Nobel Peace Prize opens the 6th CMRC

For the first time, the Conference on Media, Religion and Culture takes place in the Southern Hemisphere and in Latin America. Hosted by the Methodist University of Sao Paulo (Universidade Metodista de São Paulo), the event will be opened by a lecture with the Nobel Peace Prize, funder of the Justice and Peace Journal and Human Rights leader, Professor Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

Esquivel, who holds Doutor Honoris Causa titles from different universities all over the world, directs the International League for the People’s Rights and Freedom, headquartered in Italy, and is also the honorary president of the Justice and Peace Service (Servicio de Paz y Justicia) in Latin America.
According to him, unfortunately, the means of communication don’t broach the subject of diversity nowadays. “It’s necessary to democratize the means of communication”, Esquivel highlighted. “The recognition of other cultures, humankinds, opinions, ways of thinking and religions is really important to guarantee people’s rights and the building of the democracy”.

The director of the Conference, Professor Magali Nascimento Cunha, says that in the first moments of the Conference, Professor Esquivel will talk about the relevance of valorizing the diversity and the dialogue in a world that is in need for peace. Professor Esquivel’s opening lecture will take place at 5 p.m, at Sigma auditorium.

Conference – The 6th edition of the Conference on Media, Religion and Culture, which is supported by UNESCO/Metodista Communication Chair and by the Latin America region of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC-AL), has the purpose of sharing the most recent studies about the ways Media, Religion and Culture interrelate. There will be seven thematic panels, which will bring scientific contributions and professionals from Brazil and abroad. “The participants of the Conference will have access to contents that represent the most recent advances in the research in this area”, reveals the director of the Conference, Professor Magali Nascimento Cunha.

The first CMRC was held in Uppsala (Sweden) in 1993, followed by Boulder (USA) in 1996, Edinburgh (UK) in 1999, Louisville (USA) in 2004 and Sigtuna (Sweden) in 2006. The Conference is opened to a wide spectrum of issues, but its key focus is issues related to the multicultural and multireligious society.

These conferences have generated significant books in the field, like “Rethinking Media, Religion e Culture” (published by Sage, in 1997) and “Practicing Religion in the Age of Media” (published by Columbia University Press, in 2002), among many others.

“Religion is one of the most important issues of the 21st Century.  The tools and ideas we used to understand it in the past are no longer adequate.  The way we had thought about religion in the past did not usually include attention to the media.  Today we must take the role of media in religion, and religion in media, seriously”, says the international organizer of the Conference, Professor Steward Hoover.

To Dennis Smith, ex-president of the Latin America region of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC-AL), “in a world where religion is used to justify violence and injustice and to promote peace with justice, studying the interface among media, religion and culture is, literally, a matter of life or death”. Smith has great expectations towards the event. “The Conference will bring provocative papers, debates and serious reflections by engaged professionals, representing the many different points of view that truly want to make the world a better place”.

GIANA RAMOS ZEFERINO