The purpose of this paper is to examine how God and Moses are depicted in three contemporary American film adaptions of The Exodus story. The films I have analyzed are: The Ten Commandments (2006), The Bible: Exodus (2013) and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014). For this, I have used a content analysis and Bruce Lincoln’s theory of religious maximalism and minimalism. This study has shown that the first two films are characterized by an almighty God who helps Moses from the very first step, while the third gives a more scientific explanation of e.g. the ten pledges and the crossing of the Red Sea. While God in The Bible: Exodus (2014) is also portrayed as a god who acts out of love and compassion for his people, this is not the case in the other two films which instead portray him in a much more negative light. My conclusion is therefore that these three films do not only differ in how God and Moses are depicted but that they provide us with different messages about God and religion in general.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo alisar o desenvolvimento dos processos de comunicação de massa, a partir do advento da Internet e, de que forma esses novos instrumentos de ampliação da comunicação influenciam a mobilidade religiosa no Brasil. A verificação das novas possibilidades comunicacionais e possibilidades de expressão e experiência religiosa a partir dos ambientes virtuais. Num primeiro momento será abordada a mobilidade religiosa e as mudanças no campo religioso bem como sua relação com a nova comunicabilidade ampliada pelas mídias de massa atuais. Logo depois será verificada a possibilidade de novas construções e possibilidades de entendimento, acesso à informação e práticas religiosas a partir do ambiente digital, bem como a verificação da maior possibilidade de novas configurações personalizadas de religiosidade imbricada. Por fim serão apresentadas algumas das experiências existentes de expressões da religiosidade e prática religiosas a partir da interface digital que já têm sido utilizadas por algumas denominações oficialmente cristãs e não cristãs com o objetivo de analisar essas experiências e sua influência, assimilação, compreensão e disseminação de fés. / The goal of this work is to analyze the development of the mass communication processes beginning with the advent of Internet and how these new instruments of amplification of communication influence the religious mobility in Brazil. It is also to verify the new communicational possibilities and possibilities of religious expression and experience based on the virtual environments. In a first moment religious mobility and changes in the religious field will be dealt with as well as their relation with the new communicability broadened by the current mass media. After this we will verify the possibility of new constructions and possibilities of understanding, access to information and religious practices based on the digital environment as well as the greater possibility of new personalized configurations of intertwined religiosity. Finally some of the existing experiences of expressions of religiosity and religious practices will be presented based on the digital interface which has already been used by some officially Christian denominations and other non-Christian ones with the goal of analyzing these experiences and their influence, assimilation, comprehension and dissemination of faiths.

The work takes a communicational approach to internet memes, understanding them as devices that take place in the process of mediatization of society (BRAGA, 2006; FAUSTO NETO, 2008; VERÓN, 2014). It discusses the concept of meme (DAWKINS, 2001) and its theoretical developments, situating it in the context of media ecology (SCOLARI, 2010). It gives special attention to the discursive aspects involved in the production and appropriation of the imagery memes, which are re-signified through operations that involve frames, dislocations and re-frames (AUMONT, 1993) and that make interdiscursivities (VERÓN, 2004; MAINGUENEAU, 1998). The research examines the appropriation of internet memes in the Protestant religious field, in pages that call themselves evangelical humor. It investigates how the appropriation of this discursive mechanism of contemporary communication is articulated in the process of mediatization of religion. The main objective is to identify the discursive strategies constructed through these memes, in order to contribute to the understanding of the changes and tendencies in the religious field in its relation with the secular world from its interfaces with the media field. For this purpose, a multiple case study (YIN, 2005) is done, analyzing memes in three pages chosen from the identification of reading contracts (VERÓN, 2004; FAUSTO NETO, 2007) that hold similarities and also singularities. In an analysis of the discourses from the perspective of Verón (2004), the work also elucidates the effects of sense that are produced through memes as devices of enunciation in virtual religious environments and the interactions of the religious and mediatic fields in the environment of social networks. / O trabalho faz uma abordagem comunicacional dos memes de internet, compreendendo-os como dispositivos que têm lugar no processo de midiatização da sociedade (BRAGA, 2006; FAUSTO NETO, 2008; VERÓN, 2014). Dá atenção especial aos aspectos discursivos envolvidos na produção e apropriação dos memes, que são ressignificados através de operações que envolvem desenquadramentos e reenquadramentos (AUMONT, 1993) e que também acionam interdiscursividades (VERÓN, 2004; MAINGUENEAU, 1998). A pesquisa analisa a apropriação de memes de internet no campo religioso protestante, em páginas que se autodescrevem como de humor evangélico. Investiga como a apropriação deste mecanismo discursivo da comunicação contemporânea se articula no processo de midiatização da religião. O objetivo principal é identificar as estratégias discursivas construídas através desses memes, de modo a contribuir na compreensão das mudanças e tendências no campo religioso em sua relação com o mundo secular a partir de seus entrecruzamentos com o campo midiático. Empreende-se, para isso, um estudo de caso múltiplo (YIN, 2005), analisando memes em três páginas escolhidas a partir da identificação de contratos de leitura (VERÓN, 2004; FAUSTO NETO, 2007) que guardam similaridades e também singularidades. Em uma análise dos discursos a partir da perspectiva de Verón (2004), elucida-se também os efeitos de sentido que são produzidos através dos memes como dispositivos de enunciação em ambientes virtuais religiosos e as interações dos campos religioso e midiático no ambiente das redes sociais.

The Swedish television series “Kalifat” premiered on January 12th, 2020 and quickly became heavily debated in the Swedish media for its portrayal of Islam and Muslim people. The aim of this research is to study the arguments and attitudes found in this debate and relate them to the theoretical framework of media dissemination and mediatization. The theoretical perspectives creating the foundation for this study is the formative, reflexive and representative media dissemination as presented by Hodkinson (2017). The mediatization theory will also be used to situate the debate and the series itself within a broader context. The empirical material used in this study consists of 10 Swedish debate articles published between January 19th and February 18th 2020.  A qualitative argumentation analysis has been used to identify the attitudes and arguments in the debate. In addition, these have been coded, categorized and structured in accordance with a systematic text condensation. The analysis shows that there are both positive and negative attitudes towards the series, with most of the arguments in the debate conveying a negative attitude towards the series and its portrayal of Muslims and Islam. These arguments are mainly related to stereotypification, prejudices and negative representation. Arguments related to a more positive attitude towards “Kalifat” is connected to the journalists view of what the series is trying to impart upon the audience, and its realistic representation of an important topic in society.   In relation to the three concepts of media dissemination the study has concluded that the different arguments relate to the interconnectedness of media and religion. The study shows that most of the arguments put forward can be understood in this context by implementing the understanding of media as conduits, language and environments. The study also concludes that both the debate and the series itself can be interpreted and understood in relation to all these media functions. The results found in the study also correlate with previous research on the subject.

This thesis analyses the negative and positive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the religious practices of the pentecostal Hillsong church in Malmö, Sweden. To do so it draws on theoretical concepts of affordance, mediatization of religion, and media effects, in order to explore what emerged through digital ethnographic research that included church event observations, interviews, and qualitative surveys. It is argued that the digital form of communication among believers during the pandemic constrained religious practices in terms of service, congregational worship and connection with fellow worshippers. However, this kind of communication has also made it possible to maintain church fellowship in a creative and simultaneously safe and feasible way. The virtual space created through video streams, Zoom meetings and other online activity impacted the way people worship and engage with the preaching and the congregation as a whole. Thus the purpose of this study is to explore the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic requirement for online worship on religious practices in a Nordic location of the Hillsong church, examining ways in which online and offline religious practices were isolated from, integrated into and influenced by one another to accomplish individual and corporate needs and goals.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse the Twitter posts from former president Donald Trump, specifically the posts that contain religious themes such as references to a religion or a deity. The first question asked in this essay is about how Donald Trump expresses himself about religion on Twitter. The second question is about how these posts can be interpreted from the mediatization theory. The method used to answer these questions is a qualitive text-analysis which means that different, recurring themes and terms were identified to analyse the deeper meaning of the contents of a text and to ascertain if there is a pattern. This was accomplished by finding posts on Donald Trumps Twitter account that contained religious terms and references and then those posts were interpreted from the perspective of the mediatization theory. The mediatization theory is a theory that states that media plays a pivotal role in how events are processed by society, by framing events in certain ways, by lending legitimacy to sources, by amplifying certain information related to the event and by how different forms of media can have a co-structuring function on how something is perceived in different social dynamics. The conclusion in this essay is that Trump is shown to express himself about religion in his tweets that causes his message to be mediatized, namely by using religion to push a Us vs Them type of narrative, by using religion to frame himself as the hero or defender of the USA and his opponents as the villains in that narrative and by using his Twitter account to co-structure that narrative.

The Swedish debate surrounding the Swedish and European welcoming of refugees has during the last couple of years engaged actors from all spheres of society. One of the prominent actors in this debate has been archbishop Antje Jackelén who has contributed with articles on the issue together with members of the church board as well as the other bishops in the Church of Sweden. These articles have been published on the debate pages of four major newspapers; Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen and Aftonbladet. The aim of this research is to study the way leaders in the Church of Sweden frame the welcoming of refugees and asylum seekers in these newspapers between 2014-2016. By using a qualitative frame analysis inspired by a theory of framing used in social movement research (Benford & Snow, 2000) the study will focus primarily on motivational framing, i.e. the way in which authors set out to inspire their audience to take action in a certain issue. In three of the articles collective action frames are identified, in which collective identities are constructed and where the writers stress the importance for people to come together and act towards a more humane way of handling the refugee situation. Another aim of the essay is to study the way in which the Church of Sweden is presented as an actor within the frames used in the articles. The analysis shows how the church is presented as an experienced organisation, driven by the Christian faith to take action in the face of suffering. Finally, the result is analysed through the mediatisation of religion theory, using the concept of three media functions; conduit, environment and language (Hjarvard, 2016). The analysis shows how the newspapers, by publishing the articles, can be interpreted to function as both conduits and environments for the religious information and messages present in the texts. Concerning the third function, media as language, the debate articles are interpreted as living up to the criteria of news value despite the use of religious imagery and language. However, the method and empirical material of this study did not allow for any conclusions regarding how the logic of debate articles have been affecting the way in which leaders in the Church of Sweden debate the welcoming of refugees.