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- Convenors:
-
Marta Kołodziejska
(University of Warsaw)
Dorota Hall (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
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- Chair:
-
Eileen Barker
(London School of Economics INFORM)
- Discussants:
-
Xenia Zeiler
(University of Helsinki)
Radosław Sierocki (University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn)
Ilona Nord (University of Wuerzburg)
Kerstin Radde-Antweiler (University of Bremen)
- Format:
- Roundtable
- Location:
- Beta room
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 5 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Vilnius
Short Abstract:
The panel will discuss the findings from a research project on minority churches and media use, in the context of the proposed concept of media settlers, which focuses on how churches position themselves against their religious and political environments through media practices and narratives.
Long Abstract:
Through media practices and media narratives churches position themselves toward political and religious environments. In times of deep mediatization, they do that with the help of digital media. The question arises, how exactly religious organizations react to the trends of deep mediatization in connection to the aforementioned processes of positioning. This question becomes particularly relevant after the COVID-19 pandemic, which served as a catalyst for digital transformation.
This panel brings together scholars of religion with expertise in various theoretical-methodological approaches to discuss the concept of media settlers which emerged from the study of how the Seventh-day Adventist Church and Christian Orthodox churches in Poland and the UK use the media. The concept encourages us to see the media work of churches as organizational sensemaking practiced by corporate actors. It goes against the assumption that churches as organizations passively react to digitalization processes. Acting as media settlers, churches use digital media in a way tailored to their needs, but which also shapes and affects them. In contrast to media pioneers, who develop digital technologies, they use existing media formats created by others to meet their own special needs. They negotiate with trends of deep mediatization by implementing specific media practices: acknowledgement, authorization, omission, replication, and mass-mediatizaton of digital media. These practices can in fact be understood as strategies, i.e. actions deployed with the aim of maintaining authority and unity within the congregations.
This panel aims to discuss the concept of media settlers from different angles, such as media studies, religious studies, and sociology of religion. It is devoted to religious organizations in digital societies, and more broadly, to theoretical and methodological problems in the study of religions in times of deep mediatization.