Rafael Fernández's scientific contributions

... Increasingly, however, the Catholic Church finds itself in a social and cultural environment where wide support for its central tenets, values, and symbols is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain largely as a consequence of the gradual erosion and loss of meaning of the traditional language of Catholicism among younger age groups. 138 Following the developments discussed above, scholars have also increasingly turned their attention to the present-day (digital) media environment as an increasingly central arena for religious socialization, especially among younger generations. While we can certainly question the extent to which "the media" can adequately be viewed as a socialization agent in and of itself, there is no doubt that audiences are affected by the media they consume and engage with. ...