Space and Place: Power, Sanctity, Media and Technology

RM 215

How do people use power through media and technology to attach a sacred feeling to a particular space and place? The principal objective of this research project is to help understand the role of power in defining sanctity, and the role that media and technology play to influence an individual’s perspective of space and place. Various studies have attempted to define space and place but being an abstract concept, an agreed definition has not been found. Due to the individualistic concept of space, people are constantly updating and redefining their meaning based on their personal perspective of the world. Within a specific place people have set an identity for that site, they have created spaces within that location that has become sacred to them. Place based identity literature suggests that identity is derived from people’s attachment to place. By an individual’s identity being attached to a place that place then becomes sacred. Therefore a place that is defined as sacred is given power. The media can define for audiences whether a given space and place is sacred. This gives the media power over how people attach themselves to a given space and how they define the place where that space exist. Media is utilized to frame and alter the beliefs of the viewer. In this study, a mixed methods approach was employed. The methods applied include surveys presented online and follow up interviews.