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Documentary Media and Religious Communities |
31www.jrfm.eu
2015, 1/1, 31–35
Marie-Therese Mäder
Documentary Media
and Religious Communities
aBsTraCT
The article considers four spaces where media processes involve religious communi-
ties and agents: the spaces of production, of representation, of media communica-
tion, and of distribution network and institutional framework for circulation. These
three spaces systematise the research question posed to the specific source. Further-
more the concept documentary media as viewed from a semio-pragmatic perspective
is introduced. Discussion of the commercial series I’m a Mormon shows how different
modes define documentary media according to the three spaces.
KeyWOrDs
documentary media, Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints, self-representation,
spaces of communication, religious communities
BiOGraPhy
Marie-Therese Mäder is a teaching and research associate at the Centre for religion,
economy and Politics and a member of the research group Media and religion at
the University of Zürich, switzerland. her monograph Die Reise als Suche nach Orien-
tierung, published in 2012, explores the interface between film and religion in arthouse
cinema. in 2015, she is a visiting scholar at the Comparative Media studies/Writing
department (CMs/W) at Massachusetts institute of Technology, United states. her
current research deals with audio-visual media and their interactions with the (self-)
representation strategies of religious communities in documentary media with the
Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints as a case study.
The public appearance of religious groups in the media has many different purposes,
but one thing is clear: if you want to be noticed, you need to be present. Many reli-
gious communities have active agents in media production, as producers, directors
and in front of or behind the camera. The religious institutions themselves often em-
ploy different kinds of media for diverse purposes, such as education, mission, infor-
mation, exchange or self-representation. likewise, members of religious communi-
ties use media for various reasons. for example, their consumption of the media in
their leisure time may have no obvious relation to their religious affiliation, but they
JRFM
Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 01/01
- Title
- JRFM
- Subtitle
- Journal Religion Film Media
- Volume
- 01/01
- Authors
- Christian Wessely
- Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
- Editor
- Uni-Graz
- University of Zurich
- Publisher
- Schüren Verlag GmbH
- Location
- Graz
- Date
- 2015
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Size
- 14.8 x 21.0 cm
- Pages
- 108
- Categories
- Zeitschriften JRFM