "Mediatization" characterizes changes in practices, cultures and institutions in media-saturated societies, thus denoting transformations of these societies themselves. This volume offers 31 contributions by leading media and communication scholars from the humanities and social sciences, with different approaches to mediatization of communication. The chapters span from how mediatization meets climate change and contribute to globalization to questions on life and death in mediatized settings. The book deals with mass media as well as communication with networked, digital media. The topic of this volume makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of contemporary processes of social, cultural and political changes. The handbook provides the reader with the most current state of mediatization research.

This edited collection aims to examine religion across: historical media forms using a broad concept of "media" contemporary media with a focus on digital forms religious traditions disciplinary approaches The focus here is on processes of mediation rather than "media" as such. Religion is seen as intertwined in forms of mediation that possibly transform religious practices. Analytical insights from the field of media studies are brought to bear on religion in ancient media, such as ritual or early manuscript culture. Insights from such analyses provide a strengthened awareness of continuities and discontinuities between the (post-) modern and earlier societies to the study of current media and religion. This book attempts to address issues of religion and media precisely through establishing a cross-disciplinary scholarly dialogue on the subject of "religion across media".

This edited collection aims to examine religion across: historical media forms using a broad concept of "media" contemporary media with a focus on digital forms religious traditions disciplinary approaches The focus here is on processes of mediation rather than "media" as such. Religion is seen as intertwined in forms of mediation that possibly transform religious practices. Analytical insights from the field of media studies are brought to bear on religion in ancient media, such as ritual or early manuscript culture. Insights from such analyses provide a strengthened awareness of continuities and discontinuities between the (post-) modern and earlier societies to the study of current media and religion. This book attempts to address issues of religion and media precisely through establishing a cross-disciplinary scholarly dialogue on the subject of "religion across media".

Recent years have seen amateur personal stories, focusing on «me, flourish on social networking sites and in digital storytelling workshops. The resulting digital stories could be called «mediatized stories. This book deals with these self-representational stories, aiming to understand the transformations in the age-old practice of storytelling that have become possible with the new, digital media. Its approach is interdisciplinary, exploring how the mediation or mediatization processes of digital storytelling can be grasped and offering a sociological perspective of media studies and a socio-cultural take of the educational sciences. Aesthetic and literary perspectives on narration as well as questioning from an informatics perspective are also included.

The growing connections between media, culture, and religion are increasingly evident in our society today but have rarely been linked theoretically until now. Beginning with the decline of religious institutions during the latter part of this century, Rethinking Media, Religion, and Culture focuses on issues such as the increasing autonomy and individualized practice of religion, the surge of media and media-based icons that are often imbued with religious qualities, and the ensuing effect on cultural practices. Editors Stewart M. Hoover and Knut Lundby examine each of these issues and the implications of major recent findings of religious, media, and cultural studies as they pertain to one another. In a primary effort, the leading class of contributors to this work effectively triangulate these three separate areas into a coherent whole. The book explores phenomena like rallies, rituals, and resistance as they are distinct expressions of religion often transmogrified into different mediated or cultural expressions. This collection should benefit the work of scholars and researchers in communication, media, cultural, and religious studies who seek a broader understanding of the two-sided relationships between religion and media, media and culture, and culture and religion.

The growing connections between media, culture, and religion are increasingly evident in our society today but have rarely been linked theoretically until now. Beginning with the decline of religious institutions during the latter part of this century, Rethinking Media, Religion, and Culture focuses on issues such as the increasing autonomy and individualized practice of religion, the surge of media and media-based icons that are often imbued with religious qualities, and the ensuing effect on cultural practices. Editors Stewart M. Hoover and Knut Lundby examine each of these issues and the implications of major recent findings of religious, media, and cultural studies as they pertain to one another. In a primary effort, the leading class of contributors to this work effectively triangulate these three separate areas into a coherent whole. The book explores phenomena like rallies, rituals, and resistance as they are distinct expressions of religion often transmogrified into different mediated or cultural expressions. This collection should benefit the work of scholars and researchers in communication, media, cultural, and religious studies who seek a broader understanding of the two-sided relationships between religion and media, media and culture, and culture and religion.