Page - 46 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 01/01

46 | Mia lövheim www.jrfm.eu 2015, 1/1, 45–56 We live in a media-saturated world, and the communication of religion is no exception to this experience. Mediated images and texts have become part of the very fabric with which we construct a sense of meaning and of our place in the world. Current re- search among swedish youth1 shows that the media, primarily television, is the main arena where religion is encountered in everyday life. What this shift in places and forms of experiencing religion means for the role that religion might play in the lives of individuals as well as in society at large is one of the most demanding questions in current research in studies of religion and society. Video films produced and screened in order to present a particular product have for several decades been a common form of visual communication in contemporary society and culture. however, the use of this genre to communicate religious messag- es is still unusual enough to trigger curiosity and perhaps criticism. Does religion, with its connotations of tradition and transcendent beings and values, really go together with commercial messages and modern media technology? and what happens to the message and values of religion when it takes the form of a short, visual video-film screened in a setting outside the religious community? MeDiaTisaTiON aND reliGiON The questions raised above lie at the heart of the theory and debate about the media- tisation of religion, which during the latest decade has become a strong current in the international research field of media, religion and culture.2 A basic definition of me- diatisation is as the process by which mediation, conceived as the performance of so- cial and cultural activities through technical media, increasingly has come to saturate everyday life and thus become “part of the very fabric” of society and culture.3 i will in the following present three approaches to mediatisation and religion and reflect on how they can be used to analyse the commercial videos that are the topic of this special issue. a core question in the current debate on mediatisation and religion is whether and how mediatisation changes not only the social forms for communication about religion but also the meaning of religion in society. in this article, i will address this question via the topic of gender. Previous studies of religion in film and television have shown that gender is an important dimension for analysing how this kind of mediation might challenge traditional views of the roles of men and women within religion by introducing new topics and questions.4 Stig Hjarvard, professor at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communica- tion at the University of Copenhagen, initiated the use of mediatisation theory for 1 lövheim 2010. 2 lövheim 2014. 3 Hepp/Hjavard/Lundby 2010. 4 lövheim 2013.