Abstract

Currently, the debate on a new visibility of religious conflicts is omnipresent. This chapter uses the German context to examine visual journalism, religion and conflict in the digital age. The first section provides a research overview of journalism, religion and conflict, placing the situation in Germany in the context of other international research on the subject. Images play a minor role in this field of research. The following section maps out a case study. The theoretical framework is based on media studies, visual communication, cultural studies and digital studies. Through a qualitative analysis of print magazines, the case study examines the changing conventions of visibility in religious conflicts within the context of digitalization. Specifically, this chapter considers the visualization of religious conflicts in the media. The central goal of this section is to explore the ways in which journalism makes us see religious conflicts in the digital age. This chapter argues that the visibility of religious conflicts in the digital age requires new modes of visual media analysis that account for the aesthetics and form of (digitalized) images. Finally, the conclusion discusses the changing relationship between visual journalism, religion and social reality.