This volume examines the turn inwards, toward matters of the self, in an era characterized by suffering, destruction and death resulting from large-scale structural problems, including global pandemics, economic inequality and climate change. As uncertainty on a large scale has begotten attempts at certainty on smaller ones, new social and cultural phenomena have emerged that can be understood and analyzed as new ways of crafting selfhood. With a particular focus on “practices of style” th...

Events in the world today appear to be increasingly uncontrollable and unknowable. Climate change, refugee crises, and global pandemics seem to demonstrate the limits of human reason, science, and technology. In light of this, the terms "tragedy" and "tragic" have come into greater use. What does the register of the tragic do? What does its deployment in the contemporary context and other times of crisis mean? In addressing such questions, this book also argues for a "tragic vision" embedd...

In modern times, death is understood to have undergone a transformation not unlike religion. Whereas in the past it was out in the open, it now resides mostly in specialized spaces of sequestration—funeral homes, hospitals and other medical facilities. A mainstay in so-called traditional societies in the form of ritual practices, death was usually messy but meaningful, with the questions of what happens to the dead or where they go lying at the heart of traditional culture and religion. In...

Bringing together empirical cultural and media studies of religion and critical social theory, Technologies of Religion: Spheres of the sacred in a post-secular modernity investigates powerful entanglement of religion and new media technologies taking place today, taking stock of the repercussions of digital technology and culture on various aspects of religious life and contemporary culture more broadly. Making the argument that religion and new media technologies come together t...

This book critically analyses the functions and interconnectedness between religion and digital media in a range of East Asian countries. It discusses both how religious organizations make use of new technologies, and also explores how new technologies are reshaping religion in novel and interesting ways. Based on extensive research, the book focuses in particular on Christianity in South Korea, Neo-Shintoism in Japan, Falun Gong in China and Islam in Southeast Asia. Offering a comparative...

From email to video and text messaging, so much of our present social life depends on media technologies. Today it is clearer than ever that these not only play an active part in our everyday lives, but constitute our increasingly global realities. Caught in the Web argues for a new approach to media theory that allows technomedia to be studied on its own terms. Engaging in sociology, social theory, philosophy, and media studies, it provides an analysis of contemporary media techn...

Web 2.0 is a highly accessible introductory text examining all the crucial discussions and issues which surround the changing nature of the World Wide Web. It not only contextualises the Web 2.0 within the history of the Web, but also goes on to explore its position within the broader dispositif of emerging media technologies.The book uncovers the connections between diverse media technologies including mobile smart phones, hand-held multimedia players, "netbooks" and elec...

Most of us recognize that organizations are everywhere. You meet them on every street corner in the form of families and shops, study in them, work for them, buy from them, pay taxes to them. But have you given much thought to where they came from, what they are today, and what they might become in the future? How and why do they have so much influence over us, and what influences them? How do they contribute to and detract from the meaningfulness of lives, and how might we improve them so...

Mediatization has emerged as a key concept to reconsider old, yet fundamental questions about the role and influence of media in culture and society. In particular the theory of mediatization has proved fruitful for the analysis of how media spread to, become intertwined with, and influence other social institutions and cultural phenomena like politics, play and religion.This book presents a major contribution to the theoretical understanding of the mediatization of culture and soc...

This Reader brings together a selection of key writings to explore the relationship between religion, media and cultures of everyday life. It provides an overview of the main debates and developments in this growing field, focusing on four major themes:Religion, spirituality and consumer cultureMedia and the transformation of religionThe sacred senses: visual, material and audio cultureReligion, and the ethics of media and cult...

How should we understand and interpret the strange but familiar thing that we call “religion”? What are the foundations of a methodical approach to this subject, and what theoretical tools are available to students who are new to this area of inquiry? A Beginner's Guide to the Study of Religion provides an accessible, wide-ranging introduction to theories and basic methodology in the field. Now in its second edition and updated throughout, this concise but comprehensive book inclu...

At a stage of major change in the world of television (the coming of digital TV, multiple channels, mobile TV on cellphones) this book seeks to take stock of the impact of the advent and presence of television on daily life over the past fifty years, or slightly longer. The author takes as her standpoint, or rather places at the centre of her analysis and considerations, the human experience and the way in which the medium of television has radically changed it. Connection; mobility; plura...