Media and Religious Diversity

Abstract

This review addresses recent work on media practices in situations of religious diversity. I hereby distinguish three approaches in this literature: the media politics of diversity, religious diversity and the public sphere, and the diversity of religious mediations. Whereas the first focuses on the control of representations of religious diversity and difference, the second strand of research looks at the interaction of religious difference and the public circulation of discourse and images. The third approach takes built-in links between media and religious practices as a starting point to investigate the diversity of modes of interaction between religious practitioners and religious otherworlds and the consequences these modes have for sociocultural life. This article argues that a perspective mindful of the intrinsic relationships of religion and media is best positioned to do justice to the questions provoked by the intersection of media practices and religious difference.