Page - 25 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/02

Using Media to Teach Religious Studies | 25www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/2, 17–35 genuine “spaces of perception” have their own culturally specific character- istics and specificities and must be understood as webs of interpretation and meaning of their own. the notion of media competence (3) does not mean, as it might in everyday language, the responsible use of – for the most part – new media, but aims at an understanding that religions are mediatised phenomena encoded in different media. that is, to ensure that (religious studies) media competence is acquired, religious studies teaching concepts must • reflect different dimensions of media concepts and be able to consider vari- ous media typologies.12 • examine the relationship between media and the body’s sensory system and perception apparatus.13 • recognise the links between media and both role differentiation and social structures.14 • reconstruct the media hierarchies that are favoured by the actors of a spe- cific culture at a given point in time.15 • identify those media used to create specific religious “spaces of perception”. How do these media differ from the media of everyday communication? How does this religious media hierarchy differ from that of a more general social hierarchy and which patterns of perception and perceptual habitus emerge?16 • examine the horizons of meanings that these media occupy even in their ma- terial and performative dimensions.17 Understanding these aspects is necessary if one wants to understand the “stage” upon which religious facts are performed, i.e. how they are mediatised, so that students can, after a grounded explanation, classify and in turn under- stand them critically and in culturally appropriate terms.18 furthermore, the practical implementation of these considerations in the teaching of religious studies provides the basis upon which students of religious studies can acquire the necessary competencies to be able to effectively and independently differ- entiate the media-theoretical tensions between first-order and second-order mediatisation and their respective meaning horizons. ideally, the tensions in- herent in the field are thus resolved in the concept of “competence acquisi- tion”. What that means for the teaching of religious studies, its conception, 12 Cf. Ziemann 2006, 18–21; Malik/Rüpke/Wobbe 2007, 7–9. Cf. further Münker/Roesler 2008. 13 Cf. Mohr 2005. 14 Cf. Ziemann 2006, esp. 11–14, 25–35. 15 Cf. Lotman 1990, esp. 294–296; Posner 2008, esp. 55–58. 16 Cf. Mohn 2012; Stolz 2001, esp. 80–145. 17 Cf. Krämer 2004, Mohr 2005, Prohl 2012. 18 Cf. Leach 1978, esp. 118–121.