Introduction

Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers concrete advantages and opportunities to people and therefore the drawing of boundaries of whom may benefit from them is rife with contestation. It demonstrates a methodology of persistent looking, meaning a refusal to look away from what is kept out of sight, off stage, and out of view, as an exercise to feel the presence of absent bodies both online and offline. The book explores how the community media makers mediate difference and strive for the recognition and inclusion of a multiplicity of voices in the hierarchical media landscape. It focuses on the material dimension of de-churching and the debates ensued by it offers a productive empirical and conceptual entry point into the transforming dynamics of religion in the public domain and its perceived malaise.