COVID-19 Pandemic, Mediatization
and the Polish Sociology of Religion
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Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
Submission date: 2020-07-10
Acceptance date: 2020-11-20
Publication date: 2021-03-22
Polish Sociological Review 2021;213(1):123-138
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic restrictions limited access to religious services and forced religious organizations
to move most activities online, thus amplifying the processes of mediatization. They have also brought
to light the existing power relations and hierarchies among and within the Churches, among others in the context
of minority-majority relations. This context opens up new avenues for research on the topics of mediatization and
power relations. We argue that in order to give an accurate account of pandemic-related developments, sociology
of religion would benefit from employing user-centric research perspectives and a constructivist concept of mediatization.
Analyzing research done on the topic of religion and the media in Poland to date, we present the key
premises of our research project deploying the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse, and highlight
how it may be of use to Polish sociologists of religion.
FUNDING
National Science Centre Poland and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Beethoven 2 grant Minorities and the Media: the communicative construction of religious identity in times of deep mediatization, Ref. no. 2016/23/G/HS6/04342.