Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Magali do Nascimento Cunha 146 churches and their leaders, for more presence and participation in the executive, legislative, and judi - cial branches; 5. the emergence of political activism among evangel- icals, in addition to institutional politics, with the discussion and realization of campaigns related to political issues, calls for public actions, and intense activity in digital media; 6. the expansion of cases of religious intolerance, with a greater incidence against people and groups of religions of African-Brazilian origin, which causes a more intense presence of these groups in the pub- lic space with demands for the right to religious freedom. This study dedicates to the phenomenon of the expan- sion of space occupation by evangelicals in national politics, with an emphasis on the place of the media in this process. Attention is directed to a phenomenon: the emergence of evangelical polit- ical activism. The aim is to demonstrate how the mediatization of religions, specifically the process that involves the evangelical faith in Brazil, is an enhancer of this phenomenon, causing the emergence of evangelical digital political activism. The study is developed in an interdisciplinary perspec- tive based on a bibliographic review of theoretical approaches to communication (studies on social mediatization and religions) and studies of religion (evangelicals in politics in Brazil), com- bined with the mapping and classification of the performance of individuals and evangelical groups that practice political ac- tivism on social media in Brazil at present, carried out by the author in post-doctoral research (CUNHA, 2017a). It is important to note that this work is focused on the relationship between evangelicals, politics, and the media, in- terpreting it as a cultural phenomenon. Joanildo Burity (2016) draws attention to this when he recognizes that as culture is more than the way of life of a group, being a field of disputes over the horizon of an alternative order, religion has not only come to occupy a spot in public space but has built what we des- ignate public religion. In this understanding, not only does re-