Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook - Volume 6, Issue 1, 2008

The article presents a theoretical framework for the understanding of how media work as agents of religious change. At the centre of this theory is the concept of mediatization. Through the process of mediatization, religion is increasingly being subsumed under the logic of the media. As conduits of communication, the media have become the primary source of religious ideas, in particular in the form of banal religion. As a language the media mould religious imagination in accordance with the genres of popular culture, and as cultural environments the media have taken over many of the social functions of the institutionalized religions, providing both moral and spiritual guidance and a sense of community. Finally, the results of a national survey in Denmark are presented in order to substantiate the theoretical arguments and illustrate how the mediatization of religion has made popular media texts important sources of spiritual interest.

Theorists have long argued that the world is becoming more secular as modernitys celebration of scientific and technological progress displaces religious systems from the centre of institutional and imaginative life. This assumption is increasingly untenable. All the worlds major religions see their support increasing. This continued vitality is due, in part, to the contradictory nature of modernitys pursuit of progress. The global reach of the risks attached to nuclear weapons and global warming have helped revive notions of fate. The communications networks that underwrite global capital also provide the organizational resources for new forms of fundamentalism. Advertisings incessant promotion of consumerism depends on belief in the transformative power of magic. Taking these three core cultural themes of fate, magic and purity as a focus, this article explores the forms that re-enchantment has taken within the popular media.

The article discusses films with fantastic elements using evolutionary psychology. The fascination with the fantastic on film is a by-product of different evolutionary mental adaptations, like the interest in causality with the purpose of control, that create interest in fantastic violation of naturalist expectations; the horror fear of being preyed upon by powerful agents (animals or other humans) and the fear of contamination from dead bodies; and the need to enforce moral supervision and submission to powerful others to enhance group cohesion, and these functions get a powerful emphasis by invention of supernatural agents. The prominence of supernaturalism in media is not necessarily linked to an increase in religious interest vis--vis science but could also be caused by a diminished heresy control allowing media to exploit a range of innate dispositions of being intrigued by different supernatural phenomena that might be called heathen because it often reuses all kinds of folk superstitions.

The book Transcendental Style in Film, written in 1972 by future film director Paul Schrader, offers perhaps the most extensive analysis of how a particular film style might have a specifically religious significance. The article provides a critical discussion of Schraders theory, with a particular focus on the films of Carl Th. Dreyer. Schraders ideas are compared to alternative explanations of the same stylistic features provided by David Bordwell and Torben Grodal. The article concludes that while Schrader identifies a number of pertinent stylistic features, the transcendental film is better understood as a subset of the art film mode. Torben Grodals description of the intertwined effect of a salient (often abstract) style and thematic content indicative of higher meaning, coupled with the contribution of a suitably disposed spectator, is, the article argues, more plausible than Schraders analysis.

Virtual reality (VR) is often described as a gateway to a religious or spiritual experience but why? In this article, using theories and evidence taken from the cognitive science of religion (CSOR), we hypothesize that human minds may interact with VR-hosted phenomena in a manner highly similar to that in which they interact with supernatural concepts. Specifically, we note that both VR inputs and supernatural concepts contain information that (1) contradicts the intuitive set of expectations we bring to an ontological category of phenomena (for example, natural objects, animals) and (2) allows us to draw a superabundance of inferences from our social cognitive mechanisms with minimal effort. We then summarize these points by illustrating a common VR phenomenon virtual touch wherein counterintuitive representations and strategic information coalesce to create an emotionally salient experience that is itself counterintuitive and by some accounts spiritual-like.

The presence of the supernatural is a recurrent component in contemporary television fiction series. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer (19972003), to Charmed (19982006), and Heroes (2006), audiences follow the narratives of otherwise ordinary characters that are attributed extraordinary abilities. Naturally, superheroes have been the focus of research within different fields, offering understandings within the framework of psychology and anthropology (Bettelheim 1976; Barrett 2004; Boyer 2002) or sociology, and as cultural myth (Partridge 2004 and 2005; Lawrence and Jewett 2002). The article argues that the salience of superpowers should not solely be understood through a sociological framework or as a common psychological feature in humans, but rather that both approaches are relevant when attempting to grasp the phenomenon. Thus, the article attempts to uncover questions of gratification and fascination for audiences on a mental, as well as on a societal level.

The popularity of books such as The Da Vinci Code is interesting in that it would seem to support surveys indicating at least a general level of public interest in the spiritual and the paranormal. More specifically, an analysis of the dominant ideas articulated in The Da Vinci Code suggests that it is a book reflecting key themes within western occulture which have become central to the shift from religion to spirituality in western societies: the sacralization of the self; the turn from transcendence to immanence; the emergence of the sacred feminine; the focus on nature and the premodern; and a conspiracist suspicion of the prevailing order and dominant institutions, particularly the Church.

This is a case study of the Oscars ceremony 2007, analysing how the awards show works as a mediated ritual within celebrity culture. In the analysis, I characterize the Oscars as an example of a live media event, and then I analyse how it is connected to celebrity culture and, eventually, I discuss whether it can be said to have religious affinities and perhaps even be an example of a replacement strategy for the decline in organized religion. In my analysis I combine sociological analysis of the media event genre as presented by Dayan & Katz, as well as Couldry, with cultural analysis of celebrity culture and stars as argued by Rojek, Turner, Morin and Dyer. On the basis of this analysis, I want to argue that the Academy Awards ceremony can be seen as a re-enchanted evening on several levels: as a live media event, a mediated ritual and as presenting glamorous stars as objects of identification.

Following Henry Jenkinss argument (2006) that online fan discussions contribute to collective intelligence that then feeds into the creative processes of the media industries, this article explores the ways in which online fans of the ABC television programme Lost discussed the religious and philosophical references of the programme as well as the directions the series seemed to follow as a result. By considering the ways in which both popular entertainment producers and fans of popular entertainment contribute to the emergent norms of plural religious and cultural representation in media and expectations regarding the plural religious environment more generally, this article adds to our understandings of the processes through which the mediatization of religion is occurring.

Religion in the Middle East is, in general, related to political discussions on Islams position and influence on the development of democracy. The same approach has been dominant in research into new media in the Islamic world. The argument of the article is that the mediatization of Islam with the latest development of religious popular culture supports a process, where a political and rational version of Islam is increasingly being replaced by a more individualized and consumer-based version. The article analyses two different types of popular religious programmes on religious satellite TV: the Quran recitation competition and the Quranic healing programme. By analysing the medias use of the central symbol of Islam, the Quran, it is possible to discuss the question of re-enchantment as a part of popular culture. It is, in this way, illustrated how traditional religious practices are perceived as instrumental for constructions of the Islamic self.

This article discusses the tremendous global success of Japanese anime, its uses and negotiations of Japanese religious and nationalist mythology, and the way these features are appropriated domestically and abroad. Emphasis is given to the works of Hayao Miyazaki, whose films have been categorized as de-assuring Japaneseness and as promoting an environmentalist agenda. It is discussed whether the indigenous religion, Shinto, which has historically served as a vehicle for nationalism, can be applied to progressive ends unproblematically. The article argues that while the intended meaning of Miyazakis films may be to further ecological awareness, another concern of Miyazakis, namely to promote traditional cultural values, puts his work at risk of being construed along the lines of contemporary Japanese nationalism. Finally, the broader workings behind the global success of those apparently highly culture-specific films are discussed.