scholarly journals The Dissonance of “Civil” Religion in Religious-Political Memetic Discourse During the 2016 Presidential Elections

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511878267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi A. Campbell ◽  
Katherine Arredondo ◽  
Katie Dundas ◽  
Cody Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Political Candidates ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Conservative Christianity ◽  
Core Issues

This article explores the interrelationship between religion and politics as presented through memetic discourse surrounding the 2016 presidential election. Based on a study of 150 Internet memes of political candidates and core issues framed by religious discourse, and a case study of memes focused on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, we investigated the distinct understanding of what constitutes religion that arises. Overwhelmingly, these memes evoke what is known as “Civil Religion,” where religion becomes a tool to interpret politics, with roots in nationalist ideologies. This challenges previous research suggesting religious memetic discourse primarily promotes a view of “lived religion,” or personalized interpretations of traditional religious beliefs and practices. Drawing on previous research of the dominant genres of religious memes and ways they frame religion, we find religious-political memes enact distinct strategies of political God Talk where religious discourse is read through a political lens, and vice versa. This is highly problematic as it presents religion in broad brushstrokes that fail to acknowledge the diversity of religious communities and their responses to politics within American cultural discourse. Overall, we argue religious-political memes showcase the dissonance created by mixing religion and politics in public discourse online, especially when meme messages representing conservative Christianity suggest they speak for all of American religious culture.

Occupy Movement, Religion and Social Formations

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Matt Sheedy
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Occupy Movement ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures

The Occupy movement was an unprecedented social formation that spread to approximate 82 countries around the globe in the fall of 2011 via social media through the use of myths, symbols and rituals that were performed in public space and quickly drew widespread mainstream attention. In this paper I argue that the movement offers a unique instance of how discourse functions in the construction of society and I show how the shared discourses of Occupy were taken-up and shaped in relation to the political opportunity structures and interests of those involved based on my own fieldwork at Occupy Winnipeg. I also argue that the Occupy movement provides an example of how we might substantively attempt to classify “religion” by looking at how it embodied certain metaphysical claims while contrasting it with the beliefs and practices of more conventionally defined “religious” communities.

Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse on Faith, Renewal, and Ijtihād

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-94
Author(s):  
Gubara Said Hassan ◽  
Jabal M. Buaben
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Religious Ideology ◽  
Religious Symbolism

The role of Islamic intellectuals is not confined to elaborating on the religious ideology of Islam. Equally important is their role in setting this religious ideology against other ideologies, sharpening and clarifying their differences, and thereby developing and intensifying one’s commitment to Islam as a distinct, divinely based ideology. Islam, as both a religion and an ideology, simultaneously mobilizes and transforms, legitimizes and preserves. It can be an instrument of power, a source and a guarantee of its legitimacy, as well as a tool to be used in the political struggle among social classes. Islam can also present a challenge to authority whenever the religious movement questions the existing social order during times of crisis and raises a rival power, as the current situation in Sudan vividly demonstrates. Throughout his political career, Hassan al-Turabi has resorted to religious symbolism in his public discourse and/or Islamic rhetoric, which could often be inflammatory and heavily reliant upon the Qur’an. This is, in fact, the embodiment of the Islamic quest for an ideal alternative. Our paper focuses on this charismatic and pragmatic religio-political leader of Sudan and the key concepts of his religious discourse: faith (īmān), renewal (tajdīd), and ijtihād(rational, independent, and legal reasoning).

Genome Editing or Genome Cutting? Communicating CRISPR in the British and German Press

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-66
Author(s):  
Yoo Yung Lee
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Word Processor ◽  
Public Science ◽  
German Press ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
British Press ◽  
Legal Frameworks

AbstractIn this paper, I analyze the role of metaphors in public science communication. Specifically, it is a case study of the metaphors for CRISPR/Cas9, a controversial biotechnology that enables scientists to alter the DNA of any organism with unprecedented ease and has raised a number of societal, ethical and legal questions concerning its applications – most notably, on its usage on the human germline. Using a corpus of 600 newspaper articles from the British and German press, I show that there are striking differences in how these two European countries construe CRISPR in public discourse: the British press promotes the image of CRISPR as a word processor that allows scientists to edit the DNA, replacing spelling mistakes with healthy genes, whereas the German press depicts CRISPR as genetic scissors and thereby underlines the risk of mutations after cutting the DNA. I suggest that this contrast reflects differences in the legal frameworks of the respective countries and may influence the attitudes towards emerging biotechnologies among the British and German public.

They Lived Under That Rule as Do Those Who Have Succeeded Them: Simultaneity and Conflict in the Foundation Narratives of a French Women’s Convent (10th–18th Centuries)

2021 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-97
Author(s):  
Steven Vanderputten
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Women Religious ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Memory Culture

While foundation accounts of medieval religious institutions have been the focus of intense scholarly interest for decades, so far there has been comparatively little interest in how successive versions related to each other in the perception of medieval and early modern observers. This essay considers that question via a case study of three such narratives about the 930s creation of Bouxières Abbey, a convent of women religious in France’s eastern region of Lorraine. At the heart of its argument stands the hypothesis that these conflicting narratives of origins were allowed to coexist in the memory culture of this small convent because they related to different arguments in its identity narrative. As such, it hopes to contribute to an ill-understood aspect of foundation narratives as a literary genre and a memorial practice in religious communities, with particular attention to long-term developments.

scholarly journals UNITY THROUGH DIVERSITY: A CASE STUDY OF CHRISLAM IN LAGOS

Africa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 646-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marloes Janson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Ethnographic Case Study ◽  
Assemblage Theory ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
African Christianity ◽  
Religious Plurality ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACTThis article presents an ethnographic case study of Chrislam, a series of religious movements that fuse Christian and Muslim beliefs and practices, in its socio-cultural and political-economic setting in Nigeria's former capital Lagos. In contrast to conventional approaches that study religious movements in Africa as syncretic forms of ‘African Christianity’ or ‘African Islam’, I suggest that ‘syncretism’ is a misleading term to describe Chrislam. In fact, Chrislam provides a rationale for scrutinizing the very concept of syncretism and offers an alternative analytical case for understanding its mode of religious pluralism. To account for the religious plurality in Chrislam, I employ assemblage theory because it proposes novel ways of looking at Chrislam's religious mix that are in line with the way in which its worshippers perceive their religiosity. The underlying idea in Chrislam's assemblage of Christianity and Islam is that to be a Christian or Muslim alone is not enough to guarantee success in this world and the hereafter; therefore, Chrislam worshippers participate in Christian as well as Muslim practices, appropriating the perceived powers of both.

Frames as Boundaries: Rhetorical Framing Analysis and the Confines of Public Discourse in Online News Coverage of Vegan Parenting

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-170
Author(s):  
Ryan J. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Boundary Work ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Online News ◽  
Framing Analysis ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
Boundary Properties ◽  
Blind Spots

This article examines the boundary work of frames and the methodological significance of understanding this work when conducting rhetorical framing analysis. While the boundary properties of frames have been theorized by scholars, there remains a lack of clear engagement with how to effectively address these discursive boundaries methodically. I argue that agenda-dismissal, which makes use of both prolepses and blind spots, ought to be addressed in addition to agenda-setting and agenda-extension when conducting rhetorical framing analysis. A case study is provided in which the rhetorical framing of vegan parenting in online news media is analyzed and critiqued for confining the issue within a dominant health-based frame. Strategies for dismantling discursive boundaries and reframing public issues are also considered within the context of the case study.

Sport and the Imperial Bond: The 1911 ‘All-India’ Cricket Tour of Great Britain

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 261-285
Author(s):  
Prashant Kidambi
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Princely State ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Summary This article explores the interplay of sport, politics and public diplomacy through a case study of the first ‘Indian’ cricket tour of Great Britain in 1911, an extraordinary venture peopled by an improbable cast of characters. Led by the young Maharaja Bhupindar Singh, the newly enthroned ruler of the princely state of Patiala, the team contained in its ranks cricketers who were drawn from different Indian regions and religious communities. The article examines the politics of this intriguing cricket tour against a wider backdrop of changing Indo-British relations and makes three key points. First, it suggests that the processes of ‘imperial globalization’ that were presided over by the British in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked an important epoch in the evolving relationship between sport and diplomacy. In particular, it highlights the role of sporting tours as instruments of public diplomacy in the age of empire. Second, it shows how the organization of the 1911 tour reflected the workings of a trans-national ‘imperial class regime’ that had developed around cricket in colonial India from the late nineteenth century onwards. Finally, the article considers the symbolic significance that came to be attached to the tour, both in imperial Britain and in colonial India.

scholarly journals On the enregisterment of Szekler. Communicational stereotypes recreated in the sketch Úgy-e, Magdi? by Open Stage

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-121
Author(s):  
Boglárka Németh
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Linguistic Repertoire

Abstract The article aims at unfolding the key linguistic aspects of nowadays’ stereotypical Szekler-representations through a case study on a satirical representation of regional communicative practices in the locally well-known sketch Úgy-e, Magdi? (‘Right, Magdi?’) by Open Stage. The research is mainly centred around the concept of enregisterment, thus the work is meant to be a contribution to the scarce literature on the enregisterment of Szekler (and Hungarian dialects in general) and on regional communicative practices. After providing a brief overview of the key areas and aspects along which the Szekler dialect has been enregistered so far in public discourse and in linguistics, the article tries to capture the main attributes which create the authentic Szekler voice for Hungarian speakers through analyzing the plot, the characterological figures and the linguistic repertoire conveyed by the sketch, as well as the online reactions to it given by viewers. Besides examining the most prominent phonological/phonetic, lexical and grammatical phenomena construed as characteristic to Szekler, the article also touches upon some regional conversational features depicted through stylization by the sketch.

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