Russian Traditional Buddhism in Mediatized Public Spheres
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2024.6.2680Keywords:
Russian Buddhism, public media sphere, mediatized Buddhism, Buddhist publics, Buddhist bloggers, Buddhist collective brandAbstract
The article provides an analysis of strategies and forms of self-presentation of Russian traditional Buddhism in mediatized public spheres. The authors consider the following questions: how does Buddhism of Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Tuva present itself in the public sphere? Who are the actors presenting it in the media? How do various media, or their combinations, contribute to constructing traditional Buddism of Russia in the public sphere?
How do various media forms, or combinations of these, contribute to constructing traditional Buddism of Russia in public spheres?
Methodologically, the study relies on a combination of the institutional approach to mediatization by Stig Hjarvard, the concept of mediatized public religion by Mia Lövheim and Marta Axner, and the concept of religious digital creatives by Heidi Campbell. The authors use quantitative methods to collect and analyze data on Buddhist communities on the VK social network and expert interviews to identify strategies of Buddhist digital creatives in relation to the Internet and media technologies.
The authors conclude that the historical claim of traditional Buddhism in Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Tuva to represent all Russian Buddhism was exhausted during the period of reinstitutionalization of Buddhism in the 1990s-2000s. The revival of Buddhism in the regions of Russia traditional for this religion implied the construction of monasteries and the creation of a system of traditional monastic education of Gelugpa. The analysis of Buddhist Gelugpa communities and publics on VK social network, expert interviews with their creators, Buddhist digital strategists, and secular journalists involved in discourses on Buddhism in the media, revealed four trends in the reinstitutionalization of Russian traditional Buddhism. Namely, the authors conclude that (1) religious authority is being redistributed between various directions of Buddhism, with the leading role of the Gelugpa school, traditional for Russia; (2) Russian Gelug Buddhism represents its identity in public media sphere as a collective religious brand; (3) mediatized Russian Buddhism presents itself in four formats of discourses on Buddhism; (4) traditional Buddhist teachers are turning towards the broad online promotion of Buddhism on various digital platforms and social networks.
Acknowledgements. This article was prepared with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation, grant https://rscf.ru//project/24-48-03022/.
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