Access to excess: media as religion and the new cargo cults.

Recent studies of religion and the media generally assume the secular nature of the latter impacting on the former. Religious relevance is set against a media culture of screens and networks that purportedly shape and reshape the symbols of sacredness. Yet the media itself may also be regarded as co...

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Publicado en:Culture & Religion Vol. 19; no. 3; pp. 345 - 361
Autor principal: Lee, Raymond L. M.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Sep2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Access to excess: media as religion and the new cargo cults.
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        au: Lee, Raymond L. M.
        affil: Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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        Religion
        Cargo cults
        Sacredness
        Digital media
        Computer operating systems
        Religious communities
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          Religion
          Cargo cults
          Sacredness
          Digital media
          Computer operating systems
          Religious communities
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        excess
        media
        religion
        sacred
        secular
        spectacles
      ab: Recent studies of religion and the media generally assume the secular nature of the latter impacting on the former. Religious relevance is set against a media culture of screens and networks that purportedly shape and reshape the symbols of sacredness. Yet the media itself may also be regarded as constituting a form of sacredness in its generation of excess. Within an expanding digital universe, the media creates and channels an abundance of information to overwhelm the attention of billions of people. The power to access excess places the sacred in the resources and practices of interconnectedness made possible by the use of digital devices that readies populations to anticipate limitless flows of data. Parallels can be drawn with the cargo cults of Melanesia where natives in contact with their colonisers came to anticipate the arrival of unlimited wealth and goods. This comparison may be used to illustrate the dual face of the media as secular in its operating system and religious in its production of excess. It also raises the question of whether the secular in digital culture could be treated as if it were wholly autonomous of the religious.
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