Media and Ritual: Death, Community and Everyday Life

Abstract

Johanna Sumiala situates Media and Ritual within the growing field of media anthropology, which seeks to understand the role of media in creating symbolic order in modern societies. Media and Ritual explores the various ways in which media connects us to a shared imagined reality. The book's thesis is that mediatized rituals are necessary in modern societies to provide a sense of order and cohesion, particularly in times of social disaster. Part I of the book provides a lengthy overview of media anthropology and theoretical frameworks pertinent to the intersection of media, ritual, and community. This includes summaries of theoretical discussions of ritual and community in the work of classical and contemporary scholars, especially Durkheim and Turner. The author's own position is that rituals make our social world possible by creating a shared reality in order to “protect us from chaos, fend off the constant threat of being left alone, or being excluded” (35). The next chapter explores the role of media in producing imagined communities as individuals share mediatized experiences such as the death of Steve Jobs and the publication of the Prophet Mohammed cartoons.

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