Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Religions in the media polis: mediatization, Protestants and politics in Brazil 161 predominance they achieve in the political party space. In this context, the actions of the media promote the invisibility of oth- er religious and even evangelical groups, of a progressive nature. The mapping carried out in the research showed that the evangelical groups most in evidence in the traditional media in Brazil are Pentecostal in totality and have financial resources, achieved by religious practices based on the theology of prosper- ity, the one that reaffirms the logics of the market (the blessing of God manifests itself in material elements – health, happiness in the family and goods). This made possible the professional- ization of its presence in the media and the establishment of a standard of media visibility. In this track, an evangelical media culture was created and turned possible for these groups and the individuals, and evangelical segments that are inspired by them to become entirely at ease in the world of digital media. As an example, we have the figure of Pastor Silas Malafaia, who, due to this visibility, was raised to the status of “spokesperson” for evangelicals, also through traditional non-religious me- dia, becoming the target character of the collection of testimo- nies, opinions, and pronouncements in almost all major media (CUNHA, 2015). Therefore, the mapping indicates that conservative evangelical activists are aware of the role of the media in con- quering space and visibility in the public space and dominate the techniques and methods of reaching social media. These groups also have discourses with theology and language that respond to the strong fundamentalist imaginary of Brazilian evangelicals. They resort to the Bible as a literal rule of faith and as support for the ideas they propagate. The privileged space for conservative evangelical groups in the programming of major traditional media can be understood by the fact that they are historically alignedwith con- servative values and policies, given the profile of their owners. Progressive evangelical activism does not have the same level of reach as conservatives: there are no media celeb- rities in this group; its theology and language conflict with the conservative religious imaginary that characterizes Brazilian evangelicals; it does not have the sympathy of the mainstream media. As a minority, progressive evangelicals occupy digital