Media, Spiritualities and Social Change

Book excerpt: This book maps emergent global practices and discourses of mediated, spiritualized social change. Bringing together scholarly perspectives from around the world and across disciplines, the authors explore how 'spiritualities' express themselves through and with media - from television to Internet, from fashion to art murals - as socially transforming voices and practices. The very fluidity of the meaning of spirituality is part of its appeal: it can service as easily as a reference to a perceived common essence of humanness as it can work to legitimate market-based practices. While the involvement of spiritual life with social transformation is certainly not peculiar to contemporary societies, what has changed is the upsurge of media in these matters. In the specific case of religion, globalization has unleashed a cascade of unexpected and unpredictable implications, many of which are consequences of the media. The authors here show ways in which media and spiritualities are engaged around the world in efforts to restructure paradigms, institutions, beliefs and practices to affect social change.