Abstract
Today, the use of media technology, platforms, materials, and discourses is often integrated into the classroom practices of Scandinavian schools. Reporting from a case study of religious education (RE) in a Norwegian upper secondary school, this chapter explores how a media-saturated classroom intensifies and broadens already established dynamics of academic boredom. Media materials primarily chosen for their entertaining and attention-grabbing qualities make up a substantive part of the observed RE lessons. Focusing on conflicts and controversies around religion, these media materials are used to grab and keep the attention of the students, in competition with a multitude of options provided by laptops with Internet access. In the observed classrooms, this use of conflict and entertainment-oriented media materials resulted in the reproduction and reinforcement of stereotypical and exotic representations of religion.
