The dog that dances with bubbles. Is this news?

 by Sylvie Shaw

Walking along the Brisbane River in the late and languid afternoon I come across a wonderful sight. A group of people are gathered in a quiet clearing, chatting. Right by them are a group of dogs, playing softly, all except one. This dog is large, black, a mix of breeds but charming. It is leaping high in the air and dancing as its owner spreads large irridescent bubbles across the darkening river valley. This dog is entranced with joy - and smiling.

Voices rise up from the river below. Another group of people are rowing in their thin long boats, and laughing.

A flock of Terresian crows flies by cawing raucously - happily?

Is this news? Is it news that people connect with the Brisbane River in a celebration of social and 'doggy' capital? Is it news that on a quiet afternoon, people are conversing and enjoying the moment by the water's edge? Why isn't this news?

This week in class we discussed the push and pull of news media and the oft-held perspective that the audience has agency and the individual has subjectivity in relation to media choices and habits. We discussed the relationship between media and society and reflected on which comes first - the media story and its ideology or the community's or society's values and ideas? Does the media report what the public want, or does the public influence the media to report on the issues it wants to be informed about? But what happens if what if the public wants is exactly what is being dished up on commercial TV news and chat shows? What's your view of this?

When I worked in the media as a producer in current affairs it never occurred to me that there was, or should be, a two way flow between the media and society. Deadlines and timeframes compel the producer to fill the program with informative and interesting material, and with people who are often described as being 'good talent'. Debates and talkback were prevalent - Israel-Palestine, gun control, drug legalisation, logging native forests, as well as issues related to abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, sexual abuse in the church, and other religiously-related or socially contentious issues.

The drama of a debate, the conflict inherent in two sides arguing, the page one newpaper article of the day, all these were grist to the mill. A story with a positve ending, or a story about something wonderful like a dog dancing with bubbles was not often on our agenda. We searched for current stories which informed, but often those issues involved a dualistic or binary framework of 'us' versus 'them'.

What's your view? 
Can radio and television news be informative and not only focus on accident, conflict and drama? Can a story be longer than just a few brief seconds? Is love a story and how would it be covered? Can news be compassionate and altruistic? And can it be responsible, ethical, moral?

Thinking about incorporating religious and spiritual values into the news broadcast might smack of preaching and proselytising. But what if the news spread a message of hope instead of a message of fear? 

Journalism and religion
In scholarly articles about the relationship between religion and journalism or religion and journalists, Doug Underwood (2002), for example, points to the gap in values between the two monolithinc institutions, as well as on a personal journalistic level, between what's reported and what's worshipped.  Underwood explores the dimsions of this gap and questions whether there is any difference between U.S. journalists' own religiosity and the way their religious views may be transmitted, consciously or unconsciously, through their reporting. This could involve - what they choose to write about, the way they write it, what language they use, what focus or stance they take.

Underwood found that journalists' religious values are intertwined with their professional values. In particular, journalists from all faiths brought the attributes of compassion and social justice from their own religious traditions into their working lives. The more religious they were, the more they wove their views into their work, whether this was conscious or not.

Another theorist also researching the nexus between religion and journalism, John Schmalzbauer (2005) maintains that traditionally, journalists would aim for objectivit or neutrality in reporting, and suppressed comments on moral judgement. But regardless of this traditional practice,  the choice of stories (what's in, what's left out), and the players within each story (who's in and who's not), represent ideologies or ideological terrains of power.

The religion reporter for the Times newspaper in the UK, Ruth Gledhill, states that religion has become a seriously-considered mainline issue since 9/11; it continues to grab the headlines. She also notes that religion's shift onto page one headlines  have also occurred due to changes in technology but she comments that this shift has created a challenge for journalists as the new technologies have also put temptation at hand. The result has been the challenge to the ethics and morals of  journalism as seen in the recent response to Britain's phone hacking scandals.

In March of this year, an international gathering of journalists took place in Italy to discuss this issue of ethics and morals in the industry. Journalists representing 23 nations raised the need for responsible journalism and discussed how to combat religion illiteracy among journalists and the public alike. The group, the International Association of Religion Journalists, called for reports on religion to be 'fair-minded', 'promote understanding and bridge the gaps causing biases and hatred among religions'. This latter view was put forward by a Pakistani journalist (Eglash 2012).

Perhaps similarly, the Media Diversity Institute in Europe has put out a short guide to reporting religion which states, in part:

• 'When writing about religion, pay close attention to the language you use to describe other people. You may not consider some words derogatory, but they may be offensive to the members of the group you are writing about. If you are not certain whether or not a word is insulting be sure to check before you use it. ...
• Be careful not simply to repeat common stereotypes about people of other religions. When it comes to religion, many self-styled ‘experts’ will say whatever they like about other spiritual traditions without feeling a need to back up their statements with facts. Because journalists often share those prejudices, they may need to remind themselves that their job is to challenge such statements, not accept them without question.'

What questions remain about news - the way it is constructed, its lack of context and fast-paced delivery, and its insistence, at least on commercial television, to be filled with the same kinds of stories each day? It seems as if only the names and places are changed but, one might argue, that the ideology and the hegemonic outcome remain the same. As a former media worker that position is way too bleak. A meeting of journalists in March this year in Italy set an optimistic tone. The meeting focused on responsible journalism. It was held, in part, to counter unethical practices such as hacking and invading people's privacy, as well as to promote an ethical relationship between the public and the corporate media world.

As an example of the possibility for change, I turn to the American journalist Amy Goodman, anchor of Democracy Now, who states that journalism is 'a sacred responsibility' (Dinovella 2008, my italics). Goodman broadcasts on community media, a medium that provides a voice for the voiceless who may not be heard on mainstream media. Described as having a 'missionary zeal' about her work as an investigative journalist (she is often referred to as a 'muckraker'), Goodman is committed to working for change, reducing suffering and encouraging an ethic of care. She says:  

'I care deeply about what I cover. And I think we have a tremendous responsibility as journalists to expose what’s going on in the world. When you see suffering, you care. We never want to take that out of our work.'

References
Dinovella, N. 2008. Amy Goodman Interview. The Progressive. feb 2008, http://www.progressive.org/mag/liz/intv0208
Eglash R. 2012. International religion reporting gets a boost. Common Ground News Service, April 10, 2012, http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=31252&lan=en&sp=0
Media Diversity Institute. MDI tips on reporting religion. http://ec.europa.eu/culture/documents/tips_reporting_religion.pdf
Schmalzbauer, J. 2005. Journalism and the religious imagination. In C.H. Badaracco, Ed., Quoting God: How media shapes ideas about religion and culture, 21-36, Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.
Underwood, D. 2002. I will show you my faith by what I do: a survey of the religious beliefs of journalists and journalists' faith put into action. From Yahweh to Yahoo! the religious roots of the secular press, 130-147, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

'You gotta have faith'

by Sylvie Shaw

When George Michael sang 'Faith', he was not expressing his religion but his desire. But can you take religion out of desire? We desire contact with what we hold to be sacred but can you get too much faith? Can religion turn into an addiction or obsession? Even a glorious obsession?

On the Hillsong TV show on Channel 10 in April, Pastor Brian Houston questioned the compulsion or obsession some people have towards their religious worship. He called this a 'glorious obsession'. To provide context for his view, Houston asked the following questions: ' What is it that gets you up in the morning? What are you passionate about? Do you live your life out of obligation and requirement? Or do you live it with a passion - where it's not a have-to, it's a want-to? Is there something that stirs you to make a difference? Have you got a glorious obsession?' (Houston 2012)

This led me to contemplate the glory in the work people do in acting for change, and to ask why is it that they want to make a difference? Houston repeats the idea that a richer [religious] life is not necessarily experienced by a requirement to fulfil one's obligations, but by one's passions and even one's 'glorious obsessions'. But I would question the distinction between obligation and passion, and ask - is there a requirement or an obligation, even a passionate obsession within religion to care for others, where others are not only other people, but also animals and the natural environment?

My observation in this Western society is that such a responsibility seems to be negotiable - that the idea of acting for the common wealth or communal good seems submerged within a material (or materialist) culture. But there are pockets and places of sacred action and passionate and communal faith in many people's responsibility for others as well as for creation care, For religionists and secularists alike, caring for the environment and for social justice becomes a passion for their lives and/or their lived religious expression. While some might argue it is a calling, or even a compulsion to act for others, it is a calling they have taken up with joy.

Such passion to action can emerge when problems or disasters occur in a community. For instance, it overflowed in the outpouring of civic action in the 'Mud Army' during Brisbane's floods in January 2011.

In the aftermath of the deluge, thousands of Brisbane residents flocked to help people clean up their homes. Religious organisations played a significant role, as right across the city and suburbs, religious leaders from all faiths dispensed solace and care, food parcels, clothes and furniture, and conducted liturgy and memorial rituals. It was 'all hands on deck' as far as the religious leaders were concerned. Some shut down their regular religious services and joined the work of the mud army.

The mud army was an inspiration. It spread like Durkheim's collective effervescence across the river valley. It was an example of people being driven by a sense of communal commitment and responsibilty. It was an act of selfless service and mindful engagement that cut across religious and cultural differences. It was an act of generosity that stirred and linked the community in one common goal.

The action of residents was, to use a more American religion theoretical perspective, an act of 'civic' or 'civil religion',  which Nancy Ammerman (2009:50) refers to 'at its most basic, ..[is]. about what it means to be a citizen'. She adds that the religious heritage of a nation, 'is part of its strength'. Non-Indigenous Australian culture was created on what has been termed 'the pioneering spirit' - could that be part of our religious heritage in more of a secular frame? Was the work of the mud army already enshrined in Australia's cultural heritage, or is that thought way too jingoistic? People helped because of their felt need to work for the common good.

Ammerman observes that 'diverse faith communities will bring people together around diverse public causes' (60). Qualities of compassion and altruism, religiously-inspired or not, were embedded in the spirit of the volunteers who turned out to clean up. While they may not have joined the mud army out of an obsession, what they did was certainly glorious.

Questions
- What limits people to act on behalf of others, and what encourages them to do so?
- Is there a religious obligation to care for others, including care for the environment and creation?
- Religion's has concisely been engaged in social justice activism; it is a major function of religion. Is it a glorious obsession? 'Is there something that stirs you to make a difference? Have you got a glorious obsession?'

Reference
Ammerman, N. 2009. Building religious communities, building the common good. A skeptical appreciation. In P. Lichterman and C. Brady Potts, eds., The civic life of American religion, 48-68. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Houston B. 2012. A glorious obsession, part 2, Lightsource.com, http://www.lightsource.com/ministry/hillsong-tv/a-glorious-obsession-part-1-253899.html

Whose representing whom?

by Sylvie Shaw

There are some really wonderful theorists and players within the scholarly framing of representation. Two of my favourite theorists are Stuart Hall and bell hooks. I find their work riveting and their viewpoints both enlightening and enlivening.

They make me look inside myself to see where are my biases as a person born white. They throw up issues around the imaging of certain groups, genders, religions, and make me question the education I had, the worldview of the society I grew up in, and the constant barrage of images that I absorb each day from the media.

Stuart Hall, in a doco on current media representations, says that images 'have become the priviledged sign of late modern culture'. He maintains that, on a global scale, they have become the 'saturating medium' of something represented, or 're-presented' by the media.

As a media worker in my past, I wondered how often i had assumed, even adopted, a mediated sterrotype of certain groups or issues. As a current affairs producer and journalist, I wondered if the information I had garnered was positioned within the accepted or hegemonic worldview of the time. But what I did not realise, perhaps, was the effect this view was having on audences.

For Hall, representation delivers meaning. He states that: 'Representation is the way MEANING is given to the things depicted' through the various mediums being used to project a particular text or image.

In relation to religion and social and religious groups, how are certain religions or groups depicted in the media and in popular culture? bell hooks, in anohter online vid doco. discusses her approach to representations using her marvellous book, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representation (1994) to describe the essence of representations and the way to resist representations.

Like Hall, hooks uses the vehicle of popular culture to frame and embellish her arguments. The media presents a powerful imagining which, she notes, can help the audience understand the politics of difference. She sees popular culture as a pedogogy for realising the world.

Importantly, hooks urges us, as viewers and audiences, to 'think critically' about the world and the way different 'worlds' are shown and which aspects are highlighted. Her view is that there is a 'direct link' between representations and the choices we make in our lives'.

Her fear is that certain groups in society, or even in the academy, will dismiss the plethora of images and storylines around, for example, sexual and racial violence as not affecting or influencing people's worldviews or 'the choices they make in [their] lives'. Her critique extends to Hollywood and to which groups and what stories are being told and by whom - and what impact that screen blockbusters like Mel Gibson's Braveheart have on audiences. The industry priviledges the white gaze, in this case, the political liberals and white male powerbrokers.

The important question to ask in such cases is - in whose interest is this kind of representation? I remember when I went to see the film Braveheart, I was moved not by the independence movement in Scotland, the theme of the movie, but by what was happening at the time in the Balkans and the atrocities being perpetrated. I'd gone to the theatre with my elderly mother who was really puzzled when, after the film, I was visbily shaken. 'What's the matter with you?', she asked. All I could reply was 'Bosnia', explaining the extent of violence in the war that was all-pervasive.

Questions
- How does media represent and affect different groups in society?
- What is the impact of this representation of stories and images on audiences? And on the people being depicted?
- What role does the media have in countering negative stereotypes?
- Could the media do this? What would you recommend?

Sources:
Media Education Foundation: bell hooks: Cultural criticism, part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLMVqnyTo_0&feature=related
Media Education Foundation: Representation and the media, featuring Stuart Hall, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTzMsPqssOY

Image source:
http://www.fromoldbooks.org/DelamotteOrnamentalAlphabets/pages/051-16th-Century-letter-r/

Reflecting on Sacred Embodiment & Engagement Online

by Sylvie Shaw

Blogging, online chat, ebay shopping, religious rituals, each day I wonder if the internet is taking over my life as I ponder - should I go for a walk or walk though my favourite websites? Should I explore the local riverscape or explore the virtual world for information on spirituality and rivers? 

Sometimes, especially when it's raining or even just drizzling, I feel torn - which do I prefer - the shoulds (you should go outdoors and experience the beauty of nature) or the wants (the online engagement and possible seduction).


Sitting on the couch, surfing the world, seems such a passive experience. Looking at the way individuals engage with online religious experiences and religious services also seems to be similar. There's engagement certainly, but embodiment? Religious leaders can beam their message out across the globe, but the practitioners and the leader themselves are often sitting watching their computer screens. The action is taking place in their minds and their imagination. 

Certainly the senses of sight and hearing are being activated but, according to Glenn Young (2004: 104), 'the only way I found myself able to connect with this [Catholic] ritual in any tangible way was through the relation of what I was viewing to my own previous experiences as a participant in this liturgy.' The experience is embodied, he says, but only through the bodymind remembering. 

In his article, Religion and praying online, Young (2004:101) cites Brenda Brasher (2001:42) as observing that cyberspace 'stimulates the imagination but ignores the rest of the body...[and] that sucks attention away from the immediate surroundings in which most traditional religious lift occurs.'

So the quandary remains - why the intense engagement if the 'real' body is left only as a passive participant in the virtual sacred? To help me answer, or at least reflect on the question, I go webwalking and find T.L. Taylor (2002:42) explaining that:

'The body through which presence is being constructed is not simply the corporeal one, but the digital as well. In multi-user worlds it is not just through the inclusion of a representation of self that presence is built. It is instead through the use of a body as material in the dynamic performance of identity and social life that users come to be “made real” – that they come to experience immersion.' 

Taylor refers specifically to online avatars, imaginative creations of alter-egos for participation in the virtual. From Second Life to online gaming, avatars take on a life of their own as they become observably (at least onscreen) real, and real in the minds of the creators. Taylor comments that some individuals regard their avatar as more real or more corporally real than their own bodies or selves. This raises the question - which body is real for the avatar creator and other online participants?

So rather than an avatar, could Skype become an online process for connecting people in religious and spiritual embodied engagement?

Perhaps another way to chart the change is through the amazing and moving virtual choir. Composer Eric Whitacre uses the online vid format in the most imaginative way - by creating a virtual choir with singers, from all over globe and faiths, linked to a central performance online stage.

Whitacre began the project in 2009 after a fan and friend, Britlin, posted a message to him via a vid of her singing on youtube.  He then put out a call to other fans to record themselves singing the same track. Whitacre (2012) writes:

'When I saw Britlin’s video today the idea hit me like a brick: what if hundreds of people did the same thing and then we cut them all together, creating the very first virtual choir?'

Recordings of the Whitacre's virtual choir, especially the sound of beautiful sacred music, Luxe Aurumuqe, emanating from numbers of individual voices so intricately woven together, are evocative, touching, moving - but then I'm brought back to reality with a question raised by Jenny Mackness (2011) on her blogpost: 'Is a virtual choir ...even a choir?' What's missing, she says, is the sensual element and the minute adjustments a chorister would make in a face-to-face choir.

In contrast, there was a sense of spiritual capital or a spirit of togetherness and closeness mentioned by the choristers. In her blogpost Mackness examines Facebook posts by the choir participants and finds one talking about connectivity, emotionality and energy: 'It means that my voice can be heard around the world in harmony with other voices. We are connected through the emotions expressed by Eric’s composure. The energy created cannot be measured and will never die.’

While some comment on the practical difficulties of being alone and finding the right harmonies to sing along with, others exclaim how close they feel to the process, the music and the other singers.

Whitacre's music is so beautiful that I'm persuaded, at least until the sun comes out, to stay and listen online. It moves me. But then I know that the outdoors is calling, not to mention my cat the brown Burmese Merlin, is demanding his walk too.

Which is more engaging and embodied? Perhaps if I took the music I could be in both places at once - but I prefer the thoughts and the walking mashing together, accompanied by the gorgeous carolling of the magpies and the chatter of butcher birds along the riverbank in the early morning. Must dash, nature awaits.


Questions: Over to you

- Are virtual worlds as fun as real worlds? 
- Is religious experience or spiritual experience similar or different and how?
- Would you prefer to be in nature or on Facebook?
- What is more engaging - real worlds or virtual worlds?
- If you are religious from a monotheistic faith, do you feel God is online too?
- How does cyber space become sacred space?

References

Brasher, B.E. Give me that online religion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Mackness, J. 2011. Is a virtual choir a learning network or even a choir? Oct 16. 

http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/is-a-virtual-choir-a-learning-network-or-even-a-choir/
Taylor, T.L. 2002. Living digitally: embodiment in virtual worlds. In R. Schroeder, Ed., The social life of avatars: presence and interaction in shared virtual environments. London: Springer-Verlag.
Young, G. 2004. Reading and praying online: the continuity of religion online and online religion on the internet. In L.L. Dawson and D. Cowan, Eds. Religion online: finding faith on the internet. London and New York: Routledge.
Whitacre, E. 2012. Eric Whitacre's virtual choir - history. http://ericwhitacre.com/the-virtual-choir/history

Image Source:
http://pixabay.com/en/drops-drop-leaf-nature-22884/

Where is the Love?

by Sylvie Shaw
The Black Eyed Peas appeal to humanity's compassion with one of their early singles - Where is the Love?

'I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder

As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder

Most of us only care about money makin'

Selfishness got us followin' our own direction

Wrong information always shown by the media

Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria


Kids wonna act like what they see in the cinema' 
(Pajon, Adams & Board).




The lyrics lay down the philosophy of this globally-brilliant hiphop group. They question society's ills, listing issues from war, to racism and violence - and see the answer in a faith that spreads love, compassion and right (and moral) action. Directed at youth culture, the Black Eyed Peas use the vehicle of the voracious music industry to ignite young people to a faith beyond that of mainline media, to compel them to action over what they see are negatively shifting social values.

'Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity

Whatever happened to the fairness in equality

Instead of spreading love we spreading animosity

Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity'




The group feels weighed down, not only by what they experience and observe is happening in society, but maybe are also weighed down by their sense of responsibility to raise awareness and encourage the practice of peace and acceptance. 


The group has positioned themselves within the realm of protest or message songs, a sometimes religious, sometimes secular genre of the highly commodified music industry, where 'faith songs' seem out of place or on the edge. But increasingly, music with religious themes is entering the pop charts, although those with political messages, whether focused on social justice, environment and peace, are far less apparent in mainstream (superficial) pop.

Music with a religious or spiritual message acts to blur the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, but what is surfacing in the sacralised merging of pop plus religion is the redefining of religious boundaries. As traditional mainline faith declines in the west, especially the weekly obligation of church attendance, what is emerging, or what has emerged, has been dubbed by Rupert Till (2010) as the 'sacred popular'. As forms of religious worship shift from the pulpit to the religious moshpit, dimensions of religiosity are increasingly located in the realm of experience culture that bursts forth in a host of popular music genres that are invited into places of worship to update the practice - but perhaps not transform it substantially as music is implicit in religious ritual. 




Accompanying the celebration of pop music in experiential religion is the interweaving of messages of love, peace and spirituality both incorporated within the secular music industry and the ‘new’ forms of faith worship. In his article 'Rap music, hip-hop culture and 'the future of religion in the world', music theorist Robin Sylvan (2010:301) states that 'peace and love spirituality is not simply superficial sloganeering, but something that must be put into practice amid the difficulties of daily life'.




'That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under

That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down

There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under'

Sylvan shows that although there has been a decline in institutional religion adherence, there’s been a blurring of boundaries between sacred-profane and religious-secular, and an expansion of expressions of religiosity. Sacred themes and spiritual messages have not disappeared at all, but have been absorbed into Till's (2010) 'sacred popular', and become an intimate player in both the (profane-secular) industry - and the (sacred) religion.

'Gotta keep my faith alive until the love is found

ask yourself

Where is the love?'

Questions

- Why does Sylvan suggest that hip-hop has been a great vehicle for the crossover pop religion?

- Where is the love? In what ways has pop music transformed religious ritual and, in what ways has religion transformed popular music?

References

Sylvan, R. 2010. Rap music, hip-hop culture and 'the future of religion in the world'. In E. Mazur and K. McCarthy, Eds., God in the details, 2^nd edn., 291-306, Hoboken: Taylor & Francis.

Till, R. 2010. Pop cult: religion and popular music. London: Continuum International Publishing.



Image source:
http://pixabay.com/en/acoustic-guitar-bridge-strings-21184/

Transformation by Media; Reflections by Religion

by Sylvie Shaw

In his article in The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, Gordon Lynch (2010:549) asks: 'In what ways are particular forms of media and popular culture implicated in transforming contemporary [lived] religion?'

In answering his own question, Lynch is critical of the mediatization theory of religion which he suggests results in a 'linear' or one-way influence of media products on religion. Instead he argues for seeing the interconnection between religion and media as a vital two-way process in which religion can affect or 'act on' the media, and in turn, media can influence or 'act on' religion, specifically the expression of lived religion in contemporary culture.

In reviewing this interconnected triad between religion, media and popular culture, Lynch points out that religions which do not keep pace with mediated approaches may risk a loss of adherents, especially younger believers. Religion needs to speak to 'religious sub-cultures', so 'adherents feel part of a wider collective, learn and maintain aesthetic and sensory regimes for encountering their vision of the sacred, and find reinforcement for particular ways of seeing and acting in the world.' (552).

These issues about how to see and act in the world were highlighted on Good Friday, 2012, when Anglican leaders raised differing perspectives of the 'darkness' apparent in Australian society. The Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Dr Phillip Aspinall pointed to the use of social media and youtube as damaging cultural values and social harmony by being used as 'a weapon for bullying, brutality and destruction.' (Sydney Morning Herald 2012).

In contrast, the Archbishop of Melbourne,  Dr Phillip Freier, saw the 'darkness' in society in the growing equity gap between rich and poor, highlighting the corporate world's high profits and reluctance to share its wealth. He singled out the banks and mining companies for failing both their employees and the nation as a whole. As a counter to this financial bonanza, he referred to the actions of the global Occupy Movement which promoted the need for intimacy between the common-wealth, the common good, and moral and social responsibility.

Other Anglican leaders across the country were similarly critical of social networking and continuous political reporting. Bishop Stuart Robinson of the Canberra Goulburn diocese focused on the Twitter barrage and the 24/7 news cycle, saying they lead to a social disenchantment and lack of trust of both politics and politicians. His view was supported by the Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide, Jeffrey Driver, who called on politicians to 'lead the nation, openly, selflessly and with integrity.' (Hegarty 2012).

All Anglican leaders promoted a vision for change, a change resplendent in the vision of the story of resurrection and renewal, for hope and selfless service. In particular, Archbishop Driver stated: '"In the story of Jesus we see that renewal begins with openness, vulnerability and a willingness to sacrifice institutional privilege in order to give and serve without heed for self.' He especially noted the need for religion to promote these values - and 'renew its influence in the modern world.' (Hegarty 2012).

As Gordon Lynch warns above, religions need to get relevant or lose influence. Australian religious leaders have heeded the warning and recognised the need to promote their product. But there's a catch. This easter they are using the very same mediated 24/7 news cycles and social media networks they are critical about.  

Questions

- Why are religious organisations having their cake and eating it too (criticising mediated practices while utilising them)?

- Do you imagine that mainline religions will lose adherents unless they become socially relevant?

- What is your view of Lynch's perspective - get active, get modern or lose members?

References

Hegarty, A. 2012. Politicans told to think about others at Easter. The Advertiser, http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/politicians-told-to-think-about-others/story-e6freooo-1226320202585

Lynch, G. 2010. Religion, media and cultures of everyday life. In J. Hinnells, Ed., The Routledge companion to the study of religion. 2nd edn., Abingdon, OX: Routledge.
Sydney Morning Herald. 2012. Social media bad for society: archbishop. Sydney Morning Herald, April 6, http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/social-media-bad-for-society-archbishop-20120406-1wgho.html

Image Source:
http://pixabay.com/en/craft-background-architecture-organ-20118/

Spectacular Religion and Guy Debord

By Sylvie Shaw

The work of Guy Debord (1967), Society of the Spectacle is highly relevant for exploring the outpouring of religious fervency in charismatic religious services, pilgrimages and spiritual parades, even for contemplating the heightened emotionality from sports fans (Xifra 2008).

Debord is uncompromising in his critique of society and its insistent, almost compulsive, drive towards commodification. He uses the explosion of spectacle to analyse the way that societal processes have embraced commodity production. He observes that this act unifies the society in the 'work' of consuming, but, at the same time, separates and isolates. While he does not specifically mention the construction of the self as spectacle, he is relentless in his denunciation that the individual is powerless in the onslaught of the spectacular with its grounding in capitalist power and ideology.

Using a Marxian framework, Debord shows that society is increasingly imbued with 'an immense accumulation of spectacles', constructed though a mediated cultural hegemony, so much so that the spectacle becomes 'a social relationship between people that is mediated by images'. He sees this process as creating an Adorno and Horkheimer-like passivity in those bound up in this socially mediated existence. Within his perspective, individuals are no longer autonomous thinkers but pawns in a system that Debord sees as alienating, where an 'individual's own gestures are no longer his [her] own, but rather those of someone else who represents them to him.' Thus, no longer can the individual construct an authentic self, even one's own sense of authenticity is moulded by outside forces.

This is not to say that the society of the spectacle is a society of puppetry. What Debord exemplifies, but does not engage much within this critical text, is the potentiality for active engagement, both political and, to my mind, religious. While Debord views religion as 'a vestige of moral repression', aspects of religion in contemporary society can be imagined as 'spectacled' (or spectacular), mediated and commodified. But does this mean that the religious self then becomes an inauthentic self?

Religion, through its practices, rituals and symbols, is itself a spectacle, and one that creates meaning and purpose for individual adherents and religious communities. However, these sacred processes too are critiqued as being commodified and thus rendered desacralised.

In his article 'The Morality and Politics of Consumer Religion: How Consumer Religion Fuels the Culture Wars in the United States', author Scott Kline (2007) laments the shifts in contemporary religion saying:

'we live in a world of commodities where religious symbols and practices have been detached from their historical and cultural foundations, and where consumers tend to value "tradition" only inasmuch as it fulfills specific immediate desires. The fragmentation between historical-cultural foundations and the lives of modern consumers has enabled the commodity producers to promote religious products to consumers hungry for enhancement and university, transcendent truth.'

His view, like Debord's, is that commodification has disenchanted, even disheartened religious practitioners, as they see their sacred practices being mediated, commodified, and transformed into 'profaned' objects of fashion and passion.

I want to question this perspective and look to the work of Guy Debord and Douglas Kellner's (nd) Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle, but not via their critique of commodified cultural constructions under capitalism. I argue instead that there can be a moving away from their one-way assessment towards embracing the notion of spectacle as counter-hegemonic - as a celebration of contemporary forms of religious practice (in its broadest sense) and a relational process of meaning making.  Rather than censuring spectacle culture, could one not endorse it in an outpouring of collective effervescence, where the individual is active and engaged in spectacular acts of worship - whether religious, spiritual or even sportive?

This fervency can be seen in the increasing interest in religious tourism and pilgrimage, in the spontaneous eruption of a flashmob, in the celebration of joy at World Youth Day events, in the excitement of an Olympics opening, or in a rally for peace, justice and equity.

According to Best and Kellner (nd), the spectacle, for Debord, 'is a tool of pacification and depoliticization' but could it be upturned and appropriated, or culture jammed, to a spectacular event of 'vibe and energy'? (Leichty 2010). While Best and Kellner focus on the overpowering role of media, advertising and infotainment, they also propose that 'cyberdemocracy and technopolitics' could provide an avenue for 'the sort of subversive politics and the use of the tools of the spectacle against the capitalist spectacle that Debord promoted.'

Taking heart in the possibility of jamming the spectacle, religious and spiritual practices are increasingly adopting the spectacle (or did they always do this in various forms of ritual and sensation?). From events such as the magical and fiery Edinburgh Fire Festival, to television advertisements promoting religion (such as the 'I'm a Mormon' campaign with practitioners like The Killers' Brandon Flowers), as well as religious activism and prayer services at the various 'Occupy Movement' rallies, the spectacle can become a counter-hegemonic practice of celebration and/or protest action.

This shift in religious engagement is highlighted well in an opinion piece in Religion Despatches on the role of religious activists at the Occupy Wall Street encampment. Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City, Donna Shaper (2011) states:

'If you want to find the Occupy Movement now, just go here: exile, diaspora, online, viral, on radio, at Thanksgiving tables, over coffee, in Los Angeles and Poughkeepsie and Riverside and more. Everybody wants to know where it is—and it is everywhere.'

Taking the spectacle and re-modelling it, Shaper views this re-invigorated counter-capitalist movement as a process of social relations - but not one that alienates as Debord suggests. Instead, she welcomes it as a movement that conjoins people in community responsibility and communal understanding. Through various ritual sharings and interactions, the idea of spectacle can be, and is, incorporated as sacred practice (and sacred service).

Other theorists, such as Meghan Sutherland (in Walker 2012), have questioned Debord's resolve in condemning spectacle society, commenting that: 'Any struggle for social change could never fully abolish the spectacle.' In an article in the UK newspaper The Guardian, What Debord can teach us about protest, Sutherland (2012) points out that an affirmation of Debord's notion of alienation and his criticism of the role of capitalist power relations and mediated commodification can easily become a repetition of what is all too familiar in contemporary western society:

'The danger with this reading – the spectacle as a retroactive name for the social alienation of modern media culture – is that it turns Debord into a prophet who simply confirms everything we already know and further cements its inevitability. In other words, it is to make The Society of the Spectacle into precisely the kind of spectacle that Debord warns us of... where he insists that the spectacle is not a simple product of mass media, but "a weltanschauung that has been actualised, translated into the material realm – a world view transformed into an objective force.'

Sutherland notes that rather than pushing the spectacle aside, that Debord himself, through his films and artistic visual collages, as well as his engagement in the radical French movement of the 1950s and 60s, the Situationists International, actually uses the medium of spectacle through the process termed ‘détournement’, 'an appropriation and recontextualistion of cultural meaning' (Walker 2012). Using this notion of subverting accepted or hegemonic meanings, Sutherland asks whether 'mass media techniques' can be upturned, or re-used in ways that make sense of 'how to think about

transforming social existence in an age of mass media commerce.'

Taking her idea into a religious and spiritual context, the use of media is already being utilised not to dilute religious traditions but to disseminate them, creating new forms of meaning within the spectacle of the sacred.

Questions

- How is religious ritual a spectacle?

- In what circumstances could religious rituals be regarded as counter-hegemonic?

- Do you agree with Debord that society is under sufferance because of the plethora of entertaining mediated spectacle

- In what ways can you take active agency rather than passivity in light of Debord's critique?

References

Best, S. and D. Kellner. nd. Debord and the postmodern turn: new stages

of the spectacle. Illuminations, http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell17.htm

Debord, G. 1967. Society of the spectacle. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm
Kellner, D. nd. Media culture and the triumph of the

spectacle. http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/mediaculturetriumphspectacle.pdf
Kline, S. 2007. The morality and politics of consumer religion: how consumer religion fuels the culture wars in the United States. Journal of

Religion and Popular Culture 17, Fall, http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art17-consumerreligion.html

Leichty, JC. 2010. World Cup reflections: religion (but mostly) conflict and peace. Journal of Religion, Conflict and Peace, 3(2) Spring,

http://www.religionconflictpeace.org/node/5

Shaper, D. 2011. Occupy in exile: sacred space is everywhere.

Religion Despatches, Nov 28, http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/5439/occupy_in_exile%3A_sacred_space_is_everywhere/

Sutherland, M. 2012. What Debord can teach us about protest. The Guardian,

April 2, http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/meghan-sutherland

Walker, B. 2012. The Big Ideas podcast: Guy Debord's 'society of the

spectacle'. The Guardian, March 28, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/audio/2012/mar/28/big-ideas-podcast-debord-society-spectacle">

Xifra, J. 2008. Soccer, civil religion, and public relations: Devotional-promotional communication and Barcelona Football Club. Public Relations Review 34(2): 192-198.

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