With much regret, we announce that Joseph Duggan has decided to step down as co-editor of the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture (JRMDC). Tim Hutchings will take over as Editor of JRMDC from January 2013, working with the editorial board to set the future direction for the journal.

Joe founded JRMDC with Tim in January 2012, and Joe’s advice and encouragement has been of the greatest value to the journal in its first year. Joe will be leaving the board to give more time to his work for the Postcolonial Networks organisation, but he will remain a JRMDC friend available for counsel.

Dr Duggan is the series co-editor of Postcolonialism and Religions with J. Jayakiran Sebastian, published by Palgrave Macmillan. Duggan received his PhD in theology with a focus on postcolonial ecclesiologies from the University of Manchester, UK (2010) and an MA from the Episcopal Divinity School (2006). He is an Episcopal Church Foundation Academic Fellow and an Episcopal priest.

The Center for Media, Religion and Culture announces its next international conference: Digital Religion to be held at the University of Colorado at Boulder on January 12-15, 2012. The conference will “bring together scholars of media and religion and producers of digital religion content from a variety of religious traditions to reflect on the implications of new media on religious practice and meaning-making in modern society.” JRMDC co-editor, Tim Hutchings will be attending this important conference.

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The International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture, organized every two years by the International Society for Media, Religion, and Culture, will be hosting it’s conference on July 8-12, 2012 and will be held in Eskisehir, Turkey (outside of Istanbul), at Anadolu University.

Conference Summary reads:
“In contemporary societies, electronic media such as smart mobile phones, satellite television, radio, and laptop computers have become ubiquitous. Although historians point out that world religions have always been mediated by culture in some way, people have incorporated these electronic media into everyday practices, and industries and state organizations have arisen to profit from those practices, in ways that are unprecedented. Today’s media can connect people and ideas with one another, but they also foster misunderstandings and reinforce societal divisions. They may provide the means for the centralization of religious authority, or the means to undermine it. Scholars of religion, as well as scholars of media and of culture, must consider how these various societal institutions of the media interact with one another and with systems of religion, governance, and cultural practices, as our societies demand better means by which to understand emergent concerns in an increasingly interconnected, globalized context.”

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