This panel is addressing religion, the construction of con-sacrated icons and media/popular culture - three fundamental concepts that have become important throughout recent debates on religious and media studies.

How should these concepts be adapted from their original scientific disciplines and paradigms to our purposes and how, analyzing the way religion is enacted in media and popular culture one could see the contribution of different discourses on the consecration of celebrities, political personalities, heroes and church representatives? Despite the apparent heterogeneity, these issues are stressing the processes of the usage of religious symbols, in order to communicate a specific construction of new "islands" of sacrality. How are these (as if) sacred icons preserved and changed in the larger system of symbols that constitute the popular culture? Are they really integrated or just and only juxtaposed? How are constructed the new hagiographies? Is media capable of sacralizing heroes, celebrities, political martyrs?

Contact: Mihai Coman (mcoman53@yahoo.com)