The aim of this thesis is to examine how religious phenomena in the TV show Supernatu-ral, with focus on banal religion, can be viewed as a part of the mediatization of religion in society. Furthermore, to find out if the representation of religion in the show is differ-ent in its later seasons in comparison with its earlier seasons. Through a qualitative analy-sis and with Hjarvards mediatization theory, as well as his concept of banal religion, Su-pernatural and its religious content has been examined. The research questions used in this study order to reach the aim of the study are what differences in the representation of religion can be found in the later seasons, in comparison to the earlier seasons? is there an increase in loosening of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the later seasons? and can the representation of religion in the later seasons of the series, according to Hjarvard, be regarded as banal religion? In addition to a qualitative method, an abduc-tive research approach has been used as well as certain parts of Andersson and Hedlings (1999) film analysis process.In the comparison of the series later and earlier seasons, this study finds that some differ-ences exist. These differences are among other things shown by the representation and the personification of God, in the series. Further, the study shows that a slightly increased loosening of the Catechism of the Catholic Church can be seen in the later seasons. An example of this is the introduction of an entity that is God’s sister. In conclusion, this study demonstrates a number of examples of how Hjarvards mediatization theory can be applied to the representation of religion in the series. Moreover, the study can, in some ways, confirm that the representation of religion in the later seasons of the series, accord-ing to Hjarvard, can be viewed as banal religion.

The aim of this study is to investigate how religious symbols have been used in marketing historically and how the use of religion in advertising may reflect different conceptions of religiosity. In this study, we look at which religions are used in marketing, whether it is possible to see a change in usage over time, and what it is about the religious symbols that makes them favorable to use in advertising. Three newspapers have been selected for this study because they represent three different types of newspapers during the period November 1901 to November 1906. The evening paper Aftonbladet, the morning paper Svenska Dagbladet and the weekly magazine Idun.  For the collection of advertisements, I have used the concept of banal religion from mediatization theory, which together with mediatization constitutes our framework for interpretation of the collected material.  The advertisements where then compiled and analyzed through multimodal discourse analysis. The results show that there are several different religious symbols in the advertisements from different traditions. It is also possible to observe small changes over time during the study's focus period. In an analysis of the material, several different reasons have also emerged why religion in advertising acts as an effective sales tool, including by highlighting properties valued by the present society.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur religiösa teman manifesterar sig i TV-serien Supernatural (2005 ff.), och i vad mån dessa teman motsvarar en "banal religion". Fyra scener ur serien har analyserats med avseende på dess tematik och estetik för att fastställa hur Supernatural har anpassat berättelsen om Kain och Abel samt skapelseberättelsen till en modern miljö med övernaturliga inslag. Studien påvisar att serien använder sig av religiösa berättelser för att skapa narrativ som inte behöver beaktas som religiöst av åskådaren. Supernatural har hämtat fragment från bibliska berättelser och anpassat tematiken till seriens handling och genre men en viss symbolik finns fortfarande kvar och på sätt kan dess tematik och estetik kopplas till en banal religion.

Through the history have the women been subordinated to the men, structures that still are present in these days even though feminist movements have tried work against them. One platform that is quite common to use for drawing attention to a certain subject is popular culture. Here the author can disguise their thoughts or highlight them through another context. This brought my attention to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale where religious symbols are commonly used through the book at the same time as women’s rights are neglected. I wanted to know how these religious symbols are connected to this kind of structures, how they are motivating them. To answer that question I used a text analysis with the focus to find the underlying factors to this kind of use of religious symbols and how the gender roles are built up. I used two kinds of theories, one is Stig Hjarvard’s mediatization theory with the focus on banal religion, and the other is Yvonne Hirdman’s gender theory that are focusing on the view of women through the history. What I found was that Atwood is using religion as a theme to criticize the patriarchal structures in her time and to comment on the use of religious symbols uncontextualized to debate on questions that affects a majority of people, like questions about sexuality, abortion and sexual abuse.

The purpose in this paper is to examine in which extent students in the Swedish gymnasium use film and tv (with a special focus on the Norwegian youth series SKAM) as a resource to create religious meaning and interpretation of life in the aspects of their view on e.g. knowledge, society, cosmology and theology. To examine this I have used a web survey which were completed by 139 pupils from different programs in the grades 1 to 3. As goes for theory I have used Stig Hjarvards thoughts about meditiazation and banal religion. This study has shown that students, whatever they are male, female, “traditional” believers or non-believers, uses film and tv in a high degree when it comes to create religious meaning and interpretation of life. I have also been able to prove that popular culture in the form of film and television has a much greater presence in the students’ life than many kinds of “traditional” religious practices. Quite interesting is that both women and believers seems to rely on film and tv in a higher frequency than the other two groups when it comes to these kinds of questions. This is interesting because the result is somewhat different from earlier research. All in all, the result of this study confirms e.g. Mia Lövheim’s thoughts that young people are not less religious today than they were before, but instead have developed a more “detraditionalized” form of religiosity. And also that “traditional” religious authorities today have lost its monopoly on the religious minds of the youth through mediatization and that media and popular culture now must be seen as a religious authority by itself.

This study has three aims. The first one is to review which Buddhist symbols are used in Rituals commercial “The Ritual of Laughing Buddha”, where Rituals is a cosmetic company, with a main focus on skin care. The second aim with my study is to examine how semiotic resources are used to depict Buddhist symbols based on multimodal critical discourse analysis, and the third aim is to examine how the concept of banal religion in the theory of mediatization can contribute to the understanding of the representation of Buddhist symbols. This paper will use a multimodal critical discourse analysis to examine the commercial and then analyze the material in relation to the theory of mediatization as described by Hjarvard. The semiotic resources made the Buddhist symbols appear explicitly and since several Buddhist symbols were found in the material, the concept of banal religion could be used as a theoretical focus and contribute to an understandning of how Buddhist symbols are used in the commercial. The results show that the commercial is not intended to convey a religious message, but was mainly used to connote emotions such as happiness, warmth and extravagance. Representation of religion is thus found in the commercial, but the Buddhist symbols are used in a different way, and are in a new context than from institutionalized religion.