Page 201 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

186 Marleen de Witte

being connected. For this, religion always needs media. Ranging from the
bible to the body, from prophets to television, and from compact discs to
cowry shells, such media enable people to conceive of and establish, main-
tain, and renew ties with the presence of spirit beings.
In their capacity of connecting to the divine, modern media technolo-
gies such as television or radio are not so different from older or other reli-
gious mediations such as holy books, sacred spaces, divine objects, or ritual
performance. And yet, modern media cannot be assumed to be unprob-
lematic extensions of older religious mediations. On the contrary, media
(old or new) are always possible sources of caution and conflict (cf. Eisenlohr
2006; Engelke 2007; Stolow 2005; Van de Port 2006). They may be taken
to counteract an ideal of authentic, immediate religious experience or they
may challenge authoritative forms of religious mediation by facilitating
new ones. At the same time, the acceptance of particular media and forms
of mediation as legitimate often goes together with a denial of mediation
(see also de Abreu in this volume). Religious practitioners call upon media
to define, construct, and experience their relationship with the spiritual
world, but sacralize or naturalize these media so as to authenticate religious
experiences as immediate and “real” (cf. Van de Port 2006). An experience
of being in touch with the immediate presence of spirit power(s) is funda-
mental to both charismatic-Pentecostal and traditional modes of religious
2
bonding. For both the ICGC and Afrikania, then, mass mediating a reli-
gion that constitutes religious subjectivity through embodiment of spirit
power poses challenges with regard to binding people as religious subjects.
The question of how to turn publics into audiences and audiences into
congregations or clienteles is a question of how to produce in people a sense
of immediacy through media representation. Their success in answering
this question, I will argue, depends on how the mass media formats they
use relate to older, established formats of religious mediation through
which believers connect to each other and to spirits. 3

Religion in Ghana’s Public Sphere

Zapping through Ghana’s TV channels one cannot miss the energetic,
charismatic pastors, who, as professional media entertainers, preach their
convictions and communicate their powers to a widespread audience
through the airwaves. Some teach their audiences in church and behind
the TV screens how to turn failure into success with education, while
others teach them how to fight the Devil with continuous prayer. Others
again lay their hands on people and cast out demons, or encourage the