Media Religion And Conflict

International relations as a discipline has largely ignored the role of religion in shaping international events. The growth of Islamist militancy, the increasing influence of the Christian Right on US foreign policy and George Bush's war on terror changed this for good. Now more than ever we need to analyze this change and consider how religion and the way it is represented affects international politics. Lee Marsden and Heather Savigny uniquely bring together some of the leading figures in the fields of politics and media, international relations and security, and international relations and religion, including freelance journalist and newspaper columnist Nick Cohen, the international authority on politics and religion Professor Jeffrey Haynes, and Professor Justin Lewis who has a number of BBC commissions under his belt. The volume offers a series of case studies reflecting on how the media covers religion as conflict within and between states. It challenges readers to critically examine how media reportage and commentary influences perceptions and responses to religion and security.

This book examines why the religion-science skirmishes known as the Evolution Wars have persisted into the 21st century. It does so by considering the influences of mass media in relation to decision-making research and the Elaboration Likelihood Model, one of the most authoritative persuasion theories. The book’s analysis concentrates on the expression of cues, or cognitive mental shortcuts, in Darwin-sceptic and counter-creationist broadcasts. A multiyear collection of media generated by the most prominent Darwin-sceptic organizations is surveyed, along with rival publications from supporters of evolutionary theory described as the pro-evolutionists. The analysed materials include works produced by Young Earth Creationist and Intelligent Design media makers, New Atheist pacesetters, as well as both agnostic and religious supporters of evolution. These cues are shown to function as subtle but effective means of shaping public opinion, including appeals to expertise, claims that ideas are being censored, and the tactical use of statistics and technical jargon. Contending that persuasive mass media is a decisive component of science-religion controversies, this book will be of keen interest to scholars of Religion, Science and Religion interactions, as well as researchers of Media and Communication Studies more generally.

In this ground-breaking volume, the authors analyze the role of religion in conflict and conflict resolution. They do so from the perspectives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, while bringing different disciplines into play, including peace and conflict studies, religious studies, theology, and ethics. With much of current academic, political, and public attention focusing on the conflictive dimensions of religion, this book also explores the constructive resources of religion for conflict resolution and reconciliation. Analyzing the specific contributions of religious actors in this field, their potentials and possible problems connected with them, this book sheds light on the concrete contours of the oftentimes vague “religious factor” in processes of social change. Case studies in current and former settings of violent conflict such as Israel, post-genocide Rwanda, and Pakistan provide “real-life” contexts for discussion. Combining cutting-edge research with case studies and concrete implications for academics, policy makers, and practitioners, this concise and easily accessible volume helps to build bridges between these oftentimes separated spheres of engagement. The Open Access version of this book, available at: http://doi.org/10.4324/9781003002888, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Theorising Media and Conflict brings together anthropologists as well as media and communication scholars to collectively address the elusive and complex relationship between media and conflict. Through epistemological and methodological reflections and the analyses of various case studies from around the globe, this volume provides evidence for the co-constitutiveness of media and conflict and contributes to their consolidation as a distinct area of scholarship. Practitioners, policymakers, students and scholars who wish to understand the lived realities and dynamics of contemporary conflicts will find this book invaluable.

As the availability and use of media platforms continue to expand, the cultural visibility of religion is on the rise, leading to questions about religious authority: Where does it come from? How is it established? What might be changing it? The contributors to The Media and Religious Authority examine the ways in which new centers of power and influence are emerging as religions seek to “brand” themselves in the media age. Putting their in-depth, incisive studies of particular instances of media production and reception in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and North America into conversation with one another, the volume explores how evolving mediations of religion in various places affect the prospects, aspirations, and durability of religious authority across the globe. An insightful combination of theoretical groundwork and individual case studies, The Media and Religious Authority invites us to rethink the relationships among the media, religion, and culture. The contributors are Karina Kosicki Bellotti, Alexandra Boutros, Pauline Hope Cheong, Peter Horsfield, Christine Hoff Kraemer, Joonseong Lee, Alf Linderman, Bahíyyah Maroon, Montré Aza Missouri, and Emily Zeamer, with an afterword by Lynn Schofield Clark.

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 CONTRIBUTORSLynn Schofield Clark, Professor of Media, Film, and Journalism at the University of Denver, Colorado, USAMarie Gillespie, Professor of Sociology at the Open University, UKBirgit Meyer, Professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Rituals can provoke or escalate conflict, but they can also mediate it and although conflict is a normal aspect of human life, mass media technologies are changing the dynamics of conflict and shaping strategies for deploying rituals. This collection of essays emerged from a two-year project based on collaboration between the Faculty of Religious Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and the Ritual Dynamics Collaborative Research Center at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. An interdisciplinary team of twenty-four scholars locates, describes, and explores cases in which media-driven rituals or ritually saturated media instigate, disseminate, or escalate conflict. Each multi-authored chapter is built around global and local examples of ritualized, mediatized conflict. The book's central question is: "When ritual and media interact (either by the mediatizing of ritual or by the ritualizing of media), how do the patterns of conflict change?"

An interdisciplinary team of twenty-four scholars locates, describes, and explores cases in which media-driven rituals or ritually saturated media instigate, disseminate, or escalate conflict. The book's central question is: "When ritual and media interact (either by the mediatizing of ritual or by the ritualizing of media), how do the patterns of conflict change?"