Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Magali do Nascimento Cunha 144 and its plurality of practices), in terms of access to media and media interaction (acquisition of spaces in traditional and digi- tal media, production and consumption of content, the constitu- tion of their celebrities, mediatization of language and religious practices), as an object of the cultural industry (themes of publi - cations, movies, soap operas), as a segment of the market (con- sumption of goods, services, and entertainment), in the sphere of representation and institutionalized political participation or not (search for religious people and religious institutions by holding public office, political activism, and actions of extremist groups, with emphasis on Islam), or in debates related to civil rights (body, gender, sexuality, reproduction, biopolitics, free- dom of belief). The approaches of human and social sciences on the decline of religions due to the processes of secularization and modernization, introduced from the 18th century on, started to demand revisions (BERGER, 2001). Religions, which in the En- lightenment and humanist modernity ceased to be regulators of collective life and were relegated to the domain of the private, the individual, subjective, are now de-privatized. For João Batista Libânio (2002), this does not mean a return to the time when religions were a fundamental reference of societies; on the contrary, the notion of socio-cultural emanci- pation of modernity remains. However, the subjectivization and individualization of religions came to be questioned by different religious groups, in the name of overcoming the “imprisonment” of religions “to the universe of the individual.” These different religious segments claim the critical social freedom of the faith, giving rise to political theologies (of liberation and prosperity, for example), which results in the occupation of public space in its different dimensions (SANTOS, 2013). This de-privatizing context, of publicizing religions, gives more visibility to religious plurality and religions as com- ponents that constitute multiple and plural identities that mark contemporary societies. For this reason, it makes possible both the emergence of new forms of communication and dialogue and the reactions to manifestations of violence and intolerance. Regarding Brazil, changes in the socio-cultural and po- litical frameworks, especially in the transition from the 1990s to