Promising Images of Love. The Mediatisation of Values and Norms in Religious and Secular Wedding Narratives

Digital and electronic media play a central role in contemporary wedding rituals, be it during the preparation, the ritual itself or afterwards. Wedding photo- and videographers contribute to the festivities by staging the couple during the wedding ritual and reception/party as well as these depictions shape the wedding couple’s and their guests’ memories in the future. The central research question is how do contemporary media representations of religious and secular weddings in Europe communicate norms and values? Weddings are understood as a constitutive rite de passage that is commonly practiced in religious traditions as well as in a variety of cultural and secular contexts. From a historical and social point of view secular and religious traits of wedding rituals dispose of a complex and often complementary relationship. Wedding practices shape and communicate gender, social, cultural and economic values of individuals and groups. The interdisciplinary research considers theories from the study of religion, cultural studies, media ethics, and political philosophy and applies a multi-methodological approach that includes media analysis, ethnographic studies, and qualitative methods. The project highlights how media representations and practices enclose and reshape religious and secular norms as well as stereotypes. It aims at disclosing these norms and stereotypes, to highlight the performativity of their mediatisation and •to question them for preventing discrimination and in order to free diversity in society. The project analyses how media representations influence and transform weddings and how specific codes and the cultural context of the involved social actors (photographers, groom, bride, family, wedding guests) shape these representations. Due to the power of images it arises media ethical questions and the research provides a theoretical framework to discuss it. One of the intended short-term results is to suggest best practices for social actors in the field of wedding media productions and a development of research tools for analysing the mediatisation of values and norms. Long-term results are to increase social awareness of the performativity of images (which are able to express hierarchical relationships among individuals, genders and in religions), in order to strengthen a more inclusive, secure, innovative, and reflective European society and culture, to improve respect and to prevent subordination