The July 7th issue of Jinja Shinpō had two articles about digital publicity for jinja, both connected to Jinja Honchō.
One was quite simple, about a jinja creating a website. These days there is nothing particularly remarkable about a jinja having a website, and most do not get articles about it in Jinja Shinpō. One reason for the article is that one of the newspaper’s correspondents wrote about it. (The importance of that sort of practical reason should not be underestimated.)
The other reason is that this jinja, Hiyoshisha (日吉社) has been chosen by Jinja Honchō as part of its program to support jinja in depopulated areas. These jinja receive additional support, and are also supposed to serve as models for what can be done. This web page is such a model, because it was created in cooperation with the local community. In particular, it includes a gallery of old photographs of the jinja and local community. (The most recent are from the early nineties, so they are applying something like the thirty-year rule.)
The other article was on the front page, and described a two-day training course that Jinja Honchō held on the 12th and 13th of June. The purpose of the course was to train priests to put videos up on SNS, and thirty of them attended. The first lecture was general background, covering the differences between services and discussing how to avoid getting caught up in flamewars. The second lecture was practical advice from a professional film-maker. From the report, it seems to have been very practical, talking about the importance of flow, camera angle, and music, and the use of different view points, among other things.
And then everyone headed to a nearby jinja with their smartphones, to take their own videos. Or rather, to film the raw material. For the next lesson, they all came back to Jinja Honchō to edit their footage into a 30 second video, using free video and music editing software. The editing work continued on the following day, and when everyone had finished the videos were shown to all the attendees. Even though they had been filming at the same jinja, the videos were very different. Finally, they all uploaded their videos to social media, with hints on using hashtags and the like.
The attendees then split into six groups to talk over the course, and discuss what they had learned. The professional showed them all a video that he had made of the course, filming them on his smartphone.
The feedback from the priests was extremely positive, and while this was the first course of this sort that Jinja Honchō has held, it is unlikely to be the last.
The Shinto community was not an early adopter of digital technology (he says, with classic British/Japanese understatement), but it does now seem to be accepted as something necessary, and even potentially useful. That does not mean that all priests are comfortable with it, and that is why courses like this are valuable.
“Even though they had been filming at the same jinja, the videos were very different.”
Among photographers, there’s a saying: “Once scene, five photographers, six photographs”. Everyone has a different vision, a slightly different ‘toolbox’, and sees different things.
Thank you for sharing! As someone studying digital efforts in Shinto, this is very useful and fascinating.
Glad to hear it!
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