Media, ethics and culture

This final seminar in the network series looked explicitly at normative questions in the intersection between religion, media and culture. Seminar presentations explored issues ranging from ethical dimensions to the media representation of violence through images of the face, to reflections on the Danish cartoon controversy from a Danish academic caught up in the public debate, the possibility of encouraging religious literacy through contemporary media, and the role of the academic theologian in critiquing the role of 'religion' in relation to contemporary culture.

The seminar discussion focused particularly on normative and political dimensions of the role of the academic scholar of religion, including the following points:

• There was considerable discussion of the role of the scholar of religion. One argument was that it should be conceived of in terms of carving out a second-order realm for reflecting on the social, cultural and political significance of 'religion' (although this role may be differently conceived within the disciplinary contexts of theology and religious studies). This means that the scholar needs to understand the integrity of their particular role, and foremost to maintain scholarly virtues of balance, fair-mindedness, truth to sources and critical reflection, without allowing these to be compromised by particular cultural or political objectives. A clear sense of this role is important as the meaning and place of 'religion' in contemporary culture and society becomes highly contested and academics may find themselves subject to being co-opted to support broader political programmes or agendas. Maintaining this sense of a distinctive academic role, however, can still constitute an important political intervention, as hostile reactions to academic attempts to provide critical, contextual analysis of the Danish media's representation of Muslims demonstrates. When categories of 'religion' (or particular forms of religion, such as Islam) become a means for pursuing powerful national or ethnic identity-work, then an informed academic critique of these processes is both essential and liable to receive a political back-lash. This work becomes more complicated as the public role of the academic is often dependent on media structures and processes over which academics have little control.
• Another possible role for the scholar of religion is to consider the meanings of religious literacy in contemporary society. The recognition of the religiously-pluralist nature of society, raises questions about the basis on which religions are represented through media. This issue is particularly important as media become a primary means of engagement with religion (in addition to the education system) for the increasing numbers of people who have no direct engagement with religious traditions through attachment to religious institutions or family tradition. To explore this issue means thinking both about what religious literacy might mean, in a way that avoids simplistic essentialism, and how religious literacy might be conceived of as encouraging empathy in the context of civic responsibility. At the same time, there are also critical questions about the extent to which the structures and processes of media industries can support this kind of religious literacy (see also previous seminar discussion on contemporary media and religion).
• A further role for the scholar of religion (discussed here in relation to theology) is to consider critically the normative work that particular concepts of religion do in structuring contemporary cultural practice. The specific example was given of the growing numbers of young adults in America who are disengaging from Catholicism, yet who may doubt that a viable, normative life-world might be woven out of cultural practices and resources beyond the Church because of the negative normative view that has often been cast on those practices within Catholicism. Whilst a fiction, the notion of homogenous and authentic religious traditions is perpetuated both by religious institutions and academic practices in both theology and the social sciences. By thinking more about how a tradition like Christianity is not a single, normative tradition, but an assemblage of multiple materials offering alternative cultural pathways, it may be possible break apart simplistic normative evaluations of religion and the secular, and to provide a more nuanced way of evaluating possibilities of contemporary cultural life.
• Whilst the power and role of the academic may at times feel limited given the scale of challenges involving religion and contemporary society, it is also important to remember that in many social contexts, academics retain a valuable cultural status as balanced and authoritative commentators. This becomes easier to see in cases where the integrity of academic institutions or practitioners is attacked by other political actors. Again the cultural standing of academics depends to some degree on their ability to maintain particular professional virtues, but this role remains an important critical location for encouraging greater understanding of contemporary culture and society.

The following podcasts are available from the presentations made at this seminar:

Elaine Graham, 'Religious literacy and public sector broadcasting: introducing a research agenda'

Tom Beaudoin, 'Everyday faith, in and beyond scandalized religion'

Jolyon Mitchell, 'Exploring the face of violence and peace-making'