Mediatization Cartography: Two Questions about Mediatization of Religion in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The mediatization of religion which has developed in the Central and Eastern European area is based on Scandinavian social assumptions that cannot be transferred directly to other geographical areas. Starting from this fact, in this study I focus on the question of the ontology that constitutes the mediatization of religion in Central and Eastern Europe. I call this search for the criteria of mediatization’s functioning in the studied area mediatization cartography, i.e. the process of creating assumptions in mapping the research of the phenomenon. In the course of this process, the author reflects on two components of the undertaken ontology, in the form of specifically understood secularization and democratic backsliding. As a result, I explain how to approach the mediatization of religion in the studied area of Central and Eastern European countries. In doing so, I provide solutions for the fusion of religion and state, as well as for the incomplete differentiation of media.