Page - 10 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 01/01

10 | Marie-Therese Mäder and Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati www.jrfm.eu 2015, 1/1, 9–19 that includes scholars from a number of european countries, this research group is responsible for the book series Film und Theologie, published by schüren Verlag in Marburg, Germany, and focuses mainly on feature films. In recent years, greater at- tention has been given to the reception contexts for fiction films and for other genres such as television series. furthermore, as a broader discussion of the impact of audio- visual media on religion has been sought, theoretical and methodological questions have increasingly been put at the centre of this exchange. The second team is the re- search group Media and Religion, based at the Centre for religion, economy and Poli- tics at the University of Zurich. its research, which has been running since 2004, has explored religion from the perspective of communication theory, with a particular in- terest in images, feature and documentary films, music, popular culture and the body. On a theoretical level, the group explores the possibilities for the implementation of theories of communication, of image and seeing, of reception and performativity, and of space and gender within the study of religion. finally, from 2009 to 2014, scholars from the universities of Graz, Zurich, hull and Villanova as well as from the fondazione Bruno Kessler in Trento, italy, worked together intensively in an investigation of the body and clothing as media that interact with religion. The results of this network, called Commun(icat)ing Bodies, have been published in a number of books and arti- cles.5 The exchange has been continued through the formation of the International Exchange on Media and Religion. These four interdisciplinary teams, which all study the medial dimensions of religion and the religious dimensions of media, provide stimulat- ing contexts in which to engage in deep intellectual exchange on particular aspects of the field. They have organised projects by addressing specific subjects, theories or methodological questions and have shared and continue to share the results of those efforts in various formats. after several years of multi-layered cooperation, the need for a platform to display the results generated by other research projects and produced by individuals interes- ted in similar questions was apparent. JrfM is an initiative open to resear chers in any discipline that deals with the interaction of media and religion. The journal empha- sises, in particular, inter- and transdisciplinary debates on mediality and the mediatisa- tion of religion, and also the interaction of (audio-)visual and material representation with religion in both past and present. Three COMMerCials as a sTarTiNG POiNT The participants at the mentioned workshop held at the University of Zurich in No- vember 2014 were asked to present methodological reflections in relation to three commercials. The three commercials advertised Coca-Cola, Pepsi and the Catholic 5 a list of publications can be found on the network’s website, see communicating-bodies.net [accessed 21 September 2015].