Page - 32 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 01/01

32 | Marie-Therese Mäder www.jrfm.eu 2015, 1/1, 31–35 may watch a specific film because the narration is compatible with the norms of their community. The field of media and religious communities is broad and complex. How can we deal methodologically with such a vast array of possible questions in light of the layers of interaction between religious communities, their representation in the media and the media? how do religious communities use media and how do the me- dia represent religious communities? The diversity of cases calls for a diversity of methods. But before i am able to dis- cuss methods, i need to choose what i exactly want to examine and which questions are appropriate. This axis of analysis defines which theories and methods are suitable in light of the sources and the research question. On a systematic level, every axis of analysis is placed within at least one of four spaces in which the media are situated and which will be discussed in the following. With the definition of these four “spaces of communication”, I aim to systematise possible strategies for analysing the field. Methodologically, the concept of spaces of communication (espaces de communi- cation) draws from the work of french communication scholar roger Odin (2011). he explains that this semio-pragmatic communication model is non-communicative because the two spaces of sender and receiver are separated (“il s’agit donc d’un modèle de non-communication”).1 Despite their separation, they are connected in representation. Odin also mentions the constraints that influence these communication pro- cesses, which i divide into (1) the space of production and (4) the space of media communication which define (2) the space of representation. These three spaces de- pend heavily on (3) the space of distribution network and institutional framework for circulation, a kind of connection between sender and receiver, between the space of production and the space of media communication, with each production reaching its audience through different transmission networks, for example television or the internet. The following table summarises this discussion of the four spaces of com- munication (fig. 1). 1 Odin 2011, 19. Fig. 1: The four spaces of communication