"Providing detailed case studies, this book explores the vibrant digital expressions of diverse groups of Muslim cybernauts: religious clerics and Sufi mystics, feminists and fashionistas, artists and activists, Hajj pilgrims and celebrities. Together, these stories span a vast cultural and geograph...ic landscape, including Indonesia, Iran, the Middle East, and the United States. These case studies are contextualized within the backdrop of broader social trends, including racism and Islamophobia, gender dynamics, celebrity culture, identity politics, and the shifting dynamics of contemporary religious piety and practice. Authors examine a wide-range of digital multimedia technologies as primary ''texts." These include websites, podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channels, online magazines and discussion forums, and religious apps." (Publisher)
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"This book offers a critical and systematic survey of the study of religion and digital media. It covers religious engagement with a wide range of digital media forms and highlights examples of new media engagement in all five of the major world religions. From mobile apps and video games to virtual... reality and social media, the book provides a detailed review of major topics including ritual, identity, community, authority, and embodiment, includes a series of engaging case studies to illustrate and elucidate the thematic explorations, considers the theoretical, ethical, and theological issues raised ... Thoroughly updated throughout with new case studies and in-depth analysis of recent scholarship and developments, this new edition provides a comprehensive overview of this fast-paced, constantly developing, and fascinating field." (Publisher)
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"Covering the polarizing and fragmented opinions over Islam and the rights of women, for example, requires context, attachment to core ethical values, and stylish truth-telling. Without professional expertise, a good understanding of the issues in play and a commitment to diversity in their approach... media and journalists can do damage. They can incite hatred. They can perpetuate stereotypes. They can create ignorance and misunderstanding. These guidelines aim to help editors and reporters to avoid these pitfalls, to better understand the issues and to shape their stories in ethical ways. It is not easy in an aggressive and competitive media landscape where journalism can become trapped in a world of sensational headlines and sound bites. News media are often vehicles for Islamophobia, sometimes inadvertently, through the rushed reporting of intemperate political discourse. Often there is a lack of fact-based analysis and a lack of clarity over changes in policy that may impinge upon basic freedoms, such as free speech, religious freedom and equality for women. These guidelines are not instructions to journalists on how to do their work. They provide tips and suggestions on the ways media can avoid reproducing biased discourse that does harm through reporting that will provide the European public, policymakers and civil society groups with truthful information on the threats posed by anti-Muslim racism, particularly as it affects to women." (Introdcution, p.7)
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"Auch die salafistische Szene nutzt den virtuellen Raum zur Propagierung ihrer Ideologie und zur Rekrutierung von Mitgliedern. Gerade für eine jüngere Zielgruppe hat sich in den vergangenen Jahren ein breites Angebot im deutschsprachigen Raum herausgebildet, mit dem Salafisten ihre Glaubensinhalte... zu verbreiten suchen, die auf einer "reinen" und wortwörtlichen Lesart islamischer Schriften fußen und somit zwangsläufig einer pluralen und demokratischen Staats- und Gesellschaftsform zuwiderlaufen." (Verlag)
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"Divided into two sections, the chapters included in the first section of the book present case studies from five major religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism and their engagement with digitalization. The second section of the volume explores the moral, ideological but also o...ntological implications of our increasingly digital lives." (Publisher)
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"The media's coverage of religion is an important question, given the central role which news media play in ensuring that people are up-to-date with religion news developments. The book examines it in different countries. After an introductory section looking at trends in religion news in print, on-...line journalism, and as a subject of foreign news, the book surveys religion reporting in five key countries: USA, Russia, India, China, & Nigeria. The book then looks at media events through the cases of the election of Pope Francis, and the death of rabbis. The book addresses the question of the influence of religion reporting in politics; the impact of religion reporting upon religious identity; and the role of social media - through looking at case studies in France, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Israel." (Publisher)
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"The television broadcasting culture of Pakistan was changed dramatically in 2002. The President, General Pervez Musharraf, introduced a policy of liberalisation that enabled controversial issues such as honour killings, adultery, stoning to death, domestic violence, marriage after divorce and homos...exuality to be increasingly depicted on screen. Women and TV Culture in Pakistan is the first in-depth analysis of this change in television content. Munira Cheema focuses on how 'gender issues' are dealt with on TV and examines the impact this has on female viewers. In Pakistan, television is often the only way in which women can access the public sphere (except through male guardians) and this book evaluates how TV content allows them to navigate their intersecting identities as Muslims, women and Pakistanis. At a time when religious conservatism is on the rise in the country, this book investigates why producers choose to focus on gender-based issues and the extent to which religion dictates social behaviour and broadcasting choices. Based on interviews with women viewers in Karachi as well as industry professionals including writers, directors and ratings experts, the research is a much-needed and original contribution to global television studies and gender studies." (Publisher)
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"The aim of this report is to illustrate, on the basis of online hate speech examples from six countries - Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain -, patterns of cyber hate against four communities. The topics that will be subsequently analysed are: antisemitism, antiziganism, h...omophobia and anti-Muslim hatred. Each section will follow a similar pattern by first offering a definition of the central terms, analysing the context and transnational trends and then highlighting country-specific aspects. The label "country specific" should not imply that those aspects are in any way country exclusive. However, they show different emphasis and peculiarities in the participating countries. This transnational analysis is complemented by national reports de-tailing the information and cases provided by the participating organisations." (Introduction, p.8)
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"Digital Religion offers a critical and systematic survey of the study of religion and new media. It covers religious engagement with a wide range of new media forms and highlights examples of new media engagement in all five of the major world religions. From cell phones and video games to blogs an...d Second Life, the book provides a detailed review of major topics; includes a series of case studies to illustrate and elucidate the thematic explorations; considers the theoretical, ethical and theological issues raised." (Publisher)
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"Within less than 20 years, the number of Arabic-language satellite channels has risen from zero to more than 500, including channels financed by the US, Russia, China, the UK and France. Some 50 of these channels label themselves as Islamic (and a handful are Christian) , but Islamic programming is... also present in many of the other channels, whether state-run or private. This massive proliferation of Islamic programming has also given rise to specifically Islamist and Salafist channels and programmes. This chapter will describe these developments and discuss their implications. Mass media and Islamic fundamentalism go back a long way in the Arab World." (p.264)
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"An essential aspect of what is now called the Islamic Revival, the cassette sermon has become omnipresent in most Middle Eastern cities, punctuating the daily routines of many men and women. Hirschkind shows how sermon tapes have provided one of the means by which Islamic ethical traditions have be...en recalibrated to a modern political and technological order - to its noise and forms of pleasure and boredom, but also to its political incitements and call for citizen participation. Contrary to the belief that Islamic cassette sermons are a tool of militant indoctrination, Hirschkind argues that sermon tapes serve as an instrument of ethical self-improvement and as a vehicle for honing the sensibilities and affects of pious living. Focusing on Cairo's popular neighborhoods, Hirschkind highlights the pivotal role these tapes now play in an expanding arena of Islamic argumentation and debate - what he calls an "Islamic counterpublic." This emerging arena connects Islamic traditions of ethical discipline to practices of deliberation about the common good, the duties of Muslims as national citizens, and the challenges faced by diverse Muslim communities around the globe." (Publisher)
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"Written by both leading academic authorities and by Muslim media practitioners, 'Muslims and the Media' is designed as a comprehensive and critical textbook and is set in both the British and international contexts. The book clearly establishes the links between context, content, production and aud...iences thus reflecting the entire cycle of the communication process and revealing the ways in which meaning is produced and reproduced in the news media. Looking closely at the circumstances and politics surrounding the representation of Muslims across a wide range of journalistic genres, at the presence and influence of Muslims in the processes of news production, and the ways in which audiences, both Muslim and non-Muslim, consume this media, the book brings together coherently a wide range of perspectives to provide crucial insights into the representation - and misrepresentation - of Islam and Muslims today." (Publisher)
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