The Handbook of Religion and Communication

Provides a contemporary view of the intertwined relationship of communication and religion

The Handbook of Religion and Communication presents a detailed investigation of the complex interaction between media and religion, offering diverse perspectives on how both traditional and new media sources continue to impact religious belief and practice across multiple faiths around the globe. Contributions from leading international scholars address key themes such as the changing role of religious authority in the digital age, the role of media in cultural shifts away from religious institutions, and the ways modern technologies have transformed how religion is communicated and portrayed.

Divided into five parts, the Handbook opens with a state-of-the-art overview of the subject’s intellectual landscape, introducing the historical background, theoretical foundations, and major academic approaches to communication, media, and religion. Subsequent sections focus on institutional and functional perspectives, theological and cultural approaches, and new approaches in digital technologies. The essays provide insight into a wide range of topics, including religious use of media, religious identity, audience gratification, religious broadcasting, religious content in entertainment, films and religion, news reporting about religion, race and gender, the sex-religion matrix, religious crisis communication, public relations and advertising, televangelism, pastoral ministry, death and the media, online religion, future directions in religious communication, and more.

• Explores the increasing role of media in creating religious identity and communicating religious experience
• Discusses the development and evolution of the communication practices of various religious bodies
• Covers all major media sources including radio, television, film, press, digital online content, and social media platforms
• Presents key empirical research, real-world case studies, and illustrative examples throughout
• Encompasses a variety of perspectives, including individual and institutional actors, academic and theoretical areas, and different forms of communication media
• Explores media and religion in Judeo-Christian traditions, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, religions of Africa, Atheism, and others

The Handbook of Religion and Communication is an essential resource for scholars, academic researchers, practical theologians, seminarians, mass communication researchers, and undergraduate and graduate students taking courses on media and religion.

Yoel Cohen is Professor and past Chair of the School of Communication, at Ariel University, Israel. He is co-chair of the Religion and Communication working group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). He focuses upon Religion and News reporting; Judaism & media; and Media and Religion in Israel. He is the author of Spiritual News: Reporting Religion Around the World; God, Jews and the Media: Religion and Israel's Media; Media Diplomacy; and The Whistleblower of Dimona. He has published widely on media and religion.

Paul A. Soukup, S.J., is Professor and past Head of the Department of Communication at Santa Clara University, USA, where he teaches courses in technology, communication, and theology. He is the author of Communication and Theology and Christian Communication: A Bibliographical Survey Media, and co-editor of Mass Media and the Moral Imagination and Fidelity and Translation: Communicating the Bible in New Media.

Introduction to the volume, the perspective, the themes, and the contributors.

Part I. Introductory material

1. Traditions of academic approaches to communication, media, and religion

2. Historical background in the development of both communication, media and religion and its key theoretical groundings

Part II. “Institutional” perspectives

      A. Religion (more generally) / religiosity

3. Theological approaches

4. Ethical issues or approaches

5. Criticism and critical perspectives on communication from the perspective of religion

      B. Religions as actors

6. Religious broadcasting

7. Public relations and strategic uses, including digital aspects

8. Web presence of different religious institutions

9. Missiological / evangelizing approaches, include digital aspects

   C. Religion connected to individual action

10. Pastoral ministry

11. Piety, religious identity

12. Profiles of people (for example, young people) following, finding religion online.

      D. Media institutions

13. News, reporting on religion, including digital news coverage

14. Religious crisis communication , including digital dimensions (Twitter, FB, etc.)

15. Entertainment: religious content

16. Religion and film

      E. Specific religious groups

17. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, evangelical Christianity (once content has been commissioned, this may become several chapters rather than one)

18. Asian religions Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism etc. (again perhaps several chapters here)

19. Religions of Africa

Part III. “Functional” perspectives

20. Social functions: community, social order, identity

21. Rituals, pilgrimages, places

22. Religious festivals

23. Meaning making

24. Spirituality, religion, supernatural in everyday life

Part IV. Cultural approaches

25. Material religion

26. Mediatization

27. Gender

28. Sex

29. Authority

Part V. New approaches in new technologies

30. Social media

31. Internet, mobile technology

32. Other related topics

33. Online religion versus religion online

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