time Archives - Recovira

Exploring Religious Socialisation in a Mediatised World

Posted on August 22, 2024 - 2:02 pm by Recovira

Author: Erkan Binici, Research Associate, University of Tübingen

Erkan Binici, a research associate and doctoral candidate in Islamic religious education at the University of Tübingen, introduced his research in the Dialogue Conference of ReCoVirA-Project Germany on June 24^th. This perspective expanded the projects’ findings and understanding of the situation of adolescents in religious communities and the shifts from the pandemic.

In today’s digital age, the intersection of media and religion is prominent in various contexts. Multiple examples from popular culture, illustrate how religion is represented and used in media. This blend of religion and media is particularly significant among young people.

Manfred L. Pirner, a protestant religious educator, proposed in 2004 that the media socialisation of children and adolescents also involves religious socialisation, coining the term ‘religious media socialisation’: “The diverse interconnections and parallels between media and religion in our culture suggest that the media socialisation of today’s children and adolescents is also, to a significant extent, religious socialisation” (Pirner 2004, p. 11)¹.

To better understand this phenomenon, I designed an empirical study as part of my doctoral dissertation. This research investigates how young Muslims in Germany perceive and engage with religion in media. Through qualitative interviews with twelve Muslim adolescents aged 12-19, the study explores their media use and the presence of religion in their everyday media interactions. The research integrates theories of mediatisation, socialisation, and praxeological sociology of knowledge. This framework operationalises the research subject for empirical investigation into religious socialisation in a mediatised world.

In examining how young Muslims in Germany perceive and engage with religion in the media, some key themes emerged:
– Many interviewees noted that the portrayal of Islam and Muslims in the media is predominantly negative, characterised by repetitive stereotypes and a lack of positive representation. They also criticised discrimination and double standards in media reporting, especially concerning crime.

– Despite using media for religious information, the participants expressed distrust and scepticism towards media sources, often preferring personal sources like parents. Media exposure triggered religious questions, leading to information overload and further reliance on trusted individuals.

– Muslim influencers were relevant to the participants, even when the content was not explicitly religious. Representation remained important, with influencers like the Datteltäter² satire group being frequently mentioned. Religious influencers also played a role in their everyday engagement with religious topics.

– The adolescents generally exhibit a critical stance towards media and commonly express a desire to avoid extremist content. However, several interviewees reported using certain websites and consuming content originating from extremist groups without recognizing its extremist nature. This observation suggests that a general critical attitude towards media is insufficient to prevent the consumption of problematic content. Instead, it necessitates a deeper engagement and critical understanding of the specific characteristics and messages of extremist media.

– The impact of religiosity on media usage varied, with some participants practicing self-imposed media restrictions based on religious beliefs, such as avoiding sexualised content and adhering to respectful communication norms. For religious practice, various media tools were utilised, such as prayer time apps and Quran apps, with some media being repurposed pragmatically for religious activities.

The analysis reveals that the interaction with religion in media is deeply embedded in the general media practices of young Muslims. This study underscores the significant intersection of media and religion in their lives, with important implications for Islamic religious education and media pedagogy. By understanding these dynamics, educators can better align religious education with the lived experiences of adolescents, making it more relevant and engaging. The study will be published soon and aims to enrich research in this area, calling for further empirical studies to continue exploring these critical intersections.

Literature

Pirner, M. L. (2004). Religiöse Mediensozialisation. Empirische Studien zu Zusammenhängen zwischen Mediennutzung und Religiosität bei SchülerInnen und deren Wahrnehmung durch LehrerInnen. kopaed.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF_oOFgq8qwi7HRGTJSsZ-g

Image credit: Image provided by the author

Studying religion means working Sundays

Posted on September 20, 2023 - 11:54 am by Recovira

Gero Menzel, Research Associate, Goethe University Frankfurt

Going into the first field, the Diocese of Limburg, I came prepared to also work Sundays. After deciding to postpone the second case, Islam, because field access turned out to be more complicated than expected, I moved on with our third case study on Hinduism, not expecting Sunday to become the focal point of my research activity again. But that’s how it was My contact person from our cooperation partner invited me to join her to visit the temple on Sunday.

The first thing I want to reflect on, is that researching religion, at least in many contexts, conflicts with the academic work schedule and with how we organize our ‘work-life-balance’. Sundays in Germany are usually regarded as days of non-work, days of leisure. At the same time, they are workdays for religious workers and it is a day of non-work or a day of informal work for visitors of religious services; the second being the role we tend to get assigned and/or accept as researchers.

The second thing I want to dwell on, is that when and on which days we conduct our research is also important. Our impression of the research field might be influenced drastically by when we visit. To generate a contrasting case for my research in the first case study, the Diocese of Limburg, I visited a week day service. It was a Tuesday service and it fit well into my work schedule. I could go there before heading to the office. The experience was completely different from Sundays; I was the youngest by far. Of course, while my schedule allowed me to go to Church on a Weekday morning, everybody else except retirees was not able to attend. So ethnographic research includes adapting our schedule to our research field or deciding why we deviate from our field’s usual schedule, be it for pragmatic or methodological reasons.

By getting to know the rhythm, the schedule of our field, we also learn something about it (Elliott et al., 2016). Which days are important in living religion and for whom? We have to ask, whose schedule or which sub-schedule are we adapting to? How far can we adapt with our personal life, our employment conditions?

Sunday being the day for communal, for religious gathering is linked to how Christianity shaped the work schedules in Germany and other Christian majority countries and still does, together with labor unions and other forces of civil society. By looking at when religious communities gather, we can learn about how they relate to the majority and other religious communities. In how far Sunday becomes the day for religious activities and gathering, might also show how religious communities might relate to European secularity sedimented in temporal orders. It might also show us how established religious communities are, by how far they are able to follow their own temporal orders.

Studying religion means navigating and reflecting the temporal practices.

References

Elliott, S., McKelvy, J. N., & Bowen, S. (2016). Marking time in ethnography: Uncovering temporal dispositions. Ethnography, 18(4), 556–576. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138116655360

Image credit: Image provided by the author