Blogging My Religion

Religion in Europe is currently undergoing changes that are reconfiguring physical and virtual spaces of practice and belief, and these changes need to be understood with regards to the proliferation of digital media discourses. This book explores religious change in Europe through a comparative approach that analyzes Atheist, Catholic, and Muslim blogs as spaces for articulating narratives about religion that symbolically challenge the power of religious institutions. The book adds theoretical complexity to the study of religion and digital media with the concept of hypermediated religious spaces. The theory of hypermediation helps to critically discuss the theory of secularization and to contextualize religious change as the result of multiple entangled phenomena. It considers religion as being connected with secular and post-secular spaces, and media as embedding material forms, institutions, and technologies. A spatial perspective contextualizes hypermediated religious spaces as existing at the interstice of alternative and mainstream, private and public, imaginary and real venues. By offering the innovative perspective of hypermediated religious spaces, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, the sociology of religion, and digital media.

Giulia Evolvi is a Research Associate in Religion and Media at Ruhr University, Germany. Her research interests include religion and materiality, secularization, Islam and Islamophobia. She has published various articles and chapters on these subjects in publications such as Media History, Social Compass, and Information, Communication & Society.

Introduction: Discussing Religious Change in Catholic Europe 1 The Hypermediation of Religion: Situating Religion in a Media-Saturated World 2 Hypermediated Religious Spaces: Conceptualizing Religion in Digital Spaces 3 Muslim and European: Spaces to Defeat Stereotypes and Articulate Hybrid Identities 4 Thank God I'm an Atheist: Digital Spaces for the Promotion Of Laïcité 5 Who is Afraid of Gender? Catholic Anti-Gender Spaces of Public Protest 6 Conclusion: Creating Hypermediated Spaces of Religious Change in Catholic Europe