This is my journey v2

‘This is My Journey’The Mediated Religious Experience on

British TV

Ruth Deller, Sheffield Hallam University

AHRC-funded PhD candidate

Presentation Outline

Exploring factual TV conventions Personalities ‘Journeys’ and ‘experiences’ Narrative, visual, linguistic and audio metaphors

What do these reveal about: Secularism and ‘re-enchantment’ Modes of experiencing religion/spirituality Values and attitudes towards r/s Personalisation and individualisation of belief

British Factual TV Conventions

Personality-driven – whatever subject/genre Celebrities ‘Experts’ Real people Heroes and villains Heroes or ‘good’ people (or ‘neutrals’) control narratives

About ‘journeys’ or ‘experiences’ Literal and/or metaphorical Geographical, historical, internal Tourism – look at the unusual, the spectacle Transforming – personal change

Programmes used

Am I Normal? – science/psychology Christianity: A History – history/polemic/travel Gary, Young, Psychic and Possessed – ‘fly

on the wall’ combined with ‘investigative’. The Retreat – reality

Am I Normal: Spirituality (BBC Two, 2008)

‘What place does religious belief, which depends not on rational thinking or scientific proof, but simple faith, have in the modern world?’

•Irrational vs Rational•Belief vs Science•Modern (implied: secular) world vs old religious traditions


‘Religion has inspired beautiful art and inspired terrible acts of violence. It’s provoked bloody sacrifice and led to lives of great devotion’.

•Acceptable vs unacceptable beliefs and practices•‘Good’ vs ‘bad’ religion•Surface ‘neutrality’ and ‘balance’


‘I think that, that there is a God, I, I think that Christ was who He said He was, you know. Maybe that makes me totally mad but that’s what I think’ Personality – ‘good’ personality MY belief Admission you may be wrong


‘Is someone who believes the Holy Spirit speaks to them in the language of angels worthy of our respect, or in need of psychological treatment?’ Acceptable vs unacceptable beliefs and practices Fetishisation of the exotic or unusual Moderate vs ‘excessive’ or ‘fundamentalist’ beliefs


‘What happens when the worlds of hard science and pure faith meet? Where does a sincere belief in God meet behaviour which is odd, bizarre, or even damaging to others? What is normal in the world of spiritual belief?’

•Science and rationality vs religion and irrationality•Acceptable vs unacceptable•Personal vs corporate•What is normal? Implication: we already know

Christianity: A History (Channel 4, 2009)

‘Ours is said to be a godless age. Yet billions remain faithful to religions thousands of years old’. Secularisation and continued place of religion


‘In this series, eight well known commentators will go on personal journeys to explore the world’s most powerful faith, how it began in a remote part of the Middle East and spread to every corner of the planet… how it transformed the way we think about God and about ourselves, how it brought salvation to countless people and death and destruction to countless more’.

•Personality•Individualism•‘Journey’•‘Good’ vs ‘bad’ religion




‘Whether we are believers or we are not, this global religion continues to exert the profoundest influence on the world in which we live’. Personal choice Linking to world events ‘Balance’

Gary: Young, Psychic and Possessed (BBC Three, 2009)

‘We live in an age of science and technology, yet we’re still prepared to believe in the strangest things. According to a recent survey, nearly a third of us believe it is possible to contact the dead. And a multi-million pound industry now caters for this interest in alternative beliefs’. ‘Alternative’ beliefs – implications of weird, unusual,

unorthodox. Irrationality vs rationality, Science vs belief Spiritual practices for money vs ‘authentic’ practices



The Retreat(BBC Two, 2007)

‘She has begun to find that the Qur’an answers many of her lifelong intellectual questions about the nature of the divine. The dream of apparently Sufi sheep has pushed her to the brink of a life-changing decision’.

•Irrationality vs rationality; intellectualism•Spiritual experiences respected but challenged•Moments of transformation and conversion


‘I’ve, I dunno, I mean I feel quite kind of um, I’ve… it gives me butterflies actually even saying anything so I feel, not nervous exactly, but someone said erm, if this is the one that really feels right for you, maybe you should make some kind of um, commitment and I felt really split because on one hand I was thinking wow, you know maybe I can, you know, and that’s actually I didn’t expect it to be appealing but it did seem really exciting actually, but then on the other hand I was thinking that’s ridiculous. I’ve been here for three, three and a bit weeks. And I was worried about being a hypocrite, you know, almost pretending I’m some scholar in something I don’t… Irrationality vs rationality Personal/Individual Authenticity Experience, journey


‘Yes it’s dramatic in that I wasn’t a Muslim five minutes ago and now I am but it’s not dramatic because I’m not changing who I’m worshipping, um, and I’m not changing myself, so yeah, it just feels like a kind of natural enhancement… I’ve began to feel more and more and more accepted and familiar with Islam’.

•Accepted as ‘me’•Change/transformation – but only to a point of ‘enhancing’ life •Pluralism•Quiet, articulate, limited emotion


‘I think she’s, she’s the epitome of the English Muslim because in the United Kingdom really there’s a need to create a culture, not preserve a culture, not preserve a Moroccan or an Egyptian or a Pakistani or an Indian way, but the need to create a British Islam, which meets the spiritual needs of the British people, people in modern times’.

•British/WE sensibilities•Rejection of othering and ‘excesses’– importance of assimilation•Spirituality vs religion

What is acceptable?

Moderation, tolerance, liberalism, acceptance Willingness to change or be questioned Doing ‘good’ deeds Emotional/sensory – within limits Peacefulness, silence, stillness ‘Natural’ or ‘authentic’ practices and beliefs Rationality ‘Meaningful’ The exotic – in its proper place (voyeurism)

What is unacceptable? The exotic – out of context ‘Extreme’ emotional or physical

manifestations and expressions Being ‘too formal’, cold or closed-minded Conservative, ‘fundamentalist’ views ‘Flaky’ insubstantial beliefs Irrational or suspicious/sinister beliefs Controlling others, especially children Trying to force beliefs on others

This is my journey v2

Spiritual

money vs authentic practices

unusual moderate vs

ami normal

good people

religious belief

sciencepsychology christianity

psychic andpossessed

personal journeys