Sacred Sites for Global Publics: New Media Strategies for the Re-Enchantment of the Holy Land

Authors

  • Oren Golan University of Haifa
  • Michele Martini University of Haifa, and visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge

Keywords:

digital religion, online videos, Christian media, semiotics, networked publics

Abstract

In recent years, online audiovisual communication has become a key medium to circulate religious content. Videos have become an emergent platform for religious movements to connect far-flung publics with foundational tenets of the faith. Given religious videos’ growing popularity, we focus on the centrality of holy places and ask, how do religious video makers construct the legitimacy and centrality of devotional sites via online videos? Investigating the entire production of a religious channel on Holy Land pilgrimage, and drawing on Umberto Eco’s theory of indexicality, the study uncovered how the online mediation of holy sites is constructed as legitimate through four interlocking facets: scriptural, experiential, journalistic, and ritual. Findings shed light on contemporary Catholic discourse regarding the biblical landscape and highlight the emergent practice of religious videos to not only supplement the religious experience but also to reengage users to historically well-established foundations, in an ongoing struggle for religious prominence.

Author Biographies

Oren Golan, University of Haifa

Golan is a faculty member at the University of Haifa’s Faculty of Education. His work focuses on digital religion and online self-educating communities. He studies tensions and social manifestation of new media activity among religious communities, exploring cases such as ultra Orthodox Jewry in the US and Israel, the Zionist religious variant, and of late, monastic Catholics media making in the holy land, of which he is a recipient of an ISF grant (2017). Golan is also a PI at the Israeli LINKSinitiative and leads a NetLab on Communities, New Media and Education. 

Michele Martini, University of Haifa, and visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge

Martini, Michele is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Technologies in Education (University of Haifa), member of LINKS (Learning in a NetworKed Society) and currently visiting scholar at the Centre of Latin American Studies (University of Cambridge). A PhD graduate in Semiotics (Scuola Normale Superiore), Martini’s research focuses on the socio-cultural dynamics connected to online video-mediated communication, with an emphasis on networked publics, self-educating communities and transnational social movements. Within this framework, Martini has developed two parallel lines of inquiry. The first line explores how established religious institutions act to shape the worldviews of users and renegotiate authority on a global level on online video-sharing platforms. The second line investigates the new media strategies employed by social movements to enhance civilian control over the police, empower minorities and create transnational bonds of solidarity.

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Published

2020-09-13

Issue

Vol. 14 (2020)

Section

Articles

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