Religious communication

So far, communication has been used as a meta-concept for the interpretation of action and identity (rather than interpreting communication as action). This approach has been inspired by recent sociological thinking on religion (Tyrell, Krech, and Knoblauch 1998a) and has proved fruitful for the analysis of ancient ritual (Riipke 2001; Collins 2004). My focus is, instead, on the interplay of semiotic structures, on the one hand, and individuation and individual appropriation, on the other. Even within communication targeted at large groups or at the masses, the reactions of those addressed could vary widely. A message that reaches its addressee and is understood can still be interpreted and evaluated very differently by one person when compared with another (see Chandler 2011, s.v. ‘active audience theory’).

Communication is dyadic. Luhmann defined the basic elements of social systems as the smallest unit which might be negated in communication, i.e. that which has already been understood or misunderstood (Luhmann 1987, 192). Too easily, however, religious communication is seen from an exclusively social perspective. For religion in particular, communication is understood as something that creates community. It is frequently regarded as a discourse preconceived in forms and contents (cf. Tyrell, Krech. and Knoblauch 1998b). Semiotic theories of religion (e.g. Pace 2009) stress the systemic dimension. They suggest the metaphor of speech (thus Murphy 2003; Paul 1990) rather than using the instruments of communication research, which are frequently restricted to specialized analyses (e.g. Cheong 2011; Cheong, Huang, and

Poon 2011). Discourse theory, too, builds on the trans-personal (Taira 2013). A growing field is the intercultural comparison of styles of and anxieties in communication,¹⁰ with even more attention now being paid to the media of communication. I would claim, however, that the potential of such media can only be understood fully within the wider framework of a model of communication.

How could such a model be drawn in a way that would contribute to a richer analysis of religion and religious change along the lines set out thus far? Again, allowing current conditions to decisively shape the theoretical enterprise is dangerous. Thus, the continuous and intensive debate about a fundamental change of religion due to mediatization (Morgan 2011; Lovheim 2011) must not dominate a model of communication that seeks to account for specifics of other religions, past and present. In terms of complexity, it should again provide sufficiently differentiated approaches and enable sufficiently elaborated typologies without being too unwieldy when it comes to approaching less well-documented periods.

Classical semantic theory of communication started from the relationship between sender and receiver (Mörth 1993). The addressing person acts as the source and a signal is transmitted to the addressee, who receives it as information, a command, or the like. Any elaboration of this model concentrated on either the process of encoding and decoding the intended message or on the social context, the setting of the communicative act, sometimes conceived of in terms of the small-scale context, sometimes or by others in terms of the larger or even the largest scale. Every communication based on primary media (language, body language, signs as used face to face by sender and addressee), is, at the least, full of interaction. Reciprocally, every interaction implies communication. In the extreme case of symbolic interaction, action is determined by the intention to transmit a message, even if highly encoded. Communication is acting, as speech act theory posits, particularly with the concept of performative speech that creates a new reality (Austin 1980; Searle 1969, 1979; see also Hardt 1999).

Religion enters into such a model either as the content of communication (talking about and to the agents of the beyond) or in the form of divine addressees (gods, ancestors, demons, the Sky, Nature, Fate) only. This does not enable it to take account of the precariousness of such descriptions and the emergence of religion in the form of the specific human (i.e. religious) agency of ascribing agency to questionably plausible elements of the situational context (the ‘environment’) that are considered to be relevant (divine agency). Here, relevance theory, as developed by Sperber and Wilson, can step in. This theory presupposes the encoding and decoding activities implied in the elementary use of language and outlined in the semantic model. Moreover, it integrates the complexities of human communication in a model that is based on the assumption that ‘human cognition is relevance-oriented’ (Sperber and Wilson 1987, 700). One acts on the most relevant stimuli of the environment. The same holds true for communication. In communication, the

The history and theory of religion 53 communicator’s informative intention to make his or her assumptions manifest, or more manifest, to an audience goes together with the need to make this informative intention mutually manifest. This could be ensured by the use of stimuli which make the intention manifest, a dimension of communication known as ‘ostensive-inferential communication’ (ibid.).

As a result of communication, the mutual cognitive environment changes (Sperber and Wilson 1987, 699). Given the many stimuli for the potential audience, the ostensive stimuli must raise the latter’s expectation of the optimal relevance of the ensuing communication. That is to say, the effort necessary to process the information (in the broadest possible sense of the word) must seem worthwhile for the audience. The communicator must produce the most relevant information he or she is willing and able to produce (Wilson and Sperber 2002, 257-8). Comprehension then means simultaneously constructing hypotheses about the explicit content, about the intended contextual assumptions (the implicated premises) and the intended contextual implications (the implicated conclusions) (ibid., 262).

1 do not intend to address here the capacity of the model to explain rhetorical devices, irony, or lying. As far as 1 can see, religious communication has not been substantively addressed within this framework, but it is here that my interest lies. When we consider religious communication, relevance theory stimulates the production of hypotheses that can help to solve the paradox of how the not unquestionably plausible can be given relevance and a ‘special’ character. Thus, evidence is identified which justifies the hypothesis and thus stimulates further inquiry. One strategy for gaining in relevance in religious communication, I claim, is the use of specific intermediaries. They are seen as ‘media’ - persons who are especially sensible to divine messages and are thus ascribed a specifically religious agency. The frequent presence of religious specialists (priests, seers, aged or young individuals) makes the hypothesis plausible and raises further the problem of religious competence, a potential paradigm for agency and power, its distribution and restriction. Numerous questions come to mind. Do specific social or spatial contexts restrict the dedicatees’ ability to formulate their prayers or to use preconceived formulae? Does the employment of specialists raise the efficacy of a curse? Could specialist knowledge be replaced by bookish information? Do semantics of social marginality or spatial distance (old women or Thessalians in the ancient Mediterranean context, for instance) qualify knowledge? It is self-evident that the legitimate use of ‘knowledge’ need not be identical to its social distribution. Evidently, the coupling of relevancy and precarious claims offers a wide field of agentic power in which to act creatively and independently of habitual traditions. Yet at the same time the power of agency to carry through such an initiative (for the distinction see Campbell 2009, 408) is dependent on power relationships.

The use of symbols complicates the model further. Whereas symbols, pace Peirce, imply the need and possibility of interpretation (see Chapter 1 in this volume), the material dimension of these symbols and their iconicity can be coupled with the concept of media. Media, in their material presence, which precedes and survives specific communicative sequences, act as further stimuli. They enlarge any dyadic perspective of human-divine communication that is implied in classical communication theory to take in secondary addressees, audiences and witnesses, connoisseurs and tourists. Communication is more than merely ‘done’ by its participants. The choice of media or ‘stimuli’ constitutes different groups and identities. Thus, spoken prayer and written curse, familial sacrifice and public procession constitute very different publics. Certain forms of communication with the divine might be monopolized, as the late ancient ‘expropriation of the diviners’ demonstrates (Fôgen 1993). Against the permanent attention of the divine, scarcity might be construed and removed. Both mechanisms are exemplified by the Greek system of privileging certain people or the representatives of certain cities in the queue for the granting of oracles (promanteia Latte 1968). Communication cannot be interpreted with no regard for power and social inequalities without shifting its core area to social structure.

This leads back to the specifics of relevance theory and my initial hypothesis. ‘Special’ relevance is claimed by introducing references to religion in the context of inter-human communication, and in being so introduced it alters the rules of this communication. The many permanent forms of media of religious communication attest to the importance, and their survival to the success, of this kind of communication. They repeatedly help to shape and reshape religious agency and identity.