Mediating Christianity in Contemporary Asia

This article aims to provide a broad survey of the intimate relations between media and Christianity in contemporary Asia by taking into account two overlapping strands of scholarship, one of technology and society, the other of religion and the media. Particular attention is given to how the invention of new media technologies causes important shifts in the ways people practice their faith and how Christian communities are formed in Asia. With the trend towards media convergence resulting in the blurring of the distinction between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ media and with people's differential access to forms of media in Asia, the article argues that an effort to achieve a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between media and Christianity in Asia has to examine how people's particular social, economic and political locations crucially influence their interpretations of various mediated Christian texts and their experiences of Christianity. Furthermore, the theological positions that Christian communities in Asia have toward diverse forms of media technology and the extent to which new media technologies are integrated into people's daily life shape the ways Christianity is practiced in different parts of Asia and the ways in which the actual contours of Christian religious boundaries are drawn.