Media, Gender and Religious Authority: Lived Religion in the Daily Lives of Evangelical Women

Most studies on religion and media in Brazil emphasize the use of mass media and digital technologies by religious institutions and leaders. However, the institutional perspective of these studies leaves aside how the media, as part of the religious experience, are present in people's daily lives. In another direction, this presentation starts from a theoretical-methodological conception that considers subjects' daily practice and agency, thus following Latin American studies that focus on lived religion. Working from the theoretical-methodological conception of lived religion by focusing on the study of the media, this presentation also aims to articulate the everyday dimension of the experience of religiosity with the debates that insert religion into the public space and, therefore, its political dimension. I propose to understand how the media are part of the dynamics that articulate religion, gender, and politics in the daily lives of evangelical women. In this conception, the media are understood as "material culture" or sensory forms intrinsic to the religious experience and the processes of subjectivation. Analyzing the consumption of religious and secular products and their relationship with the exercise of religious authority is a relevant path to understanding how people negotiate their belongings and worldviews and exercise agency. I start from the hypothesis that religiosity has been experienced through multiple communicational mediations that include both productions carried out by leaders and agents who are not affiliated with religious institutions, generating tensions concerning religious authority and new forms of institutionality and religious belonging.