Salvation Economics and Media

Constituting Social Spaces via early modern Pilgrimage in Lower Austria (SALVEMED)

The project is informed by the methodological considerations of Siegfried J. Schmidt, who described media offerings as products of the interplay of social processes with the help of communication instruments, technical devices and social institutionalisation. The analysis of media that uses a combination of methods (including iconography, narratology, materiality, and history of types) is therefore complemented by an evaluation of the networks involved in their production and distribution, as well as of their various forms of reception. In order to study the practice of piety – characterised by mobility, a high expenditure of time and a clear economic component – approaches from recent tourism research have proven to be extremely fruitful. For example, they allow us to open up the dynamics of media use and structures of perception and behaviour. The concept of the ‘tourist gaze’ – the medially constructed gaze that determines the expectations with which travellers approach certain destinations, how they experience them sensually (through the filter of pre-formed inner images), which places they visit, etc. – can thus be transferred to pre-modern times and interpreted in the sense of a specific ‘pilgrim gaze’. By analysing the economic and social infrastructure of pilgrimages, zones of impact are made visible, previously unnoticed male and female actors emerge from the shadows and unquestioned narratives of research – such as the authoritarian control of pilgrimage – can be scrutinised. The objective is to substantially contribute to a differentiated view of the diverse mechanisms of pilgrimage in eastern Austria and thus of ‘Pietas Austriaca’ by investigating the role of media and the associated socio-spatial networks.