Mediation or mediatisation: The history of media in the study of religion
Abstract
Several different accounts of 'mediatisation' and 'mediation' circulate in the literature
of media studies. This paper begins with a parsing of them, considering their conceptual
distinctions and similarities. The argument developed here is for a general theory
of mediation and a more particular view of mediatisation. Although developing a critical
assessment of a prevailing notion of mediatisation, the paper does not dismiss it,
but regards it as exhibiting a limited usefulness. In order to make its case, the
paper relies on the case study of Evangelical ephemeral print in Britain circa 1800,
examining the production and circulation of tracts in order to show that arguments
for mediatisation need to be strongly qualified by historical evidence. Greater reliance
on historical precedents will strengthen studies of mediatisation by chastening the
often exorbitant and ahistorical claims made for it. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16638Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1080/14755610.2011.579716Publication Info
Morgan, David (2011). Mediation or mediatisation: The history of media in the study of religion. Culture and Religion, 12(2). 10.1080/14755610.2011.579716. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16638.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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David Morgan
Professor of Religious Studies
David Morgan is Professor of Religious Studies with a secondary appointment in the
Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies at Duke. He chaired the Department
of Religious Studies from 2013 to 2019. Morgan received the Ph.D. at the University
of Chicago in 1990. He is currently Director of Graduate Studies in Duke's PhD program
in Religion. He has published several books and dozens of essays on the history of
religious visual culture, fine art, and art theory. Images at Work: The M

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