Victor Khroul

Religion and Media in Russia: Functional and Ethical Perspectives Victor Khroul

Can we understand religion without media? Can we understand media without religion? How do these influent social sub-systems interact in public sphere? The author puts these questions into the context of contemporary Russia and analyzes media-religion relations from functional and ethical perspectives. Based on several case studies and the analysis of value dialogue in society, the monograph book examines the mediatization of religions and shows dysfunctions and "system errors" of the process in Russia. Classifying different situations when religions face the media and vice versa, the author presents some empirically proved dysfunctions in the coverage of religious life. Drawing attention to particular features of the Russian context (agenda-setting, public opinion, media landscape etc), the author analyzes a set of significant problems in media-religion relations: axiological (the lack of value consensus in Russian society), evaluative (almost invisible moral monitoring in mass media) and communicative (problems with the dialogue of value systems in the public sphere). The monograph book might be useful to sociologists, media and communications experts and journalists.