In religious education, digitization and mediatization processes result in the transformation of conventional media formats. This leads to the development of new media formats, which in turn necessitates a redefinition of the relationship between religious education and the media. Keeping this in mind, this volume first examines the importance of media for specific theological disciplines, and then discusses current media-pedagogical and media-didactic approaches. Later in the book, the authors develop didactic perspectives on various methods; these include internet-based archive work and the use of digital teaching materials. They also deal with current questions regarding religious education, such as inclusion and cyber bullying, etc. Finally, they identify some of the main didactic challenges for religious instruction in a mediatized world. This volume is a plea for a wider understanding of education, and is based in part on a German-Swedish teaching and research cooperation. Following this example, it focuses on a future-oriented networking of plural forms of education. This resource is designed for students of theology and religious sciences as well as for religious education teachers.

This edited volume discusses mediatized religion in Asia, examining the intensity and variety of constructions and processes related to digital media and religion in Asia today. Individual chapters present case studies from various regions and religious traditions in Asia, critically discussing the data collected in light of current mediatization theories. By directing the study to the geographical, cultural and religious contexts specific to Asia, it also provides new material for the theoretical discussion of the pros and cons of the concept mediatization, among other things interrogating whether this concept is useful in non-’Western’ contexts."

How does the media influence our everyday lives? In which ways do our social worlds change when they interact with media? And what are the consequences for theorizing media and communication? Starting with questions like these, Mediatized Worlds discusses the transformation of our lives by their increasing mediatization. The chapters cover topics such as rethinking mediatization, mediatized communities, the mediatization of private lives and of organizational contexts, and the future perspective for mediatization research. The empirical studies offer new access to questions of mediatization an access that grounds mediatization in life-world and social-world perspectives.

This volume explores religious discourses and practices of hospitality in the context of migration. It articulates the implied ambivalences and even contradictions as well as the potential to contribute to a more just world through social interconnection with others. The book features contributors from diverse national, denominational, cultural, and racial backgrounds. Their essays reveal a dichotomy of hospitality between guest and host, while tackling the meaning of home or the loss of it, interrogating both the peril and promise of the relationship between religion, chiefly Christianity, and hospitality, and focusing on the role of migrants' vulnerability and agency, by drawing from empirical, theological, sociological and anthropological insights emerged from postcolonial migration contexts. With contributions by Andrea Bieler, Jione Havea, Claudia Hoffmann, HyeRan Kim-Cragg, Claudia Jahnel, Isolde Karle, Buhle Mpofu, Armin Nassehi, Ilona Nord, Henrietta Nyamnjoh, Regina Polak, Ludger Pries, Thomas Reynolds, Harsha Walia, Jula Well, and Birgit Weyel. [Religion und Migration] Dieser Band beschäftigt sich mit religiösen Diskursen und religiöser Praxis, die Gastfreundschaft im Kontext von Migration thematisieren. Dabei werden sowohl Potenziale identifiziert, die in Richtung größerer Gerechtigkeit und sozialer Verbundenheit weisen, als auch Ambivalenzen und Widersprüche. Das Buch präsentiert Beiträge, die verschiedene nationale, konfessionelle, kulturelle und ethnische Kontexte reflektieren. Dabei kommen die problematischen sowie die verheißungsvollen Dimensionen der Dichotomie von Gast- und Gastgebersein in den Blick, die der Fokus auf Gastfreundschaft insbesondere im Christentum impliziert. Die Frage nach dem Zusammenhang von Verletzbarkeit und Handlungsmacht von Migrantinnen und Migranten wird aus empirischer, theologischer, soziologischer sowie anthropologischer Perspektive beleuchtet.

Game studies has been an understudied area within the emerging field of digital media and religion. Video games can reflect, reject, or reconfigure traditionally held religious ideas and often serve as sources for the production of religious practices and ideas. This collection of essays presents a broad range of influential methodological approaches that illuminate how and why video games shape the construction of religious beliefs and practices, and also situates such research within the wider discourse on how digital media intersect with the religious worlds of the 21st century. Each chapter discusses a particular method and its theoretical background, summarizes existing research, and provides a practical case study that demonstrates how the method specifically contributes to the wider study of video games and religion. Featuring contributions from leading and emerging scholars of religion and digital gaming, this book will be an invaluable resource for scholars in the areas of digital culture, new media, religious studies, and game studies across a wide range of disciplines.

Transforming Teacher Education with Mobile Technologies provides an international, comparative overview of current thinking and research in the field of mobile learning and teaching/teacher education, with case studies from Australia, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Drawing together contributions with teachers and teacher educators engaged in a European project, this book investigates practices further afield and provides insight into research and cutting-edge pedagogical practice in teaching and teacher education using mobile learning. Students use personal technologies like their mobile phones, extensively and expect to be constantly connected and engaged in a networked world. It is imperative, therefore, that teachers keep pace with this ever-shifting landscape and this is a challenge to those in the profession and more widely to teacher education which is tasked with preparing the next generation of teachers. This volume provides some answers to these challenges, linking theory to practice and developing theoretical models. The contributors also explore possible future developments in this field using an innovative methodology associated with Future Thinking Scenario Planning (Snoek, 2004).

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.

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

This volume explores the contradiction between the news coverage given to issues of religion, particularly since 2001 in relation to issues such as terrorism, politics, security and gender, and the fact of its apparent decline according to Census data. Based on media research in Australia, and offering comparisons with the UK, the author demonstrates that media discussions overlook the diversity that exists within religions, particularly the country’s main religion, Christianity, and presents religion according to specific interpretations shaped by race, class and gender, which in turn result in very limited understandings of religion itself. Drawing on understandings of the sacred as a non-negotiable value present in religious and secular form, Media Perceptions of Religious Changes in Australia calls for a broader sociological perspective on religion and will appeal to scholars of sociology and media studies with interests in religion and public life.