Book Proposal

ROUTLEDGEReligion and Digital Culture Series

Giulia Evolvi

Title:

Blogging My Religion:

Secular and Religious Media Spaces in Catholic Europe

Contact Information:

Giulia Evolvi,Postdoctoral ResearcherCERES — Centrum für Religionswissenschaftliche StudienRuhr-Universität BochumUniversitätsstraße 90a44789 Bochum, GermanyGiulia.evolvi@rub.de@giuliaevolvi

1. Statement of Aims

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. My book explores religious change in Europe by analyzing blogs as spaces for articulating narratives about religion that symbolically challenge the power of religious institutions. Atheist, Catholic, and Muslim blogs have the potential to elicit discussions about religious pluralism in Western late modernity, unveiling affordances of digital media narratives and allowing the emergence of alternative religious authorities and communities.

The first objective of the book is to critically discuss the theory of secularization in Europe by taking into account the increasingly central role of the Internet in shaping religious identities. The book aims to demonstrate that in allowing the emergence of non-mainstream and non-institutionalized religious narratives, digital media practices need to be understood as interrelated with religious change.

Secondly, the book adopts a comparative approach that considers religious change as the result of multiple entangled phenomena. By analyzing how atheist, Muslim, and Catholic groups create digital narratives against the perceived hegemonic role of the Vatican in Europe, the book advocates a broad understanding of religious change that moves beyond the idea of religious decline while taking into

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account internal differences within the Catholic Church. For this reason, the book is divided into sections that focus on religious phenomena rather than geographical and national contexts.

Thirdly, the book reflects on methodological approaches to studying digital media. It aims to show that studies of digital venues would benefit from a methodology encompassing not only analysis of digital discourses, but also interviews and participant observation as a way of providing insights into media-related practices in physical venues.

Finally, the book’s objective is to add theoretical complexity to the study of religion and digital media by employing spatial metaphors to conceptualize the Internet. By discussing existing theoretical frameworks, the book aims at understanding the potential of digital media practices to create spaces of religiosity that are generative of fluid articulations of identities, authorities, and communities.

2. Synopsis and Chapter Summaries

Religious change is often characterized by religious groups finding new physical, symbolical, and imaginary spaces for the negotiation of religious identities and beliefs. Blogs can become spaces of religiosity when they provide alternative venues for the discussion of religious meanings. The book analyzes how blogs can discursively challenge the hegemonic position of the Catholic Church in Europe, focusing in particular on three phenomena: 1) Through the analysis of atheist blogs, the book problematizes the idea of secularization by showing how humanist groups still see a predominance of Catholicism in public and institutional spaces. 2) By exploring Muslim blogs, it discusses the impact of migration on European identity, which can no longer be solely associated with Judeo-Christian values. 3) By studying Catholic-inspired blogs, the book shows how the Vatican is challenged by the emergence of groups that follow other religious authorities in addition to the Pope. The book discusses these three phenomena by analyzing how media practices are generative of new religious spaces that symptomize the complexity of the changing religious scene in Europe.

A summary of individual chapters is listed below; see also attachment #1 for the table of contents.

INTRODUCTION Religious Change, Secularization, and Blogging

The Vatican fully embraces the potential of legacy media and new media to spread its message and to connect with believers worldwide, as exemplified by the multilingual programs offered by Vatican Radio and the Pope’s Twitter account. However, the symbolic power of the Vatican in Europe is challenged by the emergence of media practices that create alternative religious discourses.

The introductory chapter discusses the relevance of studying digital media to understand religious change in Europe in terms of the emergence of religious identities that are not aligned with the Vatican’s message. Digital media practices, while not directly impacting the institutional power of the Vatican, can nonetheless allow for voices that criticize religious hegemonic structures of power. Some

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questions remain to be explored: How are these voices structured? What is the target audience and expected impact of such digital spaces? How does the Internet function differently from legacy media in providing spaces of information and identity articulation? Are digital discourses able to create resistance, establish a media presence, and enhance participation?

The chapter situates the research in the European context and within Western modernity by summarizing the main trends of religious change in recent decades and by defining the concept of “Catholic Europe.” It explains its focus on blogs written in French and Italian, thus including countries – especially but not limited to France, Belgium, and Italy – that are part of “Catholic Europe” and whose history has been largely characterized by the presence of institutional Catholicism. These countries’ differing understandings of religion and secularism are briefly explored in the chapter; however, while blogs respond to the peculiarities of national contexts, they often create narratives about European religion in general, targeting an international public and insisting on the global character of atheist, Muslim, and Catholic identities.

Furthermore, the chapter explains how blogs are understood as Internet spaces connected with other social media platforms, and are thus analyzed in conjunction with both their related Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts and with their users’ comments. Blogs are considered venues for the storytelling of personal experiences and counter-information – venues that can become spaces for religious discussion. A brief description of the blogs that will be analyzed throughout the book is also provided.

Finally, it is argued that the author’s position as an “insider” with knowledge of the languages and cultures of the analyzed geographical contexts presents a methodological strength that allows textual analysis, interviews, and participant observation to be combined; in particular, critical discourse analysis is undertaken as a method that takes into account the social contexts of discursive production and the power relations that lie within. The introduction concludes with a summary of the book.

1. RELIGIOUS AND MEDIA PRACTICES Beyond Institutions and Technologies

Media and Religion have always been, to a certain extent, intertwined in processes of mediation (Hoover 2011). Objects, practices, and bodily sensations function as religious media that become spaces of articulation of religious communities (Meyer 2010). The present proliferation of media institutions and digital technologies in the European context, however, suggests that religion is not solely mediated through objects, but sustains processes of mediatization at institutional level. Because media currently constitute an independent institution with significant impact on culture and society, they create structural changes that lead to religious change, thus enacting forms of mediatized religion that are dependent on media logics (Hjarvard 2011; Hjarvard and Lovheim 2012).

This chapter discusses the theories of mediation and mediatization in relation to religion and the Internet, focusing in particular on the emergence of “digital

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religion” characterized by new ways of conceptualizing communities, identities, practices, authorities (Campbell 2012a; 2012b). By means of a review of academic works on Internet practices and religion, the chapter discusses definitions of “media” and “religion” that allow the study of different spaces of religious practice in Catholic Europe.

“Media” are analyzed in relation to the use that people make of them rather than their effects or their technological attributes. Drawing upon Nick Couldry’s social theory (2012), media are conceptualized in virtue of the practices and social outcomes they produce, both at individual and institutional level. Media can sustain processes of mediatization in a context of media supersaturation, thus leading to a circulation of media contents within people’s social actions. Religious blogs contribute to such processes as they unveil the agency of individuals in negotiating religious meanings and values, while at the same time creating interactions that are tied to digital media logics.

“Religion” is considered in broad terms, going beyond the received categories of “sacred” and “profane” and looking at discourses and practices that find legitimation in the lived experiences they encompass. Drawing upon the theoretical work of authors such as José Casanova (1994) and Talal Asad (2003), religion is considered in its relation with the secular, with a particular attention to secularization in Catholic Europe. Processes of religious differentiation, decline, and privatization, often interdependent with processes of mediatization, result in religion no longer being tied only to religious institutions, but instead increasingly based on people’s practices. As a result, digital religion is seen in its institutional form, represented for example by the Vatican, but also encompassing phenomena that are inspired by religious institutions, such as Catholic-based social protests, and identities that are grounded in opposition to religious institutions, such as atheism.

Therefore, the book looks at blogs as forms of digital religion that, in bringing together media and religious practices, show how discursive production targets and impacts processes of religious change, both within and outside religious institutions. In defining “religion” and “media” as interrelated and practice-based phenomena, this chapter conceptualizes blogs as venues that allow mediatized religious experiences.

3. INTERNET AS SPACE Conceptualizing Digital Spaces of Religious Practice

Religious blogs entail mediatized religious practices that allow the articulation of religious values and identities. Scholars have increasingly found it useful to employ spatial metaphors to describe the Internet as venue for such meaning production in different geographical and social contexts. Blogs, for example, have been conceptualized as “ethical spaces,” formed through interactions of producers, texts, and users, where people performatively negotiate ethics and values (Lövheim 2011). Also, the concept of “third place” (Oldenburg 1999) have been employed to describe the Internet as a space in-between online and offline religiosity (Jakobsh 2006; Campbell 2012a). “Third place,” combined with the theory of “third space” as elaborated by Edward Soja (1996) and Homi Bhabha (2004), is applied to the study of

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digital religion to describe the Internet as potentially generative of hybrid religious identities, communities, authorities, and aesthetic practices (Hoover and Echchaibi 2014). The book’s approach is situated in the context of these theoretical frameworks to analyze how non-mainstream religious groups in Catholic Europe create spaces of religiosity through Internet practices.

This chapter argues that the study of digital religion benefits from the use of spatial metaphors because they allow thinking of the Internet as a venue where people establish conversations and narratives “as-if” they were acting in a space of religious practice. Thinking of digital practices as happening in an authentic religious space qualifies them as both connected to traditional offline practices and able to create new religious experiences that would not be possible without the Internet. The chapter discusses spacial theories in relation to digital venues by arguing that the Internet needs to be considered as a venue where different conceptualizations of spaces intersects in various levels of complexity:

Firstly, spaces can be mainstream or alternative. The creation of space is connected with structures of power, as for example institutional religions establish spaces of practice – such as Catholic churches in Europe – that become hegemonic in their sacred function. Similarly, the Vatican is considered hegemonic because it symbolically occupies a position of power in certain European countries but also exerts an influence in nonreligious spaces. Religious blogs are alternative because they resist both the physical presence of established religious institutions (for example, atheists against religious symbols in public spaces) and their symbolic discursive production (such as Muslims who criticize the Christian character of European identity). As the work of Antonio Gramsci (2014) and the Cultural Studies tradition shows us, hegemony is not necessarily produced by coercion; it can also work through people’s consensus. Alternative religious blogs, which perceive themselves as non-mainstream because they are not represented by the positions of the Vatican, become counterhegemonic in discursively and symbolically breaking the consensus of the mainstream religious culture that surrounds them.

Secondly, spaces can be private or public. Religious change is mostly concerned with the position religion occupies – or should occupy – in the public sphere. Critical works about the Habermasian public sphere (Fraser 1990; Mouffe 2005; Warner 2005) force us to rethink public and private spaces in relation to cultural identities too, including race, gender, and sexuality. This perspective suggests that religion in late modernity also needs to be rethought in relation to its position in the public sphere. Religious blogs discuss the role of religion in public spaces and, at the same time, create a venue for privately articulating beliefs and practices; Muslim blogs, for example, often offer resources to help European Muslims practice their religion in private spaces when they do not have a physical community in public spaces, indirectly opening up options for personalizing religious beliefs.

Thirdly, spaces can be imaginary or real. While the practice of blogging exists in virtual spaces, it is nonetheless made tangible because blogs question the role of

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religion in physical space or help organize activities in offline venues, as is the case with conservative Catholic groups who use social media to coordinate protests in public spaces. Through this use of blogs, religious groups contribute to processes of social change by creating “heterotopias,” imaginary spaces that can be lived and enacted within society (Foucault 2004). According to Henri Lefebvre (1992), processes of signification result in spaces being “conceived,” “perceived,” and “lived”: people’s imaginary practices can change the preplanned and hegemonic function of places. Religious blogs operate in both real and imaginary spaces, in a way that considers online and offline venues to be acting upon each other rather than being mutually exclusive.

The chapter concludes by explaining how a focus on space as mainstream and alternative, imaginary and real, public and private, adds complexity to existing spatial metaphors of the Internet because it helps thinking about religious blogs as authentic spaces that participate into processes of religious change. In particular, the concept of space is relevant in relation to three phenomena occurring in Europe: the proliferation of atheist associations; the growing number of Muslims; and the presence of Catholic groups who are not always aligned with the positions of the Vatican.

3. “TAKE THAT CROSS AWAY” Digital Spaces for Atheist Discourses

Theories of secularization in the 1970s and 1980s predicted a religious decline and regarded the secular as an inevitable byproduct of modernity. However, such theories need to be rethought in light of the fact that some European countries, rather than witnessing an unproblematic disappearance of religion from the public sphere, are still concerned with phenomena of public religiosity (Calhoun, Juergensmeyer, and VanAntwerpen 2011). The European Humanist Federation (www.humanistfederation.eu), an umbrella association of national secular organizations, was created in response to the persistence of religion in Europe, and to the perceived marginalization of atheist groups in a public sphere dominated by religion.

The chapter discusses secularization processes in Europe by analyzing digital discourses produced by atheist groups who are members of the European Humanist Federation, with a focus on those operating in majority Catholic countries. These discourses are symptomatic of the enduring presence of religion in European public spaces and the perceived hegemony of the Catholic Church, with atheist associations discussing the place of religion in public and private spaces, providing venues where atheist communities and identities can articulate themselves, and advocating for less Vatican interference in state decisions.

Secular digital spaces are often concerned with the presence of religion in private and public social spaces. The blog of the Italian UAAR (Unione Atei e Agnostici Razionalisti, www.uaar.it), for example, is vocal against Catholic crosses being displayed in schools and law courts, arguing that a secular state should prevent

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one religion from symbolically occupying public spaces. Discussions about religious spaces in predominantly Catholic countries tend to focus mainly on the social role of the Catholic Church, but they sometimes extend their critique to other religions, reflecting moreover the specificity of national contexts. In France, for example, where laws prevent the presence of religious symbols in certain public spaces, the blog produced by UFAL (Union des Familles Laïques www.ufal.org) often argues against Muslim women wearing hijabs in public.

Discussions about the role of religion in public spaces are paired with the creation of venues for negotiating atheist identities and communities, both online and offline. The analysis of the blogs shows that while they aim to promote secularization, the European Humanist Federation and its member associations often replicate structures that mirror religious organizations. For example, the Belgian CAI (Centre d’Action Laïque, www.laicite.be) offers a number of online and offline services to atheists, including weddings, funerals, and activities for young people. The blogs become spaces for community creation as they offer venues where people can interact with each other in a way that would be difficult for them to do in physical places.

These blog interactions help articulate an atheist identity based on shared values such as rationality, self-determination, and the importance of civil and human rights. Therefore, atheist groups often create campaigns in support of social matters such as same-sex marriage, reproductive health, and euthanasia. Support for these social issues is articulated as criticism of the hegemonic role of the Catholic Church: by trying to interfere with the state and dictate religious-inspired behaviors, atheist blogs argue, the Vatican occupies spheres of public life that should actually be secular.

The chapter concludes by explaining how blogs address atheists’ perceived need to advocate secularization, and how these blogs become venues where their identity can be articulated in opposition to the Vatican. The process of creating identity is, however, based not merely on negating Catholic values; atheist associations symbolically attack the hegemonic role of the Catholic Church by trying to establish a secularist public sphere grounded in values, such as rationality, that are discussed and negotiated in the Internet space.

4.“I’M MUSLIM AND EUROPEAN” Defeating Stereotypes and Articulating Hybrid Identities

Recent waves of immigration have contributed greatly to religious change in Europe, forcing a rethinking of European culture and identity in relation to Islam. European countries often find it difficult to accept the presence of Muslims, especially in the case of visible Islamic symbols: the Swiss restrictions on building Muslim minarets in 2009 (Awad 2013) and the French bans in 2004 and 2010 on religious clothing in certain public places and garments covering the face (Maeder, Dempsey, and Pozzulo 2012) are two instances that have made Muslims feel discriminated against in the public sphere. Episodes of violence and terrorism in the

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UK, France, and Belgium have contributed toward reinforcing anti-Muslim attitudes and viewing Islam as being incompatible with European Christian values (Roy 2013).

The chapter, analyzing blogs written in French and Italian by Muslim Europeans, argues that digital spaces can provide venues for negotiating the presence of Muslims in Europe beyond mainstream media-reinforced stereotypes of cultural and religious incompatibility. Such blogs discuss the practice of Islam in Europe while at the same time talking about issues of migration and ethnicity, carving out multiculturalist spaces that indirectly challenge the privileged role of Catholic symbols and values in the European public sphere.

The Internet can become a space where Muslims living in Europe are able to reflect upon religious practices and share information, partially substituting the role of religious authorities. The French language blog Journal du Musulman (www.journaldumusulman.fr), for example, provides lists of technologies for religious practice, such as apps for reading the Qur’an and live streaming of prayers from Mecca; in this way, the blog offers a space for Muslims to comment about Islam in Europe, collectively negotiating their private religious practice in contexts where Islam is often not part of the public space.

Together with providing tools for religious practice, Muslim blogs describe the experiences of European Muslims, which often have a marked gender dimension due to the greater visibility of headscarf-wearing women. The blog Islam & Info (www.islametinfo.fr), written in French, publishes stories and videos by women who cover their heads in everyday life. These posts employ a storytelling style to normalize the visible presence of Muslim women in society as being nonthreatening and compatible with Western values, in contrast to the perceived stigmatization and stereotypes. The blog criticizes the French laïcité and the hegemonic role of Catholicism by stating that Muslim headscarves should have the same right to be displayed in public as Catholic symbols such as crosses and nuns’ garments.

The creation of multicultural spaces is paired with the articulation of European Muslim identities. The Italian blog Yalla (www.yallaitalia.it), for example, advocates that the process of gaining Italian citizenship be expedited for the children of immigrants. This kind of effort is not only aimed at offering second-generation Italians more opportunities in terms of work and political engagement, but is moreover a symbolic way of stating that Muslims are entitled to recognition as Italian citizens. In this manner, the blogs become a space for articulating hybrid Muslim identities that, while treasuring the bloggers’ cultural and religious background, prove to be compatible with European values. In addition, it challenges the hegemonic power of Catholicism by showing that European identities do not need to be based solely on Catholic values.

Through their narratives, Muslim blogs in Europe play a role in challenging stereotypes and promoting integration. The chapter concludes by showing how these blogs are relevant spaces for two main reasons: firstly, they acknowledge the lack of Muslim public spaces for religious practice and provide alternative, Internet-

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based spaces for negotiating religiosity; and secondly, they normalize the presence of Islam in public spaces by presenting it as unthreatening, thereby articulating hybrid Muslim-European identities at the interstice of different cultures. In doing so, the blogs implicitly criticize European society for promoting a secularism that accepts Catholicism in the public sphere but rejects Islam. The Internet thus becomes a way of promoting multicultural physical and virtual spaces where Muslim identities are articulated as potentially enriching for a global society.

5.“TOO MUCH SECULARISM” Alternative Spaces of Protest within the Catholic Church

The growing numbers of atheists and Muslims in Europe are symbolically challenging the hegemonic position of the Catholic Church. However, these trends are paired with examples of re-publicization of Catholicism (Herbert 2011), for instance groups occupying public spaces in order to advocate a more prominent public role for Catholicism in Europe. While these groups do not oppose the Vatican, they nonetheless tend to follow religious authorities other than the Pope, meaning that religious change is qualified as internal change within the Catholic Church.

This chapter analyzes the blogs of Catholic-inspired movements that organize activities in support of traditional family values and criticize what they see as a progressive secularization of the public sphere. A blog published by the French umbrella association Manif Pour Tous (www.lamanifpourtous33.blogspot.fr), for example, expounds upon efforts made by the group specifically against same-sex unions and more generally to protect the Catholic family model. While not connected with the Catholic Church, Manif Pour Tous is strongly inspired by Catholic values in using public spaces to protest issues concerning the private spheres of body and sexuality.

Catholic groups find unique ways to charge public space with religious values. The French group Veilleurs Debout, for example, organizes gatherings against same-sex unions where participants stand in silence and at a distance from one another; in this manner they sidestep any accusations of homophobic speech, which is a crime under French law. Inspired by Veilleurs Debout, the Italian group Sentinelle in Piedi (www.sentinelleinpiedi.it) organizes similar protests (with the added characteristic of protestors reading a book) but has achieved greater popularity and a more dynamic online presence than its French counterpart.

Sentinelle in Piedi regularly arranges local and national protests, organized through its blog and social networks. The physical presence of the group’s members gives powerful connotation to the public space, and the act of each protester reading a different book in silence – explained on the blog as a way of meaningfully deepening their knowledge – symbolically recalls religious engagement in prayers and meditation. Silence is an act of resistance against what they see as a secular public sphere, with participants refusing to speak to journalists from national media outlets – and researchers too, as the book’s author discovered when she tried unsuccessfully to obtain formal interviews with their leadership – because they are allegedly aligned with dominant thought influenced by secularism.

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This refusal to interact with mainstream media is paired with intense online activity. As the analysis of its blog shows, Sentinelle in Piedi trusts only a handful of Catholic websites as sources of information, and these become privileged spaces for sharing opinions and getting in contact with like-minded people. These spaces often point to alternative religious authorities; the Catholic journalist Costanza Miriano, who often covers Vatican-related news in Rome, writes an influential blog (www.costanzamiriano.com) where she articulates the core values of Catholic action against same-sex unions, thus becoming an informal intellectual authority for the group Sentinelle in Piedi. Costanza Miriano defines herself as a devout Catholic and does not criticize the Pope, but often talks about other religious figures who are more aligned with her way of thinking, such as the Spanish artist Kiko Argüello, who founded the Catholic movement Neocatechumenal Way and is vocal against same-sex unions.

The recent proliferation of Catholic-inspired groups is symptomatic both of anxieties for modernity (which is viewed as increasingly relinquishing Catholic values) and an implicit critique of certain aspects of the Vatican. The chapter concludes by arguing that groups like Sentinelle in Piedi are in part responding to the comparatively accommodating attitude of Pope Francis toward homosexuals and nontraditional families. Therefore, they implicitly call for stronger action from the Vatican against the perceived dominant secular mentality and a greater role for the Catholic Church in the public sphere. Blogs have a central role in organizing gatherings in public physical spaces and providing unique venues for articulating non-mainstream Catholic identities that seldom find spaces of expression within mainstream Catholicism.

CONCLUSION Creating Digital Spaces of Religiosity

European countries that are predominantly Catholic often regard Christianity as a source of moral and ethical values that influences also secular spheres. Catholicism, on the one hand, occupies a privileged role in the public sphere and gains influence on institutional spaces that are inaccessible to other religions. On the other hand, there is an implicit understanding that Catholicism accepts and endorses certain aspects of secularism. This status quo is based on the implicit assumption that Christian values alone can be intertwined with secularism, while other religions, Islam in particular, are incompatible with Western democracies. (Asad 2003; Casanova 2006). This mentality creates a type of “Catholic secularism” that often results in a complicated relationship between religious and nonreligious spaces that leaves certain groups out of public discourses.

This chapter reflects on the digital narratives of atheist, Muslim, and Catholic groups in relation to these complex power relationships, arguing that they are highly dependent on the question of religious spaces, especially in relation to the categories of mainstream and alternative, public and private, real and imaginary. As the book’s chapters have shown, different groups create digital spaces of religiosity that go beyond institutions and help the discursive production of meanings and

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values. The groups perceive themselves as non-mainstream and somehow marginalized by the dominant Catholic religious mentality because they cannot occupy the same hegemonic spaces in society. However, they do not conceptualize “Catholic secular” hegemony in the same way, and their perceptions may even be at odds with each other. Atheists see public space as being occupied by Catholic meanings and symbols, Muslims perceive themselves as marginalized compared to Catholics, and conservative Catholic groups see the public space as exceedingly secular.

Groups that perceive such marginalization frequently cannot even physically enter the public space and thus remain confined within private venues of practice. Digital practices allows for carving spaces to discuss the role religion should – or should not – play in private and public social spaces, and trigger social action in public venues. In establishing a digital presence, groups challenge the hegemonic role of the Vatican and of “Catholic secularism” by imagining alternative social models in-between online and offline activities: a secular society, a multifaith society, a traditional Catholic society.

Therefore, the Internet, while not directly impacting religious institutions, gives symbolic visibility to certain groups and forces a re-thinking of contemporary religiosity in a way that was more complicated to achieve in the pre-digital era. Through digital practices, religious groups create fluid spaces of religiosity that are neither solely virtual, nor existing only in physical venues, but rather confer a new quality to religion that is inevitably dependent on media logic. Processes of religious mediatization, indeed, allow for the creation of spaces that change the way religiosity is lived and perceived.

The book’s concluding remarks suggest that digital spaces of religiosity could provide improved dialogic participation. The groups under analysis rarely enter in conversation with each other, and despite mainly targeting religious institutions they are seldom able to establish a meaningful dialogue with them. A long-term and structured digital presence could possibly provide a space where groups express their different positions and dialogue with other religious organizations. If religious groups felt that their voices were just as likely to be heard as mainstream “Catholic secularism,” they might better be able to address their perceived marginalization and lack of symbolic power.

The chapter concludes by reflecting upon the question of space and its relevance to religious change. Because fluid spaces of religiosity exist between online and offline venues and create new understandings of practices and beliefs, spatial metaphors within digital studies are increasingly useful to approach religious groups and their Internet presence. The chapter argues also that there is a need for more comparative works and for greater attention to digital discursive production of non-mainstream religious groups. While the book only analyzed certain religious voices, it has shown that these groups deserve scholarly attention because they are doing significant symbolic work in establishing more fluid religious identities and public

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venues where these identities can coexist, and in creating spaces that play an increasingly relevant role within larger processes of religious change.

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4. Definition of the Market

The book is aimed at scholars in the humanities and social sciences, including researchers, graduate students, and higher-level undergraduates. Because of its focus on both media and religion, it will address an interdisciplinary and international audience of religious scholars, sociologists and anthropologists of religion, and media and communication scholars. More specifically, thanks to its focus on religious change in Catholic European countries, it seeks to appeal to academics working in the fields of secularism, Catholicism, and Islam. While its primary target is scholars interested in the European context of religion and media, it can also be used as a comparative source by those specializing in other geographical contexts, and it can appeal to practitioners outside academia; it is thus suitable for promotion throughout the international academic library market.

In particular, the book will interest international organizations such as the International Society for Media, Religion and Culture (ISMRC), the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), and the International Society for Sociology of Religion (ISSR). In addition, academic centers and networks that focus on religion and media such as the Observatori Blanquerna de Comunicació, Religió y Cultura in Spain, the Nordic Research Network on the Mediatization of Religion and Culture in Scandinavia, and the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies in the United States will be interested in the book as it reflects and builds on their

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research into mediation and mediatization. Moreover, the book’s intended market corresponds with the readership of academic journals such as the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture and Journal of Media and Religion. It would thus make sense to present the book within these journals and at conferences on the topic of religion and media.

In addition, there are other potential markets for the book. In university classes it could constitute a core reading text for graduate and undergraduate seminars on religion and media. A list of syllabi on the topic put together by the AEJMC Religion and Media interest group shows that seminars of this kind have been developed over recent years for a range of departments and class levels (http://religionandmedia.org/syllabi/). For example, undergraduate classes in Religion and Media offered at New York University (http://bit.ly/2jFgsZ7), focusing on topics such as secularization and Islam-related controversies in Europe, could find in my book a suitable teaching resource. Graduate seminars in Media, Myth, and Ritual at the University of Colorado Boulder (http://bit.ly/2kA84JZ), offered to media studies and religious studies students, could include my book in the syllabus as they employ texts on digital media and religious change.

In addition, the increasing attention toward developing both media literacy curricula and using digital media in the classroom (see for example the Journal of Media Literacy Education) makes a book about blogging a compelling resource for a variety of classes. For example, the book could be employed in classes on new media, alternative media, and digital methods, because of its focus on blogging and its mixed methodology. It can be also used in classes about global media, as well as comparative religions and religions in Europe, because of its international and non-U.S. focus. While the book’s style and theoretical framework best suits graduate students or higher-level undergraduates, the chapters presenting case studies can be used discretely in introductory undergraduate courses to give empirical examples of digital practices.

Finally, the book could appeal to a general non-academic public of educated readers interested in media and religion. Media practitioners working within religious institutions might benefit from the book’s reflections on religious change and media practices. For example, communication officers and journalists associated with the Catholic Church, as well as practitioners within the Secretariat for Communication of the Vatican (http://bit.ly/2kwqpIe) are likely to be interested in this type of publication.

Therefore, it is anticipated that the book can achieve widescale distribution within and beyond Europe, in academic and non-academic libraries. Indeed, the comparative character of the book makes it appropriate for English-taught university classes in Europe, in the United States and elsewhere, and its interdisciplinary nature would make it a useful addition in departments such as journalism, communication, media studies, religious studies, and sociology of religions. The book’s potential application in both research and teaching makes it highly likely that professors in these departments will order it or ask their libraries to do so.

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5. Review of the Main Competitive Books

The book will relate to other works on religion and media, digital media, religion and secularization. It would appeal to a readership interested in such topics, offering a theoretical reflection on the concept of space and a comparative approach between non-mainstream religious groups and secularism. In addition, unlike many other books in the field, it is not centered on the United States and therefore can add nuances to the understanding of religious change in the West.

A list of works that relate to my book is given below (in chronological order and quoting the price in several currencies):

Russell, Adrienne, and Echchaibi, Nabil. 2009. International Blogging: Identity, Politics and Networked Publics . First printing edition. New York: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. 205 pages, € 29.20 International Blogging is an edited collection of international case studies on blogs as venues for alternative social and political discourses. In contrast to this work, my book argues that blogs play a role in defining religious identities and focuses on the specific European context, thereby providing the reader with more in-depth information on the sociopolitical environment in which the blogs are created. My book can be used in conjunction with Russell and Echchaibi’s in undergraduate and graduate classes about alternative media and digital media.

Echchaibi, Nabil. 2011. Voicing Diasporas: Ethnic Radio in Paris and Berlin Between Cultural Renewal and Retention . Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 194 pages, $ 84 hardbackVoicing Diasporas explores religious change in Europe through its analysis of migrant groups’ uses of media in France and Germany, describing the articulation of Muslim identities in the West. My book adds complexity to Echchaibi’s reflection by analyzing both migrant and non-migrant groups and considering changing religiosity as a broader phenomenon that includes atheism and the return to traditional Catholicism.

Campbell, Heidi A., ed. 2012. Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds . Abingdon, Oxon. and New York: Routledge. 288 pages, $ 27 paperback, $ 75 hardbackThis book constitutes a complete survey of digital religion, with contributors from various disciplines and geographical contexts discussing the emerging field of study of religion and digital media. While Campbell’s work examines a broad range of digital platforms and technology, mine is focused on blogs and discusses a specific context in greater depth, thus providing the reader with the conditions of online textual production. I anticipate that my book would interest the same readership as Campbell’s and target a similar market.

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Gillespie, Marie, David Eric John Herbert, and Anita Greenhill. 2013. Social Media and Religious Change . Boston: De Gruyter. 240 pages, $ 168 hardback, $ 19.95 paperbackThis book analyzes the coverage of religion and secular themes, as well as the digital media practices connected with various religious traditions. While similarly addressing the mediation of religion and spirituality, my book will add complexity to the debate by analyzing the discursive production of religious change by three groups in the same socio-cultural contexts, thereby revealing how meanings and values are perceived through the lens of different religious backgrounds. My book can be used in conjunction with the work of Gillespie et al. in classes on digital media, mediation, and mediatization.

Lövheim, Mia, ed. 2013. Media, Religion and Gender: Key Issues and New Challenges . 1 edition. London and New York: Routledge. 224 pages, £ 25,99 paperback, £ 85 hardback With contributions by various authors, the book explores the role of gender in religion and media. The book considers blogs in addition to other platforms, and can be viewed in context to Lövheim’s previous work on women’s blogs as ethical spaces. My book, however, while touching upon gender within religious groups, does this in relation to social change and political struggles, and combines it with an analysis of blogs as venues for the expression of religious – rather than gender – minorities.

Braidotti, Rosi, Blaagaard, Bolette, Midden, Eva, and de Graauw, Tobijn eds. 2014. Transformations of Religion and the Public Sphere: Postsecular Publics . 2014 edition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 281 pages, $ 100 hardbackThis multi-author book discusses the concepts of secular and post-secular in the public sphere, while also taking online platforms into account. In this respect it differs from my work, which reflects on how digital media can influence the understanding of the public sphere and allow non-mainstream religious groups to enhance their perceived public participation. It thus provides the reader with a discussion on how religious groups perceive religion and the secular within the public sphere.

Granholm, Kennet, Marcus Moberg, and Sofia Sjö. 2014. Religion, Media, and Social Change . New edition. New York: Routledge. 214 pages, $ 140 hardback Religion, Media, and Social Change is a collection about legacy media and new media in relation to religious change and secularization. While the book presents a variety of case studies, it focuses mainly on Northern Europe and its theoretical traditions of mediatization. By contrast, my book will offer the reader a case study of Catholic European countries that can add depth to the understanding of religion and secularization in Europe, discussing the implications of the theory of mediation and mediatization while appealing to a similar readership of Religion, Media, and Social Change.

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Keller, Jessalynn. 2015. Girls’ Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age . New York: Routledge. 212 pages, £ 90 hardback This book analyzes the social aspects of blogging in connection to the production of feminist discourses, whereas my book will place the emphasis on how blogs can give space to non-mainstream discourses – not only about feminism or gender, but also about religion. My book could be used together with Keller’s work in digital methodology seminars, since they both employ textual analysis combined with interviews.

Reilly, Paul, Veneti, Anastasia, and Atanasova, Dimitrinka. 2017. Politics, Protest, Emotion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, A Book of Blogs . <https://pauljreillydot.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/politics-protest-emotion-interdisciplinary-perspectives-1483709019-_print.pdf> . 190 pages, open access. This book contains a wide range of academic reflections on a variety of social phenomena. Resulting from a workshop, the book is written in the form of blog posts rather than academic research, all showing the relevance of studying blogs both as cultural products and tools of dissemination. However, the book completely overlooks religious blogs and religious movements; my book will similarly show that blogs need to be given scholarly attention as they are important to political and social movements, but will specifically focus on religious blogs.

Hoover, Stewart, and Echchaibi, Nabil (eds) The Third Spaces of Digital Religion. Penn State University Press. Forthcoming The book theorizes the concept of Third Space through a number of case studies of religious phenomena on the Internet. The book, for which I have written a chapter, is the first publication to discuss the theory of Third Space – a concept that has already been presented in conferences and workshops. Readers interested in this theoretical framework and in spatial metaphors of the Internet will probably also wish to read my book, which will discuss the concept of space to describe phenomena of religious change in relation to digital discourses.

6. Format

The manuscript will be approximately 200 pages in length. Given that the book will be based on a dissertation of 74,323 words, I anticipate roughly 80,000 words for the final manuscript.

The work will contain approximately ten pictures, including screenshots of the blogs and photographs of the groups analyzed as case studies. Color pictures might be included, but this is not absolutely necessary.

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7. Timing

I expect to submit the finished manuscript in February 2018. I already collected the majority of the data for my dissertation in 2015 and 2016, and the first part of 2017 will be dedicated to finishing the fieldwork of French-language case studies. Summer and fall 2017 will be dedicated to elaborating the book’s theoretical framework in relation to the case studies, while winter 2017 will be set aside for final writing and editing. As I am currently holding a research-only postdoctoral position, I plan to dedicate all my attention to this book in the coming year, which will enable me to finish it within the expected timeframe.

8. Sample Writing

Please find attached:

#2 The journal article “Hybrid Muslim Identities in the Digital Space: the Italian Blog Yalla,” which has been accepted for publication by Social Compass. The article is based on data from one of the book’s chapters.

#3 The conference presentation “Sentinelle in Piedi: The Hyper-mediation of Italian Conservative Catholic Action against Secularism,” presented at the ISMRC conference in Seoul, Summer 2016. The presentation is based on a book chapter and reflects on the uses of digital and physical spaces

9. Curriculum Vitae

Short Curriculum Vitae (Please see attachment #4 for full CV)

Postdoctoral Researcher in Religion and Media at Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany, June 2016 to present

PhD in Media Studies, University of Colorado Boulder, United States, Center for Media, Religion, and Culture, September 2012 to May 2016

MA in Religious Studies, University of Venice Ca’ Foscari and University of Padua, Italy, September 2007 to February 2010

BA in East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, Italy, September 2004 to September 2007

Publications:

Articles

Evolvi, Giulia. 2016. “The Myth of Catholic Italy in Post-Fascist Newsreels.” Media History, July, 1–15. doi:10.1080/13688804.2016.1207510.

Evolvi, Giulia. 2017. “Hybrid Muslim Identities in the Digital Space: the Italian Blog Yalla.” Social Compass. Publication in progress

Book Chapters

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Evolvi, Giulia. 2016. “Is the Pope Judging You? Internet Negotiations of Religious Values by LGBTQ Communities in Italy.” In Dhoest, Alexander, Lukasz Szulc, and Bart Eeckhout. 2016. LGTBQs, Media and Culture in Europe. London: Routledge.

Evolvi, Giulia. “Habemus Papam: Pope Francis’ election as a religious media event.” In Cohen, Yoel. The News and Religion: Comparative Perspectives. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group. Forthcoming

Evolvi, Giulia. “The Sacred Tech: Authority, Identity, and Practice in Neo-Pagan Digital Spaces.” In Hoover, Stewart, and Nabil Echchaibi, The Third Spaces of Digital Religion. Penn State University Press. Forthcoming

10. From Dissertation to Book

The book will be based on my PhD dissertation, written at the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture at the University of Colorado Boulder under the supervision of two prominent scholars in the field of religion and media: Nabil Echchaibi and Stewart Hoover. The fact that I took part in weekly discussions reflecting upon the concepts of mediation, mediatization and digital religion while writing the dissertation gives it the advantage of being updated with and strongly influenced by innovative theoretical reflections on religion and media.

The dissertation will be significantly reworked to make it suitable for publication. Firstly, I will make a theoretical argument for how and why the Internet needs to be considered as a form of space. Bearing this in mind, I will reorganize the literature review chapters and rewrite the case studies chapters in order to privilege a stronger theoretical perspective over descriptive accounts of empirical data. Secondly, while the dissertation focused on the Italian context, the book will contain case studies from various European countries, thereby taking on a more international scope. Because my dissertation already showed how the Italian blogs under analysis have global aspirations in connecting with other similar groups in Europe, incorporating the analysis of blogs in French will provide a better understanding of religious change in Western modernity while maintaining the same focus on non-mainstream religious groups. Thirdly, in order to target a broader audience of scholars across various disciplines, I will modify the linguistic style and give a more detailed explanation of terms and theories that are specific to media studies. The endnotes will be rearranged and, where possible, embedded into the text in order to improve the argumentative flow.

The book will rely on the same data as in the dissertation (having been collected in 2015 it is still valid), with additional case studies of blogs in Europe. Moreover, it will contain more theoretical reflections on the concept of digital space and connect it with the concepts of mediation and mediatization. Such changes will result in a compelling book of interest to a wider readership, while also containing remarks on

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how to advance the field of religion and media as a whole.

11. Details of academic referees

The following prominent scholars in the field of religion and media could give valuable feedback on the book:

Pauline Hope Cheung, Associate Professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University, United States. Contact: Pauline.Cheong@asu.edu.

Lynn Schofield Clark, Professor and Chair of the Department of Media, Film, and Journalism Studies at University of Denver, United States. Contact: Lynn.Clark@du.edu

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