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Contextualizing Current Digital Religion Research on Emerging TechnologiesThe emergence of Digital Religion Studies as a field of inquiry has grown alongside the development of Internet Studies over the past three decades. Digital Religion Studies has mirrored research strategies, approaches to technology, and understanding of digital media’s impact upon culture within this broader context. Digital Religion research areas can be characterized by four waves of scholarly inquiry, discussed in this article. We provide a map of the growth of Digital Religion Studies by exploring the common themes, theories, and methodological approaches associated with this area of study. In addition, by highlighting three common areas of inquiry—namely ideas of religious identity, authority, and community—we show how religion is lived out and understood in a variety of digitally mediated contexts. By providing a range of examples of technological innovation and adaptation related to our and other scholars’ research in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—as well as other religions’—engagement in digital environments, we illustrate and outline the dominant scholarly approaches taken in the study of religious engagement with digital technologies. This provides an overview of how different religious actors and groups have negotiated their relationships, spiritual activities, and technology uses within online, offline, and online-offline intersecting areas of their lives. Overall, the article will provide a critical assessment of the current state of Digital Religion Studies. Digital Religion as a Field of StudyThe introduction of new modes of communication have drawn scholars’ attention in attempts to understand the changing behaviors of media consumers and the interconnections between these media platforms. This is also true for scholars interested in the study of religious groups’ engagement with contemporary media culture and the ways emerging technologies shape public understandings of religion and spirituality within digital contexts. Websites and online forums, the first manifestations of online religious communities, have been partially replaced by, and coexist with, new forms of religious engagement via social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Mobile phones have evolved into smartphones that enable users to develop online identities and perform traditional and new religious rituals through apps, digital gaming, and chat groups (e.g., WhatsApp). Additionally, during the past decade progress in artificial intelligence created new opportunities for reflection on how algorithms and bots give rise to the emergence of new types of authority and help create new religious-leader figures within digital culture. Over the past three decades, these innovations, as well as how they are embraced and/or adapted by a variety of religious-user groups, combined with the development of Internet technologies and Internet Studies, have given rise to Digital Religion Studies.Defining Digital ReligionThe study of digital religion first emerged alongside studies of the Internet, or what was often referred to as cyberspace, in the 1990s and early 2000s. Initially described as the study of “cyber-religion,” investigation of religion online explored ways that religious activity was brought into digital environments (O’Leary, 1996) and the potential implications this had for religious expression and belief (Brasher, 2001). Other studies conducted around the same time were critical in expanding the scope of studying religion and the Internet, as well as in articulating key sites of debate in this burgeoning field. Key examples include explorations into a wide variety of religions and their use of the Internet (e.g., Brasher, 2001), relationships between the Internet, spirituality, and postmodernity (e.g., Wertheim, 1999), and shifts in traditional religiosity through online adaptation (e.g., Bunt, 2003). As the Internet gave way to the expansion and diversification of technologies that came to be dubbed “new media,” however, it was clear that studying religion and technology exclusively through the Internet was limiting. This realization necessitated a conceptual expansion to accommodate new objects and areas of study. Thus, scholars have suggested the term “digital religion” as a more comprehensive way to describe and investigate religious intersections with digital media.Digital religion is described as a “framework for articulating the evolution of religious practices online which are linked to online and offline contexts simultaneously” (Campbell, 2013, p. 1). Specifically, Digital Religion Studies “investigates the technological and cultural space that is evoked when we talk about how online and offline religious spheres have become blended and integrated” (p. 3-4). Digital Religion Studies is a growing interdisciplinary area and field of research which seeks to explore the extent to which traditional religious practices are being adapted to digital environments and how aspects of digital culture are informing the life and patterns of offline religious groups. In this respect digital religion is understood as the exploration of the connection and interrelation between online and offline religious contexts and how these contexts become bridged, blended, and blurred over time (Campbell 2013). It is for this reason that Campbell ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"fwIS11Rg","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2012a)","plainCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2012a)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":132,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":132,"type":"article-journal","title":"Understanding the Relationship between Religion Online and Offline in a Networked Society","container-title":"Journal of the American Academy of Religion","page":"64-93","volume":"80","issue":"1","source":"jaar.","abstract":"This article suggests that religious practice online, rather than simply transforming religion, highlights shifts occurring within broader Western culture. The concept of “networked religion” is introduced as a way to encapsulate how religion functions online and suggests that online religion exemplifies several key social and cultural changes at work in religion in general society. Networked religion is defined by five key traits—networked community, storied identities, shifting authority, convergent practice, and a multisite reality—that highlight central research topics and questions explored within the study of religion and the internet. Studying religion on the internet provides insights not only into the common attributes of religious practice online, but helps explain current trends within the practice of religion and even social interactions in networked society.","DOI":"10.1093/jaarel/lfr074","ISSN":"0002-7189, 1477-4585","journalAbbreviation":"J Am Acad Relig","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2012",3,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2012a) introduced the theoretical concept of “networked religion” and highlighted five core characteristics of how religion is performed online and conceived of offline in a digital age. These traits of networked communities, storied identities, shifting authorities, convergent practices, along with multi-site reality, also highlight core research foci for scholars of digital religion. This suggests that digital religion creates new possibilities to help scholars investigate in broader context how religious individuals form communities, articulate identities, and negotiate authorities through practices that happen in between online and offline venues.Other scholars have approached the notion of digital religion slightly differently. Hoover and Echchaibi (2014) described this as “the religious digital,” which requires a re-centering of scholarly attention on the shape of religion in light of the digital technologies and spaces of engagement in which a “third space” emerges, a unique hybridized and fluid context requiring new logics and evoking unique forms of meaning-making. For these scholars digital religion requires understanding the unique character of digital technology and culture in tandem with new expressions of religious practice and beliefs emerging within new media contexts. Similarly, Grieve (2013) argued digital religion represents a distinct cultural sphere of religious practice that is unique, but not dichotomous with other forms of religion. Each of these approaches suggests digital religion requires a different understanding of religion as it is expressed in online, offline, and new blended or blurred spaces manifest in emerging media contexts.Current studies of digital religion explore more than just manifestations of religion on the Internet, including the study of diverse technologies such as cell-phone use, religious intersections within digital gaming, and even religious practice facilitated via mobile apps (Campbell, 2013). Even as it draws from previous scholarship on religion and media, the interdisciplinary field of Digital Religion Studies faces the challenge of studying constantly evolving phenomena demanding new theoretical and methodological approaches to answer certain questions: Does technology shape religion (and vice versa)? How can scholars measure the impacts of digital culture on religion and the effects of religion on digital culture? How do religious leaders and believers approach the Internet? What challenges and opportunities do new media pose to religious groups and institutions? What is the connection between online and offline phenomena? These are just some of the questions digital religion scholars explore through empirical studies. Four Waves of Digital Religion ResearchThese questions have been framed in different ways over the past three decades of research, a fact that prompted Morten ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"8i8UFc1Q","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hojsgaard and Warburg 2005)","plainCitation":"(Hojsgaard and Warburg 2005)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4265,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4265,"type":"book","title":"Religion and Cyberspace","publisher":"Routledge","publisher-place":"New York","number-of-pages":"224","edition":"1 edition","source":"Amazon","event-place":"New York","abstract":"In the twenty-first century, religious life is increasingly moving from churches, mosques and temples onto the Internet. Today, anyone can go online and seek a new form of religious expression without ever encountering a physical place of worship, or an ordained teacher or priest. The digital age offers virtual worship, cyber-prayers and talk-boards for all of the major world faiths, as well as for pagan organisations and new religious movements. It also abounds with misinformation, religious bigotry and information terrorism. Scholars of religion need to understand the emerging forum that the web offers to religion, and the kinds of religious and social interaction that it enables.Religion and Cyberspace explores how religious individuals and groups are responding to the opportunities and challenges that cyberspace brings. It asks how religious experience is generated and enacted online, and how faith is shaped by factors such as limitless choice, lack of religious authority, and the conflict between recognised and non-recognised forms of worship. Combining case studies with the latest theory, its twelve chapters examine topics including the history of online worship, virtuality versus reality in cyberspace, religious conflict in digital contexts, and the construction of religious identity online. Focusing on key themes in this groundbreaking area, it is an ideal introduction to the fascinating questions that religion on the Internet presents.","ISBN":"978-0-415-35763-0","language":"English","editor":[{"family":"Hojsgaard","given":"Morten"},{"family":"Warburg","given":"Margit"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2005",8,10]]}}}],"schema":""} Hojsgaard and Margit Warburg (2005) to identify different waves of scholarly inquiry concerning digital religion. These waves consider the different attitudes of scholars in the field, their conceptualization of digital technologies, and their foci in analyzing available data. The first wave of research mostly describes the emergent phenomenon of digital religion. This phase describes the beginning of the field, which is usually traced back to the mid-1990 (Campbell and Connelly 2015), with pioneers work such as Stephen O’Leary’s book Cyberspace as Sacred Space: Communicating Religion on Computer Networks ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"jiOlV2Mb","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(O\\uc0\\u8217{}Leary 1996)","plainCitation":"(O’Leary 1996)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1143,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1143,"type":"article-journal","title":"Cyberspace as Sacred Space: Communicating Religion on Computer Networks","container-title":"Journal of the American Academy of Religion","page":"781-808","volume":"64","issue":"4","source":"JSTOR","ISSN":"0002-7189","shortTitle":"Cyberspace as Sacred Space","journalAbbreviation":"Journal of the American Academy of Religion","author":[{"family":"O'Leary","given":"Stephen D."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1996"]]}}}],"schema":""} (1996). During the first wave, scholars examined the first online religious communities and religion-related Internet exchanges with a fascination for the new and extravagant aspects of cyberspace, asking questions about users and aims of Internet practices. This first phase was followed by a second wave, in which scholars started to conceptualize digital religion in a historical and social perspective. The second wave of digital religion research considers the Internet in more realistic terms and raises questions about the implications and authenticity of digital practices. Hojsgaard and Warburg’s 2005 book Religion and Cyberspace situated itself within the second wave, and foresaw a third wave that “may be just around the corner” (p. 9). ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"uPL1eNRA","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. A. Campbell and L\\uc0\\u246{}vheim 2011)","plainCitation":"(H. A. Campbell and L?vheim 2011)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4194,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4194,"type":"article-journal","title":"Introduction","container-title":"Information, Communication & Society","page":"1083-1096","volume":"14","issue":"8","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","DOI":"10.1080/1369118X.2011.597416","ISSN":"1369-118X","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."},{"family":"L?vheim","given":"Mia"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011",12,1]]}}}],"schema":""} Heidi Campbell and Mia L?vheim (2011) noted that this third wave was characterized by increased theoretical attention to the interconnectedness of online and offline settings. While the first two phases mostly considered Internet-based religion as existing exclusively online, the third wave recognized the embeddedness of the Internet in everyday life and its impact on non-digital venues. Campbell and L?vheim also predicted the emergence of a fourth wave of research, which they later described in the article “Considering critical methods and theoretical lenses in Digital Religious Studies” ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"pFaIcCu2","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(L\\uc0\\u246{}vheim and Campbell 2017)","plainCitation":"(L?vheim and Campbell 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":3998,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":3998,"type":"article-journal","title":"Considering critical methods and theoretical lenses in digital religion studies","container-title":"New Media & Society","page":"5-14","volume":"19","issue":"1","source":"SAGE Journals","abstract":"This article introduces a special issue on critical methods and theoretical lenses in Digital Religion studies, through contextualising them within research trajectories found in this emerging field. By starting from the assertion that current “fourth-wave of research on religion and the Internet,” is focused on how religious actors negotiate the relationships between multiple spheres of their online and offline lives, article authors spotlight key theoretical discussions and methodological approaches occurring within this interdisciplinary area of inquiry. It concludes with notable methodological and theoretical challenges in need of further exploration. Together it demonstrates how religion is practiced and reimagined within digital media spaces, and how such analysis can contribute to broader understanding of the social and cultural changes new media technologies are facilitating within society.","DOI":"10.1177/1461444816649911","ISSN":"1461-4448","journalAbbreviation":"New Media & Society","language":"en","author":[{"family":"L?vheim","given":"Mia"},{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",1,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2017). The current, fourth wave looks at people’s media practices in their everyday lives. It continues to emphasize the connections between online and offline venues, while also paying attention to existential, ethical, and political aspects of digital religion, as well as issues of gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality.These four waves show some facets of the evolution of digital religion as a field. Each wave is characterized by different approaches to media platforms, users, and technologies, which result in various theoretical inquiries. The four waves summarize the questions that scholars asked within given timeframes and urge exploration of theoretical and methodological tools to find answers. Theoretical Approaches within Digital Religion StudiesEach of the four waves of digital religion research posed/poses distinct questions explored through various theoretical and methodological approaches that have influenced and referenced each other as the field has developed. Core theoretical approaches within Digital Religion Studies include mediation, mediatization, religious social-shaping of technology, and hypermediation.The theory of mediation, first elaborated by Jesus Martin-Barbero ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"dv1BrST5","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Martin-Barbero 1993)","plainCitation":"(Martin-Barbero 1993)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1176,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1176,"type":"book","title":"Communication, Culture and Hegemony: From the Media to Mediations","publisher":"SAGE Publications Ltd","publisher-place":"London; Newbury Park","number-of-pages":"288","source":"Amazon","event-place":"London; Newbury Park","abstract":"Communication, Culture and Hegemony is the first English translation of this major contribution to cultural studies in media research. Building on British, French and other European traditions of cultural studies, as well as a brilliant synthesis of the rich and extensive research of Latin American scholars, Mart[ac]in-Barbero offers a substantial reassessment of critical media theory.","ISBN":"978-0-8039-8489-9","shortTitle":"Communication, Culture and Hegemony","language":"English","author":[{"family":"Martin-Barbero","given":"Jesus"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1993",6,30]]}}}],"schema":""} (1993), considers the processes of communication that occur through a medium and involve the relationship between individual and culture. Birgit Meyer ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"qi9W3xXL","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Meyer 2010)","plainCitation":"(Meyer 2010)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1215,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1215,"type":"book","title":"Aesthetic Formations: Media, Religion, and the Senses","publisher":"Palgrave Macmillan","number-of-pages":"278","edition":"2009 edition","source":"Amazon","abstract":"This book examines the incorporation of newly accessible mass media into practices of religious mediation in a variety of settings including the Pentecostal Church and Islamic movements, as well as the use of religious forms and image in the sphere of radio and cinema.","ISBN":"978-0-230-62229-6","shortTitle":"Aesthetic Formations","language":"English","editor":[{"family":"Meyer","given":"B."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2010",10,17]]}}}],"schema":""} (2010) theorized mediation in relation to religious experiences by exploring religious objects that bridge the distance between immanence and transcendence. This includes all the material forms—such as images, books, sounds, bodily practices, spaces—that participate in what David Morgan defined as “material culture” ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"f5qfR6RY","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Morgan 2009)","plainCitation":"(Morgan 2009)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1565,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1565,"type":"book","title":"Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief","publisher":"Routledge","publisher-place":"London ; New York","number-of-pages":"320","edition":"1","source":"Amazon","event-place":"London ; New York","abstract":"Religious belief is rooted in and sustained by material practice, and this book provides an extraordinary insight into how it works on the ground. David Morgan has brought together a lively group of writers from religious studies, anthropology, history of art, and other disciplines, to investigate belief in everyday practices; in the objects, images, and spaces of religious devotion and in the sensations and feelings that are the medium of experience. By avoiding mind/body dualism, the study of religion can break new ground by examining embodiment, sensation, space, and performance. Materializing belief means taking a close look at what people do, how they feel, the objects they exchange and display, and the spaces in which they perform whether spontaneously or with scripted ceremony. Contributions to the volume examine religions around the world from Korea and Brazil to North America, Europe, and Africa. Belief is explored in a wealth of contexts, including Tibetan Buddhism, the hajj, American suburbia and the world of dreams, visions and UFOs. \"","ISBN":"978-0-415-48116-8","shortTitle":"Religion and Material Culture","language":"Englisch","author":[{"family":"Morgan","given":"David"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2009"]],"season":"Oktober"}}}],"schema":""} (2009). Stewart Hoover ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"H5f6qh8m","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hoover 2006)","plainCitation":"(Hoover 2006)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":719,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":719,"type":"book","title":"Religion in the Media Age","publisher":"Routledge","publisher-place":"London ; New York","number-of-pages":"352","edition":"1 edition","source":"","event-place":"London ; New York","abstract":"Looking at the everyday interaction of religion and media in our cultural lives, Hoover’s new book is a fascinating assessment of the state of modern religion. Recent years have produced a marked turn away from institutionalized religions towards more autonomous, individual forms of the search for spiritual meaning. Film, television, the music industry and the internet are central to this process, cutting through the monolithic assertions of world religions and giving access to more diverse and fragmented ideals. While the sheer volume and variety of information travelling through global media changes modes of religious thought and commitment, the human desire for spirituality also invigorates popular culture itself, recreating commodities – film blockbusters, world sport and popular music – as contexts for religious meanings. Drawing on research into household media consumption, Hoover charts the way in which media and religion intermingle and collide in the cultural experience of media audiences. Religion in the Media Age is essential reading for everyone interested in how today mass media relates to contemporary religious and spiritual life.","ISBN":"978-0-415-31423-7","language":"English","author":[{"family":"Hoover","given":"Stewart M."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2006",6,15]]}}}],"schema":""} (2006) employed mediation to explore religion in the media age and to understand how media technologies help believers articulate cultural meanings. While this perspective might seem detached from the study of digital religion, it can actually highlight Internet-related material aspects ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"A2oxXBLl","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hutchings and McKenzie 2016)","plainCitation":"(Hutchings and McKenzie 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1566,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1566,"type":"book","title":"Materiality and the Study of Religion: The Stuff of the Sacred","publisher":"Theology and Religion in Interdisciplinary Perspective Series in Association With the Bsa Sociology of Religion Study Group","publisher-place":"New York","number-of-pages":"260","source":"Amazon","event-place":"New York","abstract":"Material culture has emerged in recent decades as a significant theoretical concern for the study of religion. This book contributes to and evaluates this material turn, presenting thirteen chapters of new empirical research and theoretical reflection from some of the leading international scholars of material religion. Following a model for material analysis proposed in the first chapter by David Morgan, the contributors trace the life cycle of religious materiality through three phases: the production of religious objects, their classification as religious (or non-religious), and their circulation and use in material culture. The chapters in this volume consider how objects become and cease to be sacred, how materiality can be used to contest access to public space and resources, and how religion is embodied and performed by individuals in their everyday lives. Contributors discuss the significance of the materiality of religion across different religious traditions and diverse geographical regions, paying close attention to gender, age, ethnicity, memory and politics. The volume closes with an afterword by Manuel Vasquez.\"","ISBN":"978-1-4724-7783-5","shortTitle":"Materiality and the Study of Religion","language":"Englisch","author":[{"family":"Hutchings","given":"Tim"},{"family":"McKenzie","given":"Joanne"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016"]],"season":"Dezember"}}}],"schema":""} (Hutchings & McKenzie, 2016). Hoover and Clark’s book Practicing religion in the age of media ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"wu4nUgaM","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hoover and Clark 2002)","plainCitation":"(Hoover and Clark 2002)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":718,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":718,"type":"book","title":"Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media","publisher":"Columbia University Press","publisher-place":"New York","number-of-pages":"304","source":"","event-place":"New York","abstract":"Increasingly, the religious practices people engage in and the ways they talk about what is meaningful or sacred take place in the context of media culture -- in the realm of the so-called secular. Focusing on this intersection of the sacred and the secular, this volume gathers together the work of media experts, religious historians, sociologists of religion, and authorities on American studies and art history. Topics range from Islam on the Internet to the quasi-religious practices of Elvis fans, from the uses of popular culture by the Salvation Army in its early years to the uses of interactive media technologies at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance. The issues that the essays address include the public/private divide, the distinctions between the sacred and profane, and how to distinguish between the practices that may be termed \"religious\" and those that may not.","ISBN":"978-0-231-12089-0","language":"English","editor":[{"family":"Hoover","given":"Stewart M."},{"family":"Clark","given":"Lynn Schofield"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2002",1,15]]}}}],"schema":""} (2002) presented case studies addressing the framework of mediation and included examples of Internet mediation. A case in point would be Jan Fernback’s chapter, which explored a Neopagan bulletin-board by analyzing the construction of cultural practices and the interplay between religion and technology. Mediatization is another perspective that has been applied to the study of religion and media. According to the definition provided by Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"O45Q59Us","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Couldry and Hepp 2013)","plainCitation":"(Couldry and Hepp 2013)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":64,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":64,"type":"article-journal","title":"Conceptualizing Mediatization: Contexts, Traditions, Arguments","container-title":"Communication Theory","page":"191-202","volume":"23","issue":"3","source":"Wiley Online Library","DOI":"10.1111/comt.12019","ISSN":"1468-2885","shortTitle":"Conceptualizing Mediatization","journalAbbreviation":"Commun Theor","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Couldry","given":"Nick"},{"family":"Hepp","given":"Andreas"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2013",8,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2013), mediatization considers media as creating long-term structural changes in society. This presupposes that media are so pervasive, they condition interpersonal interactions and social formations. The theory has been applied to religion by Mia L?vheim and Stig Hjarvard ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"90OtkLzt","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hjarvard and Lovheim 2012)","plainCitation":"(Hjarvard and Lovheim 2012)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":629,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":629,"type":"book","title":"Mediatization And Religion: Nordic Perspectives","publisher":"Nordicom","publisher-place":"G?teborg","number-of-pages":"210","source":"","event-place":"G?teborg","ISBN":"978-91-86523-44-2","shortTitle":"Mediatization And Religion","language":"English","editor":[{"family":"Hjarvard","given":"Stig"},{"family":"Lovheim","given":"Mia"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2012",11,12]]}}}],"schema":""} (2012) and Knut Lundby ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"sYuMmxTm","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Lundby 2014)","plainCitation":"(Lundby 2014)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":65,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":65,"type":"book","title":"Mediatization of Communication","publisher":"De Gruyter Mouton","number-of-pages":"752","source":"Amazon","abstract":"This handbook on Mediatization of Communication uncovers the interrelation between media changes and changes in culture and society. This is essential to understand contemporary trends and transformations. “Mediatization” characterizes changes in practices, cultures and institutions in media-saturated societies, thus denoting transformations of these societies themselves. This volume offers 31 contributions by leading media and communication scholars from the humanities and social sciences, with different approaches to mediatization of communication. The chapters span from how mediatization meets climate change and contribute to globalization to questions on life and death in mediatized settings.The book deals with mass media as well as communication with networked, digital media. The topic of this volume makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of contemporary processes of social, cultural and political changes.The handbook provides the reader with the most currentstate of mediatization research.","language":"Englisch","author":[{"family":"Lundby","given":"Knut"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014",8,25]]}}}],"schema":""} (2014), with a focus on secularized contexts characterized by a high diffusion of media technology. Mediatization of religion considers religious organizations and practices as shaped by the presence of media. While it primarily focuses on media institutions and mass media, the theory has also been applied to the study of the Internet. For example, Mia L?vheim ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"tYHLQuFp","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hjarvard and Lovheim 2012)","plainCitation":"(Hjarvard and Lovheim 2012)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":629,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":629,"type":"book","title":"Mediatization And Religion: Nordic Perspectives","publisher":"Nordicom","publisher-place":"G?teborg","number-of-pages":"210","source":"","event-place":"G?teborg","ISBN":"978-91-86523-44-2","shortTitle":"Mediatization And Religion","language":"English","editor":[{"family":"Hjarvard","given":"Stig"},{"family":"Lovheim","given":"Mia"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2012",11,12]]}}}],"schema":""} (2012) used the framework of mediatization to explore young Muslim women’s blogging. By focusing on people’s agency and religious values, L?vheim explored how Muslim women use digital spaces to bypass traditional gatekeepers and actively participate in public debates in a mediatized context. Mediation and mediatization have been useful theories to help explain certain religious phenomena in the media age, including those related to the Internet. However, they do not specifically focus on issues related to digital religion, or the distinct affordances of Internet interactions. Notable exceptions to this include Heidi Campbell’s ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"HEw2zXl3","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. Campbell 2007)","plainCitation":"(H. Campbell 2007)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":62,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":62,"type":"book","title":"When Religion Meets New Media: Media, Religion and Culture","publisher":"Media, Religion and Culture","publisher-place":"London ; New York","number-of-pages":"232","edition":"1","source":"Amazon","event-place":"London ; New York","abstract":"This lively book focuses on how different Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities engage with new media. Rather than simply reject or accept new media, religious communities negotiate complex relationships with these technologies in light of their history and beliefs. Heidi Campbell suggests a method for studying these processes she calls the \"religious-social shaping of technology\" and students are asked to consider four key areas: religious tradition and history; contemporary community values and priorities; negotiation and innovating technology in light of the community; communal discourses applied to justify use. A wealth of examples such as the Christian e-vangelism movement, Modern Islamic discourses about computers and the rise of the Jewish kosher cell phone, demonstrate the dominant strategies which emerge for religious media users, as well as the unique motivations that guide specific groups.","ISBN":"978-0-415-34957-4","shortTitle":"When Religion Meets New Media","language":"Englisch","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2007"]],"season":"Dezember"}}}],"schema":""} (2007) concept of religious-social shaping of technology (RSST). This approach considers four areas that inform religious groups’ negotiation with new technologies. These include: (1) tradition and history of a religious community; (2) its values and principles; (3) the acceptance, rejection, and/or innovation of technology by a group; and (4) its discourses regarding the use of technology. From this perspective, Campbell explored religious groups’ and members’ decision-making about technology, in relation to the extent to which they to adopt (or reject) a given medium in light of the moral and ethical boundaries of the group, as well as the motivations and consequences of this choice. While mediation and mediatization claim media shape religious processes under the influence of religious institutions, RSST stresses the agency of religious believers and communities (Lundby, ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"PzNkntTG","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Campbell 2012)","plainCitation":"(Campbell 2012)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1627,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1627,"type":"book","title":"Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds","publisher":"Routledge","publisher-place":"Abingdon, Oxon ; New York","number-of-pages":"288","source":"Amazon","event-place":"Abingdon, Oxon ; New York","abstract":"Digital Religion offers a critical and systematic survey of the study of religion and new media. It covers religious engagement with a wide range of new media forms and highlights examples of new media engagement in all five of the major world religions. From cell phones and video games to blogs and Second Life, the book: provides a detailed review of major topics includes a series of case studies to illustrate and elucidate the thematic explorations considers the theoretical, ethical and theological issues raised. Drawing together the work of experts from key disciplinary perspectives, Digital Religion is invaluable for students wanting to develop a deeper understanding of the field.","ISBN":"978-0-415-67611-3","shortTitle":"Digital Religion","language":"English","editor":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2012",12,1]]}}}],"schema":""} 2012). RSST helps explore, for example, the “kosher phone” ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"bKvfIeEl","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. Campbell 2007b)","plainCitation":"(H. Campbell 2007b)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":3938,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":3938,"type":"article-journal","title":"‘What Hath God Wrought?’ Considering How Religious Communities Culture (or Kosher) the Cell Phone","container-title":"Continuum","page":"191-203","volume":"21","issue":"2","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","DOI":"10.1080/10304310701269040","ISSN":"1030-4312","shortTitle":"‘What Hath God Wrought?","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2007",6,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (Campbell, 2007b), a device designed for the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel. The kosher phone allows use of a new technology within this bounded community, but also denies certain services, such as Internet access, that might connect to secular content not approved by rabbinical authorities. By studying the kosher phone, Campbell traced the meanings certain religious groups confer on digital devices and the strategies they employ to influence the evolution of technology. Also helpful within Digital Religion Studies have been the theoretical notion of third spaces and hypermedia, which have been used by scholars to discuss the Internet in terms of space. Stewart Hoover and Nabil Echchaibi (2014, forthcoming), drawing from the theory of mediation, described digital venues where users discuss religious practices and beliefs as third spaces. That term denotes religious venues that exist between online and offline settings, venues that believers approach as if they are authentic spaces of religious practices. The main characteristics of these spaces are the articulation of hybrid religious identities, the creation of shared aesthetics, and the enablement of alternative and non-mainstream religious narratives in digital venues. This does not mean that all Internet venues are authomatically third spaces, but rather that certain websites, blogs, and social network platforms can become meaningful as they are charged with religious values. Giulia Evolvi ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"WR1Fdlyr","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Evolvi 2018)","plainCitation":"(Evolvi 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4211,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4211,"type":"book","title":"Blogging My Religion: Secular, Muslim, and Catholic Media Spaces in Europe","publisher":"Routledge","publisher-place":"New York","number-of-pages":"200","edition":"1 edition","source":"Amazon","event-place":"New York","abstract":"Religion in Europe is currently undergoing changes that are reconfiguring physical and virtual spaces of practice and belief, and these changes need to be understood with regards to the proliferation of digital media discourses. This book explores religious change in Europe through a comparative approach that analyzes Atheist, Catholic, and Muslim blogs as spaces for articulating narratives about religion that symbolically challenge the power of religious institutions. The book adds theoretical complexity to the study of religion and digital media with the concept of hypermediated religious spaces. The theory of hypermediation helps to critically discuss the theory of secularization and to contextualize religious change as the result of multiple entangled phenomena. It considers religion as being connected with secular and post-secular spaces, and media as embedding material forms, institutions, and technologies. A spatial perspective contextualizes hypermediated religious spaces as existing at the interstice of alternative and mainstream, private and public, imaginary and real venues. By offering the innovative perspective of hypermediated religious spaces, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, the sociology of religion, and digital media.","ISBN":"978-1-138-56211-0","shortTitle":"Blogging My Religion","language":"English","author":[{"family":"Evolvi","given":"Giulia"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018",10,15]]}}}],"schema":""} (2018) addressed the theory of third spaces to elaborate on the concept of hypermediated religious spaces. Considering the intensification of media practices in the Internet age, Evolvi theorized hypermediated religious spaces as venues, such as religious blogs, that allow users to create networks of actions and actors involving various media platforms and physical spaces. These theoretical frameworks are explored through a variety of methodological approaches. Scholars often need to adapt traditional research practices to new media, or find new methodological approaches to explore digital phenomena. While the first ten to twenty years of research primarily employed qualitative methods, scholars recently started to explore digital tools for larger data collection and to expand the methodological possibilities within the field of digital religion (Campbell & Altenhofen, 2016). ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"XscgzNIt","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Tsuria et al. 2017)","plainCitation":"(Tsuria et al. 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":3996,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":3996,"type":"article-journal","title":"Approaches to digital methods in studies of digital religion","container-title":"The Communication Review","page":"73-97","volume":"20","issue":"2","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"This article reviews digital methodologies in the context of digital religion. We offer a tripod model for approaching digital methods: (a) defining research within digital environments, (b) the utilization of digital tools, and (c) applying unique digital frames. Through a critical review of multiple research projects, we explore three dominant research methods employed within the study of digital religion, namely, the use of textual analysis, interviews, and ethnography. Thus, we highlight the opportunities and challenges of using digital methods.","DOI":"10.1080/10714421.2017.1304137","ISSN":"1071-4421","author":[{"family":"Tsuria","given":"Ruth"},{"family":"Yadlin-Segal","given":"Aya"},{"family":"Vitullo","given":"Alessandra"},{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",4,3]]}}}],"schema":""} Ruth Tsuria et al. (2017) explored the three dominant methods employed for the study of digital religion—namely, textual analysis, interviews, and ethnography. The authors offered a tripod model that distinguishes between research within digital environments, digital tools to conduct research, and specific frames for digital religion. The tripod model shows that scholars need to methodologically consider interactions between online and offline environments—e.g., combining offline interviews and online textual analysis.In investigating these approaches, scholars often consider the introduction of new media technologies as building on the affordances and users’ behaviors that characterized older media. The key characteristics of religious beliefs and practices do not disappear during the Internet age but are transformed and modified. In the next section of this article where we explore three of these common themes of inquiry within Digital Religion research—namely, questions related to how identity, community, and authority are understood and investigated.Studying Religious Identity OnlineScholars have approached the study of people’s identity based on a number of cultural and social elements, among which religion often occupies a prominent role. The embeddedness of the Internet within everyday life has an impact on how people negotiate their identity in relation to religion. For example, young people and adolescents can find in social media spaces of dialogue that help them define their identity by confronting their experiences and beliefs with peers who belong to other religious groups or traditions ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"5c7QjkH3","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Bosch, Sanz, and Gauxachs 2017)","plainCitation":"(Bosch, Sanz, and Gauxachs 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4295,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4295,"type":"article-journal","title":"Typing my Religion. Digital use of religious webs and apps by adolescents and youth for religious and interreligious dialogue","container-title":"Church, Communication and Culture","page":"121-143","volume":"2","issue":"2","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"With 13 religions, 8061 religious centers, 2 million of young people, Catalonia accommodates a wide range of religions. Almost 90% of people own digital devices. In this framework, we aim to study the consumption of digital media by Catalan millennials from all over the region, with only young people from the city of Barcelona being excluded for the purpose of analysis in future projects. Religious apps, games, websites, online communities and participation in forums are some of the main issues we want to explore. We also aim to establish whether or not these devices contribute to consolidate online religious communities and to achieve inter-religious dialogue. For fulfilling this goal, we surveyed more than 1800 young people aged 12–18 years. Methodology also included in-depth interviews with coordinators from youth organizations and netnography. This research is based on previous investigations into communication, digital media, sociology and religion by authors such as Campbell, Elzo, Leurs and Hemming.","DOI":"10.1080/23753234.2017.1347800","ISSN":"2375-3234","author":[{"family":"Bosch","given":"Míriam Díez"},{"family":"Sanz","given":"Josep Lluís Micó"},{"family":"Gauxachs","given":"Alba Sabaté"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",6,16]]}}}],"schema":""} (Bosch, Sanz, & Gauxachs, 2017). It is for this reason Digital Religion Studies pays attention to performances of the self in online settings and their connections with offline environments. People and groups’ representations online have an impact on their representations in physical spaces, and vice versa. In addition, visual and linguistic tools, such as emoticons, icons, and nicknames, create new ways to transfer offline identities online. Mia L?vheim ( ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"gXGFLIDs","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2012)","plainCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2012)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1627,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1627,"type":"book","title":"Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds","publisher":"Routledge","publisher-place":"Abingdon, Oxon ; New York","number-of-pages":"288","source":"Amazon","event-place":"Abingdon, Oxon ; New York","abstract":"Digital Religion offers a critical and systematic survey of the study of religion and new media. It covers religious engagement with a wide range of new media forms and highlights examples of new media engagement in all five of the major world religions. From cell phones and video games to blogs and Second Life, the book: provides a detailed review of major topics includes a series of case studies to illustrate and elucidate the thematic explorations considers the theoretical, ethical and theological issues raised. Drawing together the work of experts from key disciplinary perspectives, Digital Religion is invaluable for students wanting to develop a deeper understanding of the field.","ISBN":"978-0-415-67611-3","shortTitle":"Digital Religion","language":"English","editor":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2012",12,1]]}}}],"schema":""} 2012) described some tendencies in the representations of religious identities online. On the one hand, the Internet intensifies identity performances, offering enhanced autonomy to describe beliefs and ideologies and connect with people that hold similar interests. This may be true of members of minority religious groups that use the Internet to express their identities, as well as online representations of religious groups by non-members. On the other hand, digital culture may result in the distortion of existing identities, with people presenting themselves—or others—in unrealistic or misleading ways. The anonymity of some Internet profiles, the creation of avatars, the circulation of deceptive pictures, may contribute to the misrepresentation of offline identities. Scholarly works on digital religion and identity often consider these nuances in relation to the specific characteristics of different communication channels.Websites, and blogs specifically, have been explored as spaces for the articulation of religious identities. Short for “web-log,” a blog is a webpage intended for a public audience; it can function as a source of information or for the articulation of personal narratives ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"RLQNLs3v","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2010)","plainCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2010)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1444,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1444,"type":"article-journal","title":"Religious Authority and the Blogosphere","container-title":"Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication","page":"251-276","volume":"15","issue":"2","source":"Wiley Online Library","abstract":"It is often argued that the internet poses a threat to traditional forms of authority. Within studies of religion online claims have also been made that the internet is affecting religious authority online, but little substantive work has backed up these claims. This paper argues for an approach to authority within online studies which looks separately at authority: roles, structures, beliefs/ideologies and texts. This approach is applied to a thematic analysis of 100 religious blogs and demonstrates that religious bloggers use their blogs to frame authority in ways that may more often affirm than challenge traditional sources of authority.","DOI":"10.1111/j.1083-6101.2010.01519.x","ISSN":"1083-6101","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2010",1,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (Campbell, 2010). According to Mia L?vheim’s ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"NcEkfeUp","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(L\\uc0\\u246{}vheim 2011)","plainCitation":"(L?vheim 2011)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":137,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":137,"type":"article-journal","title":"Young Women's Blogs as Ethical Spaces","container-title":"Information, Communication & Society","page":"338-354","volume":"14","issue":"3","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"The increased visibility of personal blogs in the last decade has been lamented by some scholars as a sign of increasing individualization and superficiality in public discourse. New media technology and culture blur boundaries and raise new questions about personal and public issues, roles and responsibilities. In this they may also open up spaces for individual self-expression as well as collective reflections on values and norms for interpersonal relations. This article explores how personal blogs written by some of the best known young Swedish female bloggers can be seen as ‘ethical spaces’. Such spaces are formed in interaction between media producers, texts and users, and have a performative character in that they contribute to expanding and negotiating social norms and cultural values in society. Through an analysis of postings to and comments on the blogs, the article discusses the ethical issues that are raised, and what connections between personal experiences and discourses on young women's self-expression, social relations and position in society are being made. The analysis also shows how bloggers in various ways create ethical spaces through performing roles as moderators, provocateurs or friends. Finally, the article argues that, despite the focus on personal issues, these blogs constitute performative spaces that contribute to personal as well as public negotiations of ethics, values and norms in contemporary Sweden.","DOI":"10.1080/1369118X.2010.542822","ISSN":"1369-118X","author":[{"family":"L?vheim","given":"Mia"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011",4,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2011) definition, blogs can be ethical spaces where people negotiate social values and create a shared sense of identity. Paul Teusner ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"mlGjZYlE","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Teusner 2010)","plainCitation":"(Teusner 2010)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4359,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4359,"type":"article-journal","title":"Imaging Religious Identity: Intertextual Play among Postmodern Christian Bloggers","container-title":"Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet: Vol. 04.1 Special Issue on Aesthetics and the Dimensions of the Senses","source":"archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de","abstract":"In the fledgling but rapidly growing academic discipline of religion, media and culture, much attention has been paid to the use of new media to create and develop individual religious identities, build connections and foster group identities. Yet to date most research has focussed on exchanges of literal text between users, and little has considered the importance of visual text (either still images or videos) in the communication of meaning in online environments. In this presentation, I would like to introduce the image as an object of research in the construction of religious identity in online interaction. The presentation will explore the blogs of 35 Australians who are conversant with a religious movement known as “the emerging church”, a global collection of ideas and conversations residing mainly in traditional Protestant churches that seeks new expressions of faithful living in postmodern urban culture, and challenges the consumerism of contemporary evangelicalism seen in “the megachurch”. By the use of captioned images, video capture (including links to YouTube) and web page design, I will show how bloggers endeavour to present themselves as being “on the margins” of conventional Christian life and practice, and employ intertextual play to challenge modern binary oppositions of orthodoxy/heresy, art/dirt, fun/work, and constructions of gender and ethnicity.","URL":"","DOI":"DOI:10.11588/heidok.00011300","shortTitle":"Imaging Religious Identity","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Teusner","given":"Paul"}],"editor":[{"family":"Heidbrink","given":"Simone"},{"family":"Miczek","given":"Nadja"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2010"]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2018",12,5]]}}}],"schema":""} (2010), in a study on Australian “emerging church” blogs, suggested that the combination of visual and textual elements helps the articulation of religious identities through the creation of aesthetic representations. Drawing from Aristotle’s concept of aesthesis, Teusner employed the theoretical framework of mediation to explore blogs, an approach that Deborah Whitehead also applied to “mommy blogs” ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"BiHFwsfd","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Whitehead 2015a)","plainCitation":"(Whitehead 2015a)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4356,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4356,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Evidence of Things Unseen: Authenticity and Fraud in the Christian Mommy Blogosphere","container-title":"Journal of the American Academy of Religion","page":"120-150","volume":"83","issue":"1","source":"academic.","abstract":"Abstract. This article analyzes allegations of fraud and deception in two popular evangelical Christian “mommy blogs” in order to demonstrate how the rhetoric","DOI":"10.1093/jaarel/lfu083","ISSN":"0002-7189","shortTitle":"The Evidence of Things Unseen","journalAbbreviation":"J Am Acad Relig","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Whitehead","given":"Deborah"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015",3,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2015a). In analyzing U.S. Evangelical Christian mothers’ personal blogs, Whitehead ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"QttcGNl5","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Whitehead 2015)","plainCitation":"(Whitehead 2015)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4350,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4350,"type":"article-journal","title":"“The story God is weaving us into”: narrativizing grief, faith, and infant loss in US evangelical women's blog communities","container-title":"New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia","page":"42-56","volume":"21","issue":"1-2","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"This case study explores how US evangelical Christian “mommy blog” communities constitute spaces for the collective memorialization of infant loss. Personal religious blogs feature a rich combination of esthetics, narrative structure, description of religious practices and beliefs, reader interaction, and linked networks. Using a textual approach, I illustrate distinctive features in how pregnancy and infant loss and grief are experienced, shared and memorialized in US women's evangelical blogging communities. I argue that the blog format allows for a (re)narrativization of the devastating experience of infant loss as grieving mothers situate their traumatic personal experiences within the context of an ongoing religious narrative in which blog readers also come to participate. As the blogger tells the story of her own loss to a listening public, it becomes a larger shared story, so that it is not just the child's story but also the author's story, their family's story, and “our story” inclusive of the blog community of readers, “the story God is weaving us into,” post by post, day by day. Personal religious blogs and their reading publics, therefore, can provide a medium for the ongoing creation of meaning, faith and community in the context of infant loss.","DOI":"10.1080/13614568.2014.983559","ISSN":"1361-4568","shortTitle":"“The story God is weaving us into”","author":[{"family":"Whitehead","given":"Deborah"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015",4,3]]}}}],"schema":""} (2015b) suggested that they can offer venues to discuss personal narratives in the public arena—for example, grieving for the loss of a child. At the same time, a longitudinal exploration of conservative Evangelical and Mormon blogs indicated that people may create shared religious identities through discussions of gender and sexuality (sparked, for instance, by the book Fifty shades of grey) and connect them to religious narratives ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"6oAzzM5T","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Whitehead 2013)","plainCitation":"(Whitehead 2013)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4354,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4354,"type":"article-journal","title":"When religious ‘mommy bloggers’ met ‘mommy porn’: Evangelical Christian and Mormon women’s responses to Fifty Shades","container-title":"Sexualities","page":"915-931","volume":"16","issue":"8","source":"SAGE Journals","abstract":"While some conservative religious women have rejected Fifty Shades of Grey as contrary to their values and beliefs, others have embraced it. This article analyzes commentaries and reflections on the book series in US evangelical Christian and Mormon women’s blog communities, and shows how many of these women find value in the books because of their personal, cultural, and religious significance. I argue that attention to the reading strategies employed by evangelical and Mormon women in relation to Fifty Shades demonstrates a complex set of responses to ‘secular’ culture as well as ongoing negotiations of gender, sexuality, and authority within these conservative religious traditions.","DOI":"10.1177/1363460713508904","ISSN":"1363-4607","shortTitle":"When religious ‘mommy bloggers’ met ‘mommy porn’","journalAbbreviation":"Sexualities","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Whitehead","given":"Deborah"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2013",12,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (Whitehead, 2013). Because they are relatively accessible and easy to manage, blogs are often explored as venues that help minority groups articulate their identities and have their voices emerge in the public sphere. This often involves groups that suffer from social stigma, such as Muslims living in non-Muslim countries and women, who might be further marginalized because of their gender. For example, Nabil Echchaibi ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"qYbazEmO","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Echchaibi 2013)","plainCitation":"(Echchaibi 2013)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":131,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":131,"type":"article-journal","title":"Muslimah Media Watch: Media activism and Muslim choreographies of social change","container-title":"Journalism","page":"1464884913478360","source":"jou.","abstract":"This article explores media activism in the Muslim context by focusing on the blog, Muslimah Media Watch. It analyzes the significance of blogging as an activist tool used by a group of Muslim women to influence an ongoing and contested process of social change in Islam. Through interviews with the founder and bloggers of the site and a textual analysis of the blog posts, the author focuses on the aesthetic forms and discursive practices of digital Muslim activism and argues that projects such as Muslimah Media Watch should be evaluated not in terms of a revolutionary subversion of hegemonic discourse on gender in Islam, but rather as part of small but consistent disruptive flows of dissent which are significant precisely because of the nature of their intervention and the tactics of their resistance. The blog has also become a prime discursive and performative space where young Muslims debate and contest what it means to be modern in transnational settings.","DOI":"10.1177/1464884913478360","ISSN":"1464-8849, 1741-3001","shortTitle":"Muslimah Media Watch","journalAbbreviation":"Journalism","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Echchaibi","given":"Nabil"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2013",3,5]]}}}],"schema":""} (2013) analyzed the blog Muslima Media Watch as an effort of Muslim women to engage in digital activism and subvert hegemonic discourses. Through interviews and textual analysis, Echchaibi explored the blog as a venue used to articulate hybrid Muslim subjectivities. Giulia Evolvi ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"ZD1fvPZ1","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Evolvi 2017)","plainCitation":"(Evolvi 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1683,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1683,"type":"article-journal","title":"Hybrid Muslim identities in digital space: The Italian blog Yalla","container-title":"Social Compass","page":"0037768617697911","source":"SAGE Journals","abstract":"Islam is often regarded as being incompatible with European values. In Italy, for example, anti-Islamic points of view reiterate the religion’s alleged inconsistency with Catholicism and secularism. This article argues that narrative practices can challenge this idea by articulating Muslim hybrid identities that are compatible with Italian culture and society. The second-generation blog Yalla Italia represents a ‘third space’ where young Italian Muslims contrast dominant media stereotypes, thereby creating ‘disruptive flows of dissent’. A textual analysis of the blog and interviews with some of the bloggers reveal that three main topics are employed to overcome marginalization: (1) critiques of mainstream media (2) narratives about family lives and the practice of Islam, and (3) advocacy of a quicker procedure for gaining Italian citizenship. The bloggers adopt a storytelling style to press for social and institutional change and explain how they succeed in adapting Islam to Italian society. Their religious diversity is thus perceived as providing a potential for Italy, rather than being a mark of marginalization.","DOI":"10.1177/0037768617697911","ISSN":"0037-7686","shortTitle":"Hybrid Muslim identities in digital space","journalAbbreviation":"Social Compass","author":[{"family":"Evolvi","given":"Giulia"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",4,25]]}}}],"schema":""} (2017) drew from Echchaibi’s work and methodology to describe the Italian blog Yalla as a space to create hybrid Muslim identities in between Islam and European culture. Yalla functions as a third space where young Muslim-Italians normalize the presence of Islam in the West by stressing its compatibility with Italian society. These studies showed that blogs allow for different aesthetic and textual styles, including pictures, storytelling, and interactions with other users. By blurring the boundaries between public and private narratives, blogs may offer spaces to create shared identities that reinforce an individual’s or groups’ sense of belonging, also to influence minority identities in relation to mainstream society.Like blogs, videos allow users to negotiate religious identities through narratives and images. For example, some users create video blogs—or vlogs—where they visually display material aspects of their religious identities, such as religious garments. Kayla ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"1v2Ct9ry","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Wheeler 2014)","plainCitation":"(Wheeler 2014)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4470,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4470,"type":"article-journal","title":"Remixing Images of Islam. The Creation of New Muslim Women Subjectivities on YouTube","container-title":"Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet","volume":"6","source":"heiup.uni-heidelberg.de","URL":"","DOI":"10.11588/rel.2014.0.17364","journalAbbreviation":"1","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Wheeler","given":"Kayla Renée"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014"]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",1,2]]}}}],"schema":""} Wheeler (2014) performed a textual analysis on comments and video responses to the vlogs of two Muslim women, Amina Khan and Nye Armstrong. They live in the West and are popular on YouTube for lifestyle and fashion videos about the hijab. Focusing on the framework of vernacular discourse, Wheeler explored videos as arenas to produce hybrid cultural narratives that help the vloggers create new subjectivities as assertive and independent Muslim women. Similarly, Kristin Peterson ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"CYQ1gFrK","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Peterson 2016)","plainCitation":"(Peterson 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1482,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1482,"type":"article-journal","title":"Beyond Fashion Tips and Hijab Tutorials: The Aesthetic Style of Islamic Lifestyle Videos","container-title":"Film Criticism","volume":"40","issue":"2","URL":"","DOI":"","ISSN":"2471-4364","shortTitle":"Beyond Fashion Tips and Hijab Tutorials","author":[{"family":"Peterson","given":"Kristin M."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",6]]}}}],"schema":""} (2016) examined the videos of Amina Khan and Dina Tokio, a popular British vlogger. Discussing the theory of mediation, Peterson described the aesthetic and affective dimension of these videos in resisting Orientalist dichotomies and negotiating women’s visibility. By visually showing themselves and their garments, the video makers could claim agency to articulate religious identities in their own terms. Among visual expressions of identity, video games allow players to reinforce or reject iconographic representation at textual and audiovisual levels. According to Jan Van Looy ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"uCquPCOG","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Looy 2015)","plainCitation":"(Looy 2015)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4301,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4301,"type":"chapter","title":"Online Games Characters, Avatars, and Identity","container-title":"The International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society","publisher":"American Cancer Society","page":"1-11","source":"Wiley Online Library","abstract":"Digital games play an important role in identity construction by offering role models with whom players can identify and whose behavior they can imitate. Unlike traditional media, digital games support monadic identification implying a change in self-perception during gameplay. Two mechanisms underlie this mental association: perceived similarity and wishfulness, which is driven by the player's desire to be more like their avatar. According to self-discrepancy theory, identifying with a game character helps a player to feel closer to his or her ideal self and to reduce negative psychological tension. Games function as a virtual laboratory in which players can experiment with different aspects of their selves. Avatar creation can be guided by identity motives or instrumental concerns related to performance in the game. Identification with online groups such as guilds provides an additional motivational layer for engaging in identity play and developing an in-game social identity.","URL":"","ISBN":"978-1-118-76777-1","note":"DOI: 10.1002/9781118767771.wbiedcs106","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Looy","given":"Jan Van"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015"]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2018",12,3]]}}}],"schema":""} (2015), players, especially children and adolescents, identify with game characters and create their avatars (a term interestingly borrowed from Hinduism) as a way to experience various social roles and define their identities. This also applies to religion, as several video games include representations of benign or evil gods and draw, for example, from Japanese Shintoism, medieval Christianity, or North American Native Culture ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"Z7FcO0p4","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hemminger 2014)","plainCitation":"(Hemminger 2014)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4329,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4329,"type":"article-journal","title":"Game Cultures as Sub-Creations. Case Studies on Religion & Digital Play","container-title":"Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet","volume":"5","source":"heiup.uni-heidelberg.de","URL":"","DOI":"10.11588/rel.2014.0.12161","journalAbbreviation":"1","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Hemminger","given":"Elke"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014"]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2018",12,4]]}}}],"schema":""} (Hemminger, 2014). Video games may also be considered through the framework of “implicit religion” because of the ritualistic character of play, which ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"FDnMoGZv","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Grieve and Campbell 2014)","plainCitation":"(Grieve and Campbell 2014)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4335,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4335,"type":"article-journal","title":"Studying Religion in Digital Gaming. A Critical Review of an Emerging Field","container-title":"Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet","volume":"5","source":"heiup.uni-heidelberg.de","URL":"","DOI":"10.11588/rel.2014.0.12183","journalAbbreviation":"1","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Grieve","given":"Gregory Price"},{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014",2,14]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2018",12,4]]}}}],"schema":""} Grieve and Campbell (2014) analyzed through the theoretical lens of mediatization. Therefore, the proliferation of religious storylines and religious-like behaviors in video games has been analyzed as impacting the digital portrayal of religious identities ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"FfiAoiYf","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Heidbrink, Knoll, and Wysocki 2014)","plainCitation":"(Heidbrink, Knoll, and Wysocki 2014)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4326,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4326,"type":"article-journal","title":"Theorizing Religion in Digital Games. Perspectives and Approaches","container-title":"Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet","volume":"5","source":"heiup.uni-heidelberg.de","URL":"","DOI":"10.11588/rel.2014.0.12156","journalAbbreviation":"1","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Heidbrink","given":"Simone"},{"family":"Knoll","given":"Tobias"},{"family":"Wysocki","given":"Jan"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014",2,15]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2018",12,4]]}}}],"schema":""} (Heidbrink, Knoll, & Wysocki, 2014). The analysis of religious storylines gives insights on both game creators’ understanding and portrayal of religion and the audience’s reception and negotiation of religious identities. This is something that Vit ?isler (2012 ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"NQLTIGOX","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(\\uc0\\u352{}isler 2017)","plainCitation":"(?isler 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4344,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4344,"type":"article-journal","title":"Procedural religion: Methodological reflections on studying religion in video games","container-title":"New Media & Society","page":"126-141","volume":"19","issue":"1","source":"SAGE Journals","abstract":"The article discusses the methodological aspects of studying religion in video games. It examines the concept of “procedural religion,” that is, the representations of religion via rule-systems in games, and investigates how we can formally analyze these representations. The article uses Petri Nets, a mathematical and a graphical tool for modeling, analyzing, and designing discrete event systems, in order to analyze how religion is represented in the rule-systems of two different mainstream video games—Age of Empires II, developed in the United States, and Quraish, developed in Syria. By comparing the rule-systems of both games, the article provides empirical evidence on how game rule-systems migrate between cultures and influence local game production by providing local game developers with pre-defined formulas for expressing their ideas while simultaneously limiting the scope of such expression with schematized patterns. On a more general level, the article discusses what rule-system analysis can tell us about video games as cultural and religious artifacts.","DOI":"10.1177/1461444816649923","ISSN":"1461-4448","shortTitle":"Procedural religion","journalAbbreviation":"New Media & Society","language":"en","author":[{"family":"?isler","given":"Vít"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",1,1]]}}}],"schema":""} , 2017) explored through a Petri net analysis, a modeling language that describes events and places in the games. ?isler ( ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"GrIEBlJA","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(\\uc0\\u352{}isler 2008)","plainCitation":"(?isler 2008)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4324,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4324,"type":"article-journal","title":"Digital Arabs: Representation in video games","container-title":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","page":"203-220","volume":"11","issue":"2","source":"SAGE Journals","abstract":"This article presents the ways in which Muslims and Arabs are represented and represent themselves in video games. First, it analyses how various genres of European and American video games have constructed the Arab or Muslim Other. Within these games, it demonstrates how the diverse ethnic and religious identities of the Islamic world have been flattened out and reconstructed into a series of social typologies operating within a broader framework of terrorism and hostility. It then contrasts these broader trends in western digital representation with selected video games produced in the Arab world, whose authors have knowingly subverted and refashioned these stereotypes in two unique and quite different fashions. In conclusion, it considers the significance of western attempts to transcend simplified patterns of representation that have dominated the video game industry by offering what are known as 'serious' games.","DOI":"10.1177/1367549407088333","ISSN":"1367-5494","shortTitle":"Digital Arabs","journalAbbreviation":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","language":"en","author":[{"family":"?isler","given":"Vít"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2008",5,1]]}}}],"schema":""} 2008), by critically discussing the concept of Orientalism, found that Arabs and Muslims in European and American video games are often portrayed as “other” to Western culture, mirroring some mainstream media representations. At the same time, the production of video games in the Middle East subverts some of these representations through the creation of Muslim heroes and positive Islamic narratives. In other cases, video games can also contribute to the promotion of violence. This is the case of the video game Salil al-Sawarem used to spread propaganda for ISIS by adapting the famous video game Grand Theft Auto. In a content analysis of Arabic-language YouTube videos responding to the video game, Ahmed ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"FKnlNr6o","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Al-Rawi 2018)","plainCitation":"(Al-Rawi 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4346,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4346,"type":"article-journal","title":"Video games, terrorism, and ISIS’s Jihad 3.0","container-title":"Terrorism and Political Violence","page":"740-760","volume":"30","issue":"4","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"This study discusses different media strategies followed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In particular, the study attempts to understand the way ISIS’s video game that is called “Salil al-Sawarem” (The Clanging of the Swords) has been received by the online Arab public. The article argues that the goal behind making and releasing the video game was to gain publicity and attract attention to the group, and the general target was young people. The main technique used by ISIS is what I call “troll, flame, and engage.” The results indicate that the majority of comments are against ISIS and its game, though most of the top ten videos are favorable towards the group. The sectarian dimension between Sunnis and Shiites is highly emphasized in the online exchanges, and YouTube remains an active social networking site that is used by ISIS followers and sympathizers to promote the group and recruit others.","DOI":"10.1080/09546553.2016.1207633","ISSN":"0954-6553","author":[{"family":"Al-Rawi","given":"Ahmed"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018",7,4]]}}}],"schema":""} Al-Rawi (2018) analyzed the motivations of people supporting or rejecting ISIS. These examples show that video games not only draw from religious symbology to allow players to negotiate their identities in another reality, but also mirror offline representations of religious groups’ identities, including the potential subversion of these representations and the diffusion of some ideologies. Scholarship on online religious identities is not limited to Muslims in the West; there are numerous studies that address agency in relation to minority and marginalized groups. Women and/or subjects who occupy non-mainstream social positions may enjoy some of the possibilities provided by the Internet to establish counterhegemonic discourses and visually show a type of religious identity outside dominant perceptions. Therefore, existing scholarship on digital religion suggests that people may employ digital media to gain agency to narratively and aesthetically articulate their identities and subvert existing identity representations. This articulation may happen collectively through interpersonal interactions and also foster the formation of religious communities. Approaching Religious Community OnlineDigital Religious Studies have recognized the fact that the Internet offers possibilities to create venues of interaction that are “disembedded” from local and geographical boundaries. For this reason, many scholars conceptualize digital technologies in terms of their potential to form communities, including religious communities. Members usually self-identify as part of a community when they find venues where they can meaningfully connect with like-minded people. There are different types of online religious communities—while certain websites are created by existing physical communities, others exist exclusively on the Internet and members might never meet each other face-to-face. Scholars have often addressed the need for understanding online religious communities in relation to their physical counterparts or offline religious practices (Campbell & Vitullo, ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"I7r5vOA4","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. A. Campbell and Vitullo 2016)","plainCitation":"(H. A. Campbell and Vitullo 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4397,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4397,"type":"article-journal","title":"Assessing changes in the study of religious communities in digital religion studies","container-title":"Church, Communication and Culture","page":"73-89","volume":"1","issue":"1","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"This article provides a focused review of researches undertaken within Digital religion studies in the last three decades, specifically highlighting how religious communities have been studied and approached within this area. It highlights the dominant theoretical and methodological approaches employed by scholars during what is being described as the four stages of research on religious communities emerging over this period of time. Thus, this article presents the findings of key studies emerging during these stages to illuminate how the study of religious communities online has evolved over time. It also offers insights into how this evolution specifically relates to the study of Catholic community online. Finally, a theoretical analysis is given, assessing current research on religious communities within Digital Religion studies, and approaches for future research are proposed.","DOI":"10.1080/23753234.2016.1181301","ISSN":"2375-3234","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."},{"family":"Vitullo","given":"Alessandra"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",1,1]]}}}],"schema":""} 2016). In exploring online religious communities, scholars consider how the Internet modifies notions of friendship and relationship and how communities become intrinsically connected to networked practices (Campbell, 2012). In this respect, Lily Kong ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"HY9KH2jB","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Kong 2003)","plainCitation":"(Kong 2003)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4308,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4308,"type":"article-journal","title":"Religion and technology: refiguring place, space, identity and community","container-title":"Area","page":"404-413","volume":"33","issue":"4","source":"rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary. (Atypon)","abstract":"This paper reviews the literature on the religion?technology nexus, drawing up a research agenda and offering preliminary empirical insights. First, I stress the need to explore the new politics of space as a consequence of technological development, emphasizing questions about the role of religion in effecting a form of religious (neo)imperialism, and uneven access to techno-religious spaces. Second, I highlight the need to examine the politics of identity and community, since cyberspace is not an isotropic surface. Third, I underscore the need to engage with questions about the poetics of religious community as social relations become mediated by technology. Finally, I focus on questions about the poetics of place, particularly the technological mediation of rituals.","DOI":"10.1111/1475-4762.00046","ISSN":"0004-0894","shortTitle":"Religion and technology","journalAbbreviation":"Area","author":[{"family":"Kong","given":"Lily"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2003",4,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2003) analyzed religious communities and technologies from the point of view of interpersonal interactions and rituals. The Internet allows people to contact each other, but scholars often question the extent to which this can actually constitute a community—a gemeinschaft—where members share common values. While online communities can grant enhanced freedom from geographical and social boundaries, Kong’s work reflected on the networked quality of interactions, as well as the authenticity and limitations of digital exchanges. The successful functioning of an online community depends also on the characteristics of the media platform where it exists. Websites that allow users to post messages and communicate with each other have been broadly explored as examples of online communities. Especially, sites that include message boards and forums are frequently studied to understand existing types and categories of online communities. According to the work of Mun-Cho Kim (2005), who employed content analysis, interviews, and participant observation to analyze online Buddhist communities in South Korea, religious online communities fulfill interpretative, interactive, integrative, and instrumental functions. This means they serve the purposes of reinforcing beliefs, establishing relationships, engaging people in an affective way, and offering practical opportunities. Anna Neumaier ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"aErGVk0I","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Neumaier 2016)","plainCitation":"(Neumaier 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4414,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4414,"type":"book","title":"religion@home? Religionsbezogene Online-Plattformen und ihre Nutzung: Eine Untersuchung zu neuen Formen gegenw?rtiger Religiosit?t","publisher":"Ergon","publisher-place":"Würzburg","number-of-pages":"478","edition":"1","source":"Amazon","event-place":"Würzburg","abstract":"?ber den Wandel gegenw?rtiger Religion und Religiosit?t ist in Debatten rund um S?kularisierung und Re-Sakralisierung viel diskutiert worden. Die Bedeutung neuer Medien wurde dabei aber noch wenig berücksichtigt. An diese Debatten anschlie?end widmet sich die vorliegende Studie deshalb religi?ser Online-Nutzung, ihren Bedingungen, Formen und Konsequenzen: Was sind Ausl?ser für den Einstieg, Themen des Online-Austauschs, und in welchem Zusammenhang steht die Online-Nutzung mit der Einbettung in die lokale Gemeinde?Dem geht die Arbeit mit Blick auf christliche Online-Foren nach. Sie beschr?nkt sich dabei nicht auf Analysen der Online-Diskussionen, sondern stellt mit über 30 qualitativen Interviews und einer quantitativen Erhebung die Perspektive der Nutzer dieser Foren in den Mittelpunkt.Insgesamt zeigt sich: Forennutzung ist vor allem als Strategie der Restabilisierung individueller Religiosit?t zu verstehen. Ihr Ausgangspunkt sind weniger mediale Eigenschaften des Internets, sondern vielmehr Defizite traditioneller religi?ser Angebote, die zu anhaltender Unzufriedenheit oder dem Abbruch der Gemeindeeinbettung führen. Durch die Aneignung individueller religi?ser Expertise und Wiedereinbettung in einen Kontext kollektiver Legitimierung von Religiosit?t vermag die Online-Nutzung hier Ausgleich zu schaffen. Die erarbeiteten Nutzungsmuster und Typen online entstehender Gemeinschaften zeigen Details dieser Prozesse.","ISBN":"978-3-95650-141-8","shortTitle":"religion@home?","language":"Deutsch","author":[{"family":"Neumaier","given":"Anna"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",4,21]]}}}],"schema":""} (2016), exploring twenty German Christian forums through textual analysis, quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews, suggested three ideal types of online communities: “faith-siblings” generically look for like-minded people, “forum family” creates firm boundaries in interacting intensively with forum members, and “conflict arena” indicates fluid groups where members tend to mostly cultivate individual interests. Neumaier’s work found that people often join online communities when dissatisfied by offline options. The relationship between physical and digital communities was also explored by Tim Hutchings ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"V7gockd0","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hutchings 2017)","plainCitation":"(Hutchings 2017)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4289,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4289,"type":"book","title":"Creating Church Online: Ritual, Community and New Media","publisher":"Routledge","publisher-place":"New York","number-of-pages":"272","edition":"1 edition","source":"Amazon","event-place":"New York","abstract":"Online churches are internet-based Christian communities, pursuing worship, discussion, friendship, support, proselytization, and other key religious goals through computer-mediated communication. Hundreds of thousands of people are now involved with online congregations, generating new kinds of ritual, leadership, and community and new networks of global influence. Creating Church Online constructs a rich ethnographic account of the diverse cultures of online churches, from virtual worlds to video streams. This book also outlines the history of online churchgoing, from its origins in the 1980s to the present day, and traces the major themes of academic and Christian debate around this topic. Applying some of the leading current theories in the study of religion, media and culture to this data, Tim Hutchings proposes a new model of religious design in contexts of mediatization, and draws attention to digital networks, transformative third spaces and terrains of existential vulnerability. Creating Church Online advances our understanding of the significance and impact of digital media in the religious and social lives of its users, in search of new theoretical frameworks for digital religion.","ISBN":"978-0-415-53693-6","shortTitle":"Creating Church Online","language":"English","author":[{"family":"Hutchings","given":"Tim"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",4,17]]}}}],"schema":""} (2017), who analyzed five Christian online churches whose members describe themselves as part of a community. The research employed digital ethnographies, online participant observation, and interviews to understand online churches as examples of third spaces. Combining the theories of mediatization and religious-social shaping of technology in a perspective called Mediatized Religious Design (MRD), Hutchings emphasized the importance of networks as a means of understanding online communities. This means that there may be weaker social ties among community members, but online churches can nonetheless have a significant impact on members’ relationships and everyday religiosity. These findings resonate with the work of Marta ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"okh5jsxz","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Kolodziejska 2018)","plainCitation":"(Kolodziejska 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4408,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4408,"type":"book","title":"Online Catholic Communities: Community, Authority, and Religious Individualization","publisher":"Routledge","publisher-place":"London New York","number-of-pages":"154","edition":"1 edition","source":"Amazon","event-place":"London New York","abstract":"The Catholic Church has been moving into a new phase, one where its congregation can choose to meet and practice elements of their own version of their faith on online forums. This new form of congregating allows for an individualised faith to manifest itself outside of the usual church authority structures. Online Catholic Communities provides insight into how religious and non-religious internet forum users interact and form groups during interactions; it also discusses the transformation of religious authority and its emanations in these digital contexts. Using the top three online forums used by Polish Catholics as a case study, this project explores the formation of these online communities. It then looks at the alternative authority structures that emerge online and how these lead to an individualised form of religious engagement that can develop independently of mainstream doctrine. Through highlighting how religious discourse in Poland is appropriated and creatively modified by users in fulfilling their own spiritual needs, this work reveals the constant interplay between online and offline religious contexts. This monograph includes cutting edge research on online expressions of religious community, authority and individualisation and as such will be of keen interest to scholars of religious studies and the sociology of religion, as well as communication studies.","ISBN":"978-1-138-05975-7","shortTitle":"Online Catholic Communities","language":"English","author":[{"family":"Kolodziejska","given":"Marta"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018",4,18]]}}}],"schema":""} Ko?odziejska (2018), who analyzed three Polish-language Christian forums through the theoretical lens of mediatization. Ko?odziejska defined online communities as processes rather than states, meaning they are fluid in changing their boundaries and in creating networks of users. Such online communities can either weaken or reaffirm the role of physical communities. The Internet can help fundamentalist or traditionalist groups create communities, too. In exploring Salafi forums in Germany and the Netherlands, Carmen ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"SayGk0p0","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Becker 2010)","plainCitation":"(Becker 2010)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4435,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4435,"type":"article-journal","title":"“Gaining Knowledge”; Salafi Activism in German and Dutch Online Forums","container-title":"Masaryk University Journal of Law and Technology","page":"79-98","volume":"3","issue":"1","source":"journals.muni.cz","abstract":"Recent years have witnessed an expansion of Salafi activism into computer-mediated environments like online discussion forums. Forum activities are part of the activists' endeavour to access the religious sources (Quran and Sunnah) and, through these sources, the lives of the prophet Muhammad and the first generations of Muslims. The prophet and the first generations embody the perfect model of a (Muslim) life which Salafi Muslims strive to emulate. This article analyses the knowledge practices of Salafi Muslims in Dutch and German discussion forums revolving around the religious sources. Knowledge practices are understood as meaning-making activities that tell people how to behave and how to “be in the world”. Four aspects are central to Salafi knowledge practices in Dutch and German forums: (1) Fragmentation and re-alignment form the basic ways of dealing with digitized corpus of Islamic knowledge and (2) open the way for Salafi Muslims to engage in “Islamic argumentation” in the course of which they “excavate” behavioural rules in form of a “script” from Quran and Sunnah. (3) These practices are set within the cognitive collaboration of forum members and part of a broader decentralizing tendency within Islam. (4) And finally, narratives and sensual environments circulating in forums help activists to overcome contradictions and ambiguities while trying to put the script, which tells them what to do in which situation, into practice.","ISSN":"1802-5951","language":"en-US","author":[{"family":"Becker","given":"Carmen"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2010",3,1]]}}}],"schema":""} Becker (2010) discovered that certain Muslims use computer-mediated communication to negotiate religious sources. Salafi Muslims employ forums as spaces for “Islamic argumentation” in a collaborative effort to live and behave as the prophet Mohammed. Heidi Campbell and Oren Golan ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"nfwn09r6","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. A. Campbell and Golan 2011)","plainCitation":"(H. A. Campbell and Golan 2011)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4405,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4405,"type":"article-journal","title":"Creating digital enclaves: Negotiation of the internet among bounded religious communities:","container-title":"Media, Culture & Society","source":"journals.","archive_location":"Sage UK: London, England","abstract":"This article examines the motivation behind bounded groups’ creation of digital enclaves online. Through in-depth interviews with 19 webmasters and staff of selected Israeli Orthodox websites three critical areas of negotiation are explored: (1) social control; (2) sources of authority; and (3) community boundaries. Examining these tensions illuminates a detailed process of self-evaluation which leads religious stakeholders and internet entrepreneurs to form these digital enclaves in order to negotiate the core beliefs and constraints of their offline communities online. These offer spaces of safety for members within the risk-laden tracts of the internet. Examining the tensions accompanying the emergence of these religious websites elucidates community affordances as well as the challenges to the authority that integration of new media poses to closed groups and societies.","URL":"","DOI":"10.1177/0163443711404464","shortTitle":"Creating digital enclaves","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."},{"family":"Golan","given":"Oren"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011",6,29]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2018",12,11]]}}}],"schema":""} (2011) explored ultra-Orthodox Jewish online communities through in-depth interviews with people that work for Israeli Orthodox sites. By classifying their results in the categories of social control, authority, and community boundaries, Campbell and Golan discovered that these online communities negotiate the challenges involved in the introduction of new technologies. According to Oren Golan and Nurit Stadler ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"SZxTziSw","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Golan and Stadler 2016)","plainCitation":"(Golan and Stadler 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4412,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4412,"type":"article-journal","title":"Building the sacred community online: the dual use of the Internet by Chabad","container-title":"Media, Culture & Society","page":"71-88","volume":"38","issue":"1","source":"SAGE Journals","abstract":"Religious communities have ongoing concerns about Internet use, as it intensifies the clash between tradition and modernity, a clash often found in traditionally inclined societies. Nevertheless, as websites become more useful and widely accessible, religious and communal stakeholders have continuously worked at building and promoting them. This study focuses on Chabad, a Jewish ultra-Orthodox movement, and follows webmasters of three key websites to uncover how they distribute religious knowledge over the Internet. Through an ethnographic approach that included interviews with over 30 webmasters, discussions with key informants, and observations of the websites themselves, the study uncovered webmaster’s strategies to foster solidarity within their community, on one hand, while also proselytizing their outlook on Judaism, on the other. Hence, the study sheds light on how a fundamentalist society has strengthened its association with new media, thus facilitating negotiation between modernity and religious piety.","DOI":"10.1177/0163443715615415","ISSN":"0163-4437","shortTitle":"Building the sacred community online","journalAbbreviation":"Media, Culture & Society","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Golan","given":"Oren"},{"family":"Stadler","given":"Nurit"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",1,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2016), online communities both create cohesion among members and communicate certain facets of the religious tradition to potential new followers and lay audience. These conclusions were reached through ethnography, website analysis, and interviews with webmasters of online groups for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish Chabad. These examples suggest that the creation of communities online is not something that occurs outside religious traditions, but can also happen within groups that closely follow religious precepts and even reject some aspects of technology and modernity. Communities may also be formed with the aid of religious videos and webcasting. Oren Golan and Michele Martini ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"HMscp2m1","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Golan and Martini 2017, 2018)","plainCitation":"(Golan and Martini 2017, 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":18,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":18,"type":"article-journal","title":"Religious live-streaming: constructing the authentic in real time","container-title":"Information, Communication & Society","page":"1-18","volume":"0","issue":"0","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"From the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem to the Kaaba of Mecca, many religious sites are webcasting in live-streaming. This study inquires how religious institutions act to shape users’ worldviews and negotiate meanings via live-streaming-mediated communication. Ethnographic fieldwork accompanied a case study of 25 in-depth interviews of the Can??o Nova and the Franciscan Order’s recent media operation in the Holy Land. Findings uncovered three facets: (1) Evangelizing youth. (2) Establishing affinity towards the Holy Land. (3) Maintaining constant presence of the transcendental. Drawing on Walter Benjamin, proximity between believers and the divine via live-streaming is discussed and its implication for transforming the religious experience, establishing secondary authority in the Catholic world and propelling religious change in the information society.","DOI":"10.1080/1369118X.2017.1395472","ISSN":"1369-118X","shortTitle":"Religious live-streaming","author":[{"family":"Golan","given":"Oren"},{"family":"Martini","given":"Michele"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",11,1]]}}},{"id":4363,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4363,"type":"article-journal","title":"Digital pilgrimage: Exploring Catholic monastic webcasts","container-title":"The Communication Review","page":"24-45","volume":"21","issue":"1","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"This study questions how religious webmasters view the objectives of their webcasting in relation to pilgrimage. Findings uncovered four facets: (1) mediation of the holy sites and experience; (2) bonding between Holy Land communities and global believers; (3) cultivating agents; (4) media experiences as a pilgrimage surrogate. Drawing on Walter Benjamin, the study elucidates how online videos evoke proximity to the sacred, thus connecting holy sites and believers, while affirming webmasters as secondary actors of religious authority.","DOI":"10.1080/10714421.2017.1416795","ISSN":"1071-4421","shortTitle":"Digital pilgrimage","author":[{"family":"Golan","given":"Oren"},{"family":"Martini","given":"Michele"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018",1,2]]}}}],"schema":""} (2017, 2018) explored the Catholic video production by the Brazilian community Can??o Nova and the Franciscan Order. By filming holy sites in the Holy Land, these groups enable people to experience a religious pilgrimage on the Internet. Through interviews, participant observation, and media analysis, Golan and Martini found that these videos reproduce the proximity to the transcendental. They mediate holy sites and reinforce local religious communities by bonding them with the international Catholic community. Analyzing the leadership role of webmasters and their relations with pilgrims, the study also explored issues of authenticity in relation to Walter Benjamin’s ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"KGMwQhq1","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Benjamin 2008)","plainCitation":"(Benjamin 2008)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1615,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1615,"type":"book","title":"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction","publisher":"Penguin","publisher-place":"London","source":"Amazon","event-place":"London","abstract":"One of the most important works of cultural theory ever written, Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking essay explores how the age of mass media means audiences can listen to or see a work of art repeatedly – and what the troubling social and political implications of this are.Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.","ISBN":"978-0-14-103619-9","language":"English","author":[{"family":"Benjamin","given":"Walter"}],"translator":[{"family":"Underwood","given":"J. A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2008",8,7]]}}}],"schema":""} (2008) inquiry on art and reproduction. This showed how online communities may be perceived as meaningful when they are able to bond people from different geographical locations, put them in contact with leaders based in other countries, and recreate the experience of a space that is physically inaccessible. Social media are also often studied as spaces where people create or negotiate religious communities. Ruth Illman and Sofia Sj? ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"LMVWajlH","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Illman and Sj\\uc0\\u246{} 2015)","plainCitation":"(Illman and Sj? 2015)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1435,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1435,"type":"article-journal","title":"Facebook as a Site for Inter-religious Encounters: A Case Study from Finland","container-title":"Journal of Contemporary Religion","page":"383-398","volume":"30","issue":"3","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"The aim of this article is to analyse the social networking site Facebook as a possible platform for inter-religious dialogue. Building on a case study—an attack on a Buddhist temple in Turku, Finland, and the consequent interaction that took place online immediately following the attack—the article investigates the strengths and limitations of social networking sites such as Facebook for encountering and connecting with religious others. The ethnographic material—consisting of both Internet material and interviews with concerned parties—is discussed in close connection with current research on religion, social media, and discussions online. Themes that are highlighted include stereotypes and superficiality as assumed aspects of online conversations, the role of power in dialogue—both offline and online, and symbolic communicative actions and social networking sites.","DOI":"10.1080/13537903.2015.1081341","ISSN":"1353-7903","shortTitle":"Facebook as a Site for Inter-religious Encounters","author":[{"family":"Illman","given":"Ruth"},{"family":"Sj?","given":"Sofia"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015",9,2]]}}}],"schema":""} (2015) explored Facebook reactions to an act of vandalism against the Buddhist community in Turku, Finland. The authors combined the analysis of Facebook groups with interviews and employed the theoretical framework of third space to describe how solidarity was expressed among different religious communities. Ahmed ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"yEYR20me","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Al-Rawi 2016)","plainCitation":"(Al-Rawi 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4432,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4432,"type":"article-journal","title":"Facebook as a virtual mosque: the online protest against Innocence of Muslims","container-title":"Culture and Religion","page":"19-34","volume":"17","issue":"1","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"When the short anti-Islam film the Innocence of Muslims was first posted on YouTube in English, no tangible reactions were seen in the Arab world. However, when the same producer dubbed it into Arabic and posted it on YouTube, street protests started around some parts of the Arab world. The study reported here examines a popular Facebook page identified as The global campaign to counter the hurtful film against the Prophet Muhammed that was created to protest against the Innocence of Muslims film. This study investigated all 6949 Facebook updates and comments that were available on this page by 15 October 2012 and found that a clear majority of posts were Pro-Islamic focusing on prayers for Muhammed and supplications to defend him. This study advances our theoretical understanding of the connection between online and offline religion by providing empirical evidence in relation to this controversial incident.","DOI":"10.1080/14755610.2016.1159591","ISSN":"1475-5610","shortTitle":"Facebook as a virtual mosque","author":[{"family":"Al-Rawi","given":"Ahmed"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",1,2]]}}}],"schema":""} Al-Rawi (2016) contextualized the virtual ummah (Muslim community) created on Facebook in relation to offline practices. Through a framing analysis approach, Al-Rawi explored a Facebook page created in response to an Islamophobic video and discovered that it is divided into “public sphericules” where people express different viewpoints. Nasya ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"jMDUZIRZ","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Bahfen 2018)","plainCitation":"(Bahfen 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4427,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4427,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Individual and the Ummah: The Use of Social Media by Muslim Minority Communities in Australia and the United States","container-title":"Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs","page":"119-131","volume":"38","issue":"1","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"How are perceptions of self and ummah (community) reflected in social media use by members of Muslim minorities in two Western countries, Australia and the United States? This paper explores the use of social media by members of minority communities for the purposes of self-representation and community-building, and perceptions of social media use among members of Muslim minority communities, as a means for them to challenge the narrative of Islam found in mainstream media associated with homogeneity, violence and militancy. The paper is based on analysis of responses of a targeted sample of members of representative Muslim student organizations at two tertiary institutions in Australia and the United States. Asian countries of origin are strongly represented in the migrant and international student communities of these two countries. The survey respondents were asked about their use of social media in relation to how they engage in public discourse about Islam, and how it is used in the negotiation of their religious and secular identities.","DOI":"10.1080/13602004.2018.1434939","ISSN":"1360-2004","shortTitle":"The Individual and the Ummah","author":[{"family":"Bahfen","given":"Nasya"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018",1,2]]}}}],"schema":""} Bahfen (2018) further investigated the notion of ummah on social media with a survey among Muslims in Australia and the U.S. Bahfen’s research suggests social media can create a virtual ummah by offering Muslims a venue for self-representation, even if some survey respondents had ethical and moral concerns about digital communities spreading non-orthodox views of Islam. These studies suggest social media can help create religious communities or groups by offering platforms for exchanges, including inter-religious dialogue. The circulation of images, such as memes, can also be relevant in the formation of religious communities. Memes are constructs of texts and images that usually function as playful ways of communicating various messages. Religion-related memes can convey religious messages and/or employ religious images ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"iKXVCZ3H","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Aguilar et al. 2017)","plainCitation":"(Aguilar et al. 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4298,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4298,"type":"article-journal","title":"Communicating mixed messages about religion through internet memes","container-title":"Information, Communication & Society","page":"1498-1520","volume":"20","issue":"10","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"This article investigates the dominant messages Internet memes communicate about religion. Internet memes about religion are defined as, ‘memes circulated on the Internet whose images and texts focus on a variety of religious themes and/or religious traditions’ (Bellar et al., 2013). By drawing on meme genres identified by Shifman (2012) and analyzing techniques used to frame ideas concerning religion in memes, this study identifies common genres found amongst religious Internet meme and core frames used to present messages and assumptions about religion online. This article further draws attention to the importance of studying religion in digital contexts, as it highlights trends, recognized by scholars toward ‘Lived Religion’ within digital culture (Campbell, 2012). Lived Religion argues that contemporary media and digital culture provide important resources for presenting popular beliefs about religion. This study also suggests that studying Internet memes about religion provides a useful lens for understanding popular conceptions about religion within mainstream culture.","DOI":"10.1080/1369118X.2016.1229004","ISSN":"1369-118X","author":[{"family":"Aguilar","given":"Gabrielle K."},{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."},{"family":"Stanley","given":"Mariah"},{"family":"Taylor","given":"Ellen"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",10,3]]}}}],"schema":""} (Aguilar et al., 2017). According to Wendi Bellar et al. ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"xY3fxxCv","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Bellar et al. 2014)","plainCitation":"(Bellar et al. 2014)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4441,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4441,"type":"article-journal","title":"Reading Religion in Internet Memes","container-title":"Journal of Religion, Media & Digital Culture","page":"","volume":"2","source":"ResearchGate","DOI":"10.1163/21659214-90000031","journalAbbreviation":"Journal of Religion, Media & Digital Culture","author":[{"family":"Bellar","given":"Wendi"},{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi"},{"family":"James Cho","given":"Kyong"},{"family":"Terry","given":"Andrea"},{"family":"Tsuria","given":"Ruth"},{"family":"Aya","given":"Yadlin-Segal"},{"family":"Ziemer","given":"Jordan"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014",1,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2014), memes can be analyzed as examples of participatory culture and Lived Religion, the process by which people practice religion through everyday experiences. By exploring six meme platforms belonging to different religions and connected to social networks or blogs, the authors discovered that memes playfully blend pop culture references with religious narratives. The meaning of a meme can be helpful or problematic depending on the context of its production: circulated within a community, memes can reinforce group identity, but if created by an outsider, they can be used to criticize a religious group or community. Academic work on memes summarizes some facets of the scholarship on online religious communities. The circulation of images and narratives on websites, forums, and social networks can reinforce the sense of belonging to a community, which might exist exclusively online or be the extension of a physical group. It is important for members of the community to agree on interpretative frameworks. In some cases, the circulation of certain narratives can be used to engage with (or criticize) other religious communities. Scholarship on memes also shows some characteristics of online communities that intersect with identity and authority. The work of ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"HSAtUjcz","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Burroughs and Feller 2015)","plainCitation":"(Burroughs and Feller 2015)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4311,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4311,"type":"article-journal","title":"Religious Memetics: Institutional Authority in Digital/Lived Religion","container-title":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","page":"357-377","volume":"39","issue":"4","source":"SAGE Journals","abstract":"Recently leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon) faith have called upon members to “sweep the earth” with positive religious messages through social media. This digital moment in Mormonism exemplifies the interrelation and concomitant tension between everyday lived religion, technology, and religious institutions. While studies on digital religion have emphasized the push of participatory culture into everyday lived religion, this research on religious memes contributes to an emergent vein of digital religion scholarship focused on institutional authority. In our analysis of the “doubt your doubts” meme and antimemes we theorize religious memetics as a space for the reconnection of the everydayness of religious practice, which boils down meaningful moments of faith into facile, nonthreatening avenues for sharing religion. While this is beneficial for institutions, the reflexive and metonymic function of religious memes ruptures routine, offering participants momentary pauses from the demands of orthodox religious life.","DOI":"10.1177/0196859915603096","ISSN":"0196-8599","shortTitle":"Religious Memetics","journalAbbreviation":"Journal of Communication Inquiry","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Burroughs","given":"Benjamin"},{"family":"Feller","given":"Gavin"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015",10,1]]}}}],"schema":""} Benjamin Burroughs and Gavin Feller (2015) demonstrated the fact that memes can be used by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon) to convey positive messages on social media. In this case, memes and images do not only constitute an example of Lived Religion, but also offer religious institutions and leaders a way to negotiate authority by spreading certain messages in digital spaces. The Question of Religious Authority OnlineA challenge explored by many scholars is the extent to which digital religion modifies traditional notions of religious authority and power relationships. According to Stewart Hoover ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"irS8uKmc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hoover 2016)","plainCitation":"(Hoover 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":54,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":54,"type":"book","title":"The Media and Religious Authority","publisher":"Penn State University Press","publisher-place":"University Park, Pennsylvania","number-of-pages":"304","edition":"1 edition","source":"Amazon","event-place":"University Park, Pennsylvania","abstract":"As the availability and use of media platforms continue to expand, the cultural visibility of religion is on the rise, leading to questions about religious authority: Where does it come from? How is it established? What might be changing it? The contributors to The Media and Religious Authority examine the ways in which new centers of power and influence are emerging as religions seek to “brand” themselves in the media age. Putting their in-depth, incisive studies of particular instances of media production and reception in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and North America into conversation with one another, the volume explores how evolving mediations of religion in various places affect the prospects, aspirations, and durability of religious authority across the globe.An insightful combination of theoretical groundwork and individual case studies, The Media and Religious Authority invites us to rethink the relationships among the media, religion, and culture.The contributors are Karina Kosicki Bellotti, Alexandra Boutros, Pauline Hope Cheong, Peter Horsfield, Christine Hoff Kraemer, Joonseong Lee, Alf Linderman, Bahíyyah Maroon, Montré Aza Missouri, and Emily Zeamer, with an afterword by Lynn Schofield Clark.","ISBN":"978-0-271-07322-4","language":"English","editor":[{"family":"Hoover","given":"Stewart M."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",8,2]]}}}],"schema":""} (2016), this happens because the media hold power to confer authenticity on narratives and events. The inevitability of media and digital technologies in contemporary society and greater access to information about religion make it increasingly difficult for religious leaders to retain the exclusivity of interpretation of religious symbols and texts. Hoover referred to Max Weber’s ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"GGe0aOje","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Weber 2013)","plainCitation":"(Weber 2013)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4213,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4213,"type":"book","title":"Economy and Society","publisher":"University of California Press","publisher-place":"Berkeley","number-of-pages":"1712","edition":"First Edition, Two Volume Set, with a New Foreword by Guenther Roth edition","source":"Amazon","event-place":"Berkeley","abstract":"Published posthumously in the early 1920's, Max Weber's Economy and Society has since become recognized as one of the greatest sociological treatises of the 20th century, as well as a foundational text of the modern sociological imagination. The first strictly empirical comparison of social structures and normative orders conducted in world-historical depth, this two volume set of?Economy and Society―now with new introductory material contextualizing Weber’s work for 21st century audiences―looks at social action, religion, law, bureaucracy, charisma, the city, and the political community. Meant as a broad introduction for an educated general public, in its own way Economy and Society is the most demanding textbook yet written by a sociologist. The precision of its definitions, the complexity of its typologies, and the wealth of its historical content make the work an important challenge to our sociological thought: for the advanced undergraduate who gropes for her sense of society, for the graduate student who must develop his own analytical skills, and for the scholar who must match wits with Weber.","ISBN":"978-0-520-28002-1","language":"English","author":[{"family":"Weber","given":"Max"}],"editor":[{"family":"Roth","given":"Guenther"},{"family":"Wittich","given":"Claus"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2013",10,11]]}}}],"schema":""} (2013) types of legal, traditional, and charismatic authority, a perspective also discussed by Heidi Campbell ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"MIMfmLVN","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2007)","plainCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2007)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":3723,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":3723,"type":"article-journal","title":"Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet","container-title":"Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (International Communication Association)","page":"1043–1062","volume":"12","abstract":"While many themes have been explored in relation to religion online—ritual, identity construction, community—what happens to religious authority and power relationships within online environments is an area in need of more detailed investigation. In order to move discussions of authority from the broad or vague to the specific, this article argues for a more refined identification of the attributes of authority at play in the online context. This involves distinguishing between different layers of authority in terms of hierarchy, structure, ideology, and text. The article also explores how different religious traditions approach questions of authority in relation to the Internet. Through a qualitative analysis of three sets of interviews with Christians, Jews, and Muslims about the Internet, we see how authority is discussed and contextualized differently in each religious tradition in terms of these four layers of authority.","DOI":"doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00362.x","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2007"]]}}}],"schema":""} (2007). Based on interviews with Christians, Jews, and Muslims, Campbell’s work considered online authority as constituted by four main levels: hierarchy, structures, ideologies, and texts. Digital Religious Studies has often considered authority as embodied by religious leaders, but also connected to sacred texts, religious institutions, and practices. The impact of digital media on these different levels of authority may both challenge and affirm traditional authority ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"iQgHNwVp","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2010)","plainCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2010)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1444,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1444,"type":"article-journal","title":"Religious Authority and the Blogosphere","container-title":"Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication","page":"251-276","volume":"15","issue":"2","source":"Wiley Online Library","abstract":"It is often argued that the internet poses a threat to traditional forms of authority. Within studies of religion online claims have also been made that the internet is affecting religious authority online, but little substantive work has backed up these claims. This paper argues for an approach to authority within online studies which looks separately at authority: roles, structures, beliefs/ideologies and texts. This approach is applied to a thematic analysis of 100 religious blogs and demonstrates that religious bloggers use their blogs to frame authority in ways that may more often affirm than challenge traditional sources of authority.","DOI":"10.1111/j.1083-6101.2010.01519.x","ISSN":"1083-6101","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2010",1,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (Campbell, 2010). Some studies have suggested that, while the Internet offers the possibility of subverting authority structures, religious groups tend to reproduce online the same hierarchies that exist offline (Possamai & Turner, 2012). Other studies focused on the changes that digital religion provokes in authority structures. As Pauline Hope Cheong (2012) wrote, these lead to two academic perspectives. The first perspective includes studies about new media technologies that disrupt traditional authority and allow alternative models of leadership. The second perspective considers how the changing relationships that characterize the Internet age urge religious leaders to learn the logic of digital media. In this respect, Heidi Campbell ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"DMvQ2WrV","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2016)","plainCitation":"(H. A. Campbell 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":79,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":79,"type":"article-journal","title":"Framing the human-technology relationship: How Religious Digital Creatives engage posthuman narratives","container-title":"Social Compass","page":"302-318","volume":"63","issue":"3","source":"SAGE Journals","abstract":"This article highlights the fact that careful study of common posthuman outlooks, as described by Roden (2015), reveals three unique narratives concerning how posthumanists view the nature of humanity and emerging technologies. It is argued that these narratives point to unique frames that present distinct understandings of the human-technology relationship, frames described as the technology-cultured, enhanced-human, and human-technology hybrid frames. It is further posited these frames correlate and help map a range of ways people discuss and critique the impact of digital culture on humanity within broader society. This article shows how these frames are similarly at work in the language used by Religious Digital Creatives within Western Christianity to justify their engagement with digital technology for religious purposes. Thus, this article suggests careful analysis of ideological discussions within posthumanism can help us to unpack the common assumptions held and articulated about the human-technology relationship by members within religious communities.","DOI":"10.1177/0037768616652328","ISSN":"0037-7686","shortTitle":"Framing the human-technology relationship","journalAbbreviation":"Social Compass","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Campbell","given":"Heidi A"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",9,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2016), drawing from the work of Jon Anderson (1999), discussed three categories of emerging religious authorities: digital professionals, who employ their technological skills to create resources for religious communities; digital spokespersons, who develop the online presence of religious institutions; and digital strategists, who seek to serve their religious communities through online production. These categories suggest that online religious authorities are nuanced in involving different practical roles, something digital religion scholars have often empirically explored in relation to various media spaces.Forums and blogs are venues where people can intervene in debates and create religious narratives in a relatively easy way. This is why they are often studied relative to their ability to negotiate traditional authority and support new forms of authority. In some cases, digital media can allow for the criticism of institutional authority. For example, Marta Ko?odziejska and Anna Neumaier ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"6SmqItYX","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Ko\\uc0\\u322{}odziejska and Neumaier 2017)","plainCitation":"(Ko?odziejska and Neumaier 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4386,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4386,"type":"article-journal","title":"Between individualisation and tradition: transforming religious authority on German and Polish Christian online discussion forums","container-title":"Religion","page":"228-255","volume":"47","issue":"2","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"The aim of this paper is to connect the debates on individualisation and mediatisation of religion and transformations of religious authority online on theoretical and empirical basis. The classical and contemporary concepts of individualisation of religion, rooted in the secularisation debate, will be connected with Campbell’s [2007. “Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (3): 1043–1062] concept of four layers of religious authority online. The empirical material consists of a joint analysis of German Christian and Polish Catholic Internet forums. In a transnational comparison, the findings show similar tendencies of individualisation and emerging communities of choice, as well as a lasting significance of textual religious authorities, although different levels of authority are negotiated and emphasised to a varying extent. However, in both cases critique of the Church and religion usually emerges offline, and is then expressed online. While the forums do not have a subversive potential, they facilitate adopting a more independent, informed, and reflexive approach to religion.","DOI":"10.1080/0048721X.2016.1219882","ISSN":"0048-721X","shortTitle":"Between individualisation and tradition","author":[{"family":"Ko?odziejska","given":"Marta"},{"family":"Neumaier","given":"Anna"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",4,3]]}}}],"schema":""} (2017) combined qualitative and quantitative methods to explore Christian forums in Germany and Poland. Engaging Campbell’s four layers of authority, the authors found that forums often voice dissatisfaction with religious institutions and that the negotiation of online authority is connected with offline practices. New informal authorities emerge in forums, but sacred texts continue to be quoted as fundamental sources of authority. Informal religious authority online was explored by Doris ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"wwiGeqL4","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Jakobsh 2006)","plainCitation":"(Jakobsh 2006)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1148,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1148,"type":"article-journal","title":"Authority in the Virtual Sangat : Sikhism, Ritual and Identity in the Twenty-First Century","container-title":"Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet","volume":"2","issue":"1","source":"heiup.uni-heidelberg.de","abstract":"In her paper Authority in the Virtual Sanga. Sikhism, Ritual and Identity in the Twenty-First Century, Doris Jakobsh analyses the change of authority based on her research on Sikhs on the Internet. She stresses the Web as a ‘third place’ of communication among the Sikhs as well as the phenomenon of new authorities online. However, this does not imply the replacement of the traditional seats of authority, the Akal Takht, SGPC, or gurdwara managements, but one can recognize a significant shift away from these traditional sites of authority toward the ‘new authorities’, the intermediaries of cyberspace. Her analysis shows that this aspect of the Sikh experience brings with it the most profound challenges and, most importantly, a need to bridge the post-modern individual, i.e. ‘Sikh tradition’ intertwined and legitimated by the metanarrative, and the proliferation of new authorities who have become intermediaries of Sikhism online by virtue of their expertise within the digital domain.","URL":"","shortTitle":"Authority in the Virtual Sangat","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Jakobsh","given":"Doris R."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2006"]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2016",7,14]]}}}],"schema":""} Jakobsh's (2006) work on Sikhism and the Internet, which described how Sikhs turn to digital spaces with religion-related questions. In so doing, they do not reject traditional authority figures, but facilitate the emergence of intermediaries who foster knowledge transmission online. Jasjit ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"gw2pydeP","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Singh 2018)","plainCitation":"(Singh 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4452,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4452,"type":"article-journal","title":"Lost in translation? The emergence of the digital Guru Granth Sahib","container-title":"Sikh Formations","page":"339-351","volume":"14","issue":"3-4","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"This article explores the impact of the digital online environment on the religious lives of Sikhs with a particular focus on the emergence of the ‘Digital Guru’, i.e. digital versions of the Guru Granth Sahib. Using data gathered through interviews and an online survey, I examine how the ‘Digital Guru’ is impacting on the transmission of the Sikh tradition and on Sikh religious authority. I then explore some of the issues faced in engaging with the ‘Digital Guru’ and the consequences of the emergence of online translations. Given that ‘going online’ has become an everyday practice for many, this article contributes to understandings of the impact of the online environment on the religious adherents in general, and on Sikhs in particular.","DOI":"10.1080/17448727.2018.1485355","ISSN":"1744-8727","shortTitle":"Lost in translation?","author":[{"family":"Singh","given":"Jasjit"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018",10,2]]}}}],"schema":""} Singh (2018) also explored digital religion and Sikhism, writing about Internet software that translates sacred texts, e.g. the Guru Granth Sahib. Through interviews, online surveys, and participant observation, Singh showed that young British Sikhs turn to the Internet to gain access to sacred texts and bypass traditional interpretative authority with the help of the software. The question of language and translation was also addressed by Rajeshwari Pandharipande ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"OwbGXMkc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Pandharipande 2018)","plainCitation":"(Pandharipande 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4423,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4423,"type":"article-journal","title":"Digital religion and Hinduism in the United States","container-title":"World Englishes","page":"497-502","volume":"37","issue":"3","source":"Wiley Online Library","abstract":"As religions migrate from their native contexts, they adopt new languages for their communication. Additionally, in the 21st century, digital media is being used for religious practices such as ritual worship, sermons and discourses. This article focuses on the case of Hinduism in the US diaspora where the Hindu community (unlike its native counterpart in India) uses the English language and the digital media for the Hindu religious practices. In particular, this article discusses the ways in which the use of the English language and digital media is more conventionalized in the context of discussion about religion (in the discourses of satsang), as opposed to the experience of religion (for example, in puja ‘worship ritual’).","DOI":"10.1111/weng.12338","ISSN":"1467-971X","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Pandharipande","given":"Rajeshwari V."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018",9,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2018), who investigated Hinduism in the U.S. By means of interviews with practitioners, Pandharipande described online satsang (discourse with the enlightened master) and puja (worship ritual). The study found that members of the Hindu diaspora consider English an appropriate language to talk about religion, as in the case of satsang, but not to perform online puja. This suggests that the negotiation of online authority also involves the question of authenticity and the adaptation of religious practices in given contexts. A number of studies have focused on religious authority and social media, such as Twitter. In particular, scholars explore how religious leaders transfer and modify their offline authority by establishing a Twitter presence. Using the theoretical lens of religious-social shaping of technology Damian Guzek ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"Wrr9EvTm","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Guzek 2015)","plainCitation":"(Guzek 2015)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4462,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4462,"type":"article-journal","title":"Discovering the Digital Authority: Twitter as Reporting Tool for Papal Activities","container-title":"Online - Heidelberg Journal for Religions on the Internet","page":"63-80","source":"ResearchGate","abstract":"This article focuses on Pope Francis activities on Twitter and understanding the way of using this kind of social media by religious authorities. By examining Francis’s tweets from half a year of his pontificate (from September 13, 2013 to March 16, 2014), the author offers an in-depth overview of methods for studying the presence of religious authority in the digital world. In fact, he faces both the rapidly growing Heidi Campbell’s Religious Social-Shaping of Technology analytic frame and the grounded theory approach. Conducting the research the author shows that Pope Francis’s Twitter can be treated as a good example of ‘religion online’ based on a specific strategy to extend religious authority from the real to the virtual world.","DOI":"10.11588/rel.2015.0.26251","shortTitle":"Discovering the Digital Authority","journalAbbreviation":"Online - Heidelberg Journal for Religions on the Internet","author":[{"family":"Guzek","given":"Damian"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015",11,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2015) performed a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the tweets Pope Francis sent during the first six months of his pontificate. The analysis suggested that the digital tool does not substantially modify the style of the Pope, whose Twitter messages are similar to those disseminated through other channels. Starting from similar premises but reaching slightly different conclusions, Juan Narbona ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"qBUn9KLj","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Narbona 2016)","plainCitation":"(Narbona 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":67,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":67,"type":"article-journal","title":"Digital leadership, Twitter and Pope Francis","container-title":"Church, Communication and Culture","page":"90-109","volume":"1","issue":"1","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"The Internet reproduces and strengthens our model of social dialog. Just as in the physical world, the online public conversation and, above all, the ideological debate, requires leaders who can be a point of reference to either foster values or contradict them. The concept of leadership has drawn the attention of several studies concerning communication management. Leaders are neither all equal nor do they exercise leadership by means of the same tools. This article studies both the concept of digital leadership as a guide for online conversation and the use that microblogs, such as Twitter, can provide for this purpose. Among several public figures using Twitter, we have focused our study on the @Pontifex account to have an insight into the type of leadership exercised by the Holy Father and the impact of his teaching. The analysis shows that the Pope uses Twitter for catechetical purposes and that he is aware that his message can reach a large audience. Moreover, although interaction between the Pope and his followers on this platform is a fact already known, we have further found that some messages arouse followers’ interest more than others do.","DOI":"10.1080/23753234.2016.1181307","ISSN":"2375-3234","author":[{"family":"Narbona","given":"Juan"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",1,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (2016) analyzed the Twitter presence of Pope Francis as a new type of digital leadership. By discussing the concept of leadership from an interdisciplinary perspective, Narbona performed a qualitative analysis of tweets written by Pope Francis. The study individuated the strategies and messages Pope Francis employs to engage the audience and claimed that the pontiff holds a sophisticated knowledge of digital media logics. Some studies have analyzed how religious institutions adopt Twitter as part of media strategies to partially address the decline of certain religious practices and establish networked forms of interactions ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"Mc3xF5B7","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(P. H. Cheong, Huang, and Poon 2011)","plainCitation":"(P. H. Cheong, Huang, and Poon 2011)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1609,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1609,"type":"article-journal","title":"Religious Communication and Epistemic Authority of Leaders in Wired Faith Organizations","container-title":"Journal of Communication","page":"938-958","volume":"61","issue":"5","source":"Wiley Online Library","abstract":"The mediation of communication has raised questions of authority shifts in key social institutions. This article examines how traditional sources of epistemic power that govern social relations in religious authority are being amplified or delegitimized by Internet use, drawing from in-depth interviews with protestant pastors in Singapore. Competition from Internet access is found to delocalize epistemic authority to some extent; however, it also reembeds authority by allowing pastors to acquire new competencies as strategic arbiters of religious expertise and knowledge. Our study indicates that although religious leaders are confronted with proletarianization, deprofessionalization, and potential delegitimization as epistemic threats, there is also an enhancement of epistemic warrant as they adopt mediated communication practices that include the social networks of their congregation.","DOI":"10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01579.x","ISSN":"1460-2466","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Cheong","given":"Pauline Hope"},{"family":"Huang","given":"Shirlena"},{"family":"Poon","given":"Jessie P. H."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011",10,1]]}}}],"schema":""} (Cheong, Huang, & Poon, 2011). According to Pauline Hope Cheong ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"vZCos2vS","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(P. H. Cheong 2010)","plainCitation":"(P. H. Cheong 2010)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4467,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4467,"type":"article-journal","title":"Faith Tweets: Ambient Religious Communication and Microblogging Rituals","container-title":"M/C Journal","volume":"13","issue":"2","source":"journal.media-.au","abstract":"There’s no reason to think that Jesus wouldn’t have Facebooked or twittered if he came into the world now. Can you imagine his killer status updates? Reverend Schenck, New York, All Saints Episcopal Church (Mapes) The fundamental problem of religious communication is how best to represent and mediate the sacred. (O’Leary? 787) What would Jesus tweet? Historically, the quest for sacred connections has relied on the mediation of faith communication via technological implements, from the use of the drum to mediate the Divine, to the use of the mechanical clock by monks as reminders to observe the canonical hours of prayer (Mumford). Today, religious communication practices increasingly implicate Web 2.0, or interactive, user-generated content like blogs (Cheong, Halavis & Kwon), and microblogs like “tweets” of no more than 140 characters sent via Web-based applications like text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, or on the Web. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s latest report in October 2009, 19% of online adults said that they used a microblogging service to send messages from a computer or mobile device to family and friends who have signed up to receive them (Fox, Zickuhr & Smith). The ascendency of microblogging leads to interesting questions of how new media use alters spatio-temporal dynamics in peoples’ everyday consciousness, including ways in which tweeting facilitates ambient religious interactions. The notion of ambient strikes a particularly resonant chord for religious communication: many faith traditions advocate the practice of sacred mindfulness, and a consistent piety in light of holy devotion to an omnipresent and omniscient Divine being. This paper examines how faith believers appropriate the emergent microblogging practices to create an encompassing cultural surround to include microblogging rituals which promote regular, heightened prayer awareness. Faith tweets help constitute epiphany and a persistent sense of sacred connected presence, which in turn rouses an identification of a higher moral purpose and solidarity with other local and global believers. Amidst ongoing tensions about microblogging, religious organisations and their leadership have also begun to incorporate Twitter into their communication practices and outreach, to encourage the extension of presence beyond the church walls. Faith Tweeting and Mobile Mediated Prayers Twitter’s Website describes itself as a new media service that help users communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to the question, “What are you doing?” Some evangelical Christian groups harness these coincident messaging flows to create meaningful pathways for personal, intercessory and synchronised prayer. Using hashtags in a Twitter post creates a community convention or grouping around faith ideas and allows others to access them. Popular faith related hashtags include #twurch (Twitter + church), #prayer, #JIL (Jesus is Lord) and #pray4 (as in, #pray4 my mother). Just as mobile telephony assists distal family members to build “connected presence” (Christensen),? I suggest that faith tweets stimulating mobile mediated prayers help build a sense of closeness and “religious connected presence” amongst the distributed family of faith believers, to recreate and reaffirm Divine and corporeal bonds. Consider the Calvin Institute of Worship’s set up of six different Twitter feeds to “pray the hours”. Praying the hours is an ancient practice of praying set prayers throughout certain times of the day, as marked in the Book of Common Prayer in the Christian tradition. Inspired by the Holy Scripture’s injunction to “pray without ceasing” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:17), users can sign up to receive hourly personal or intercessory prayers sent in brief verses or view a Tweetgrid with prayer feeds, to prompt continuous prayer or help those who are unsure of what words to pray. In this way, contemporary believers may reinvent the century-old practice of constant faith mediation as Twitter use helps to reintegrate scripture into people’s daily lives. Faith tweets that goad personal and intercessory prayer also makes ambient religious life salient, and preserves self-awareness of sanctified moments during normal, everyday activities. Furthermore, while the above “praying the hours” performance promotes a specific integration of scripture or prayer into individuals’ daily rhythms, other faith tweets are more focused on evangelism: to reach others through recurrent prayers or random inspirational messages sent throughout the day. For instance, as BBC News reports, religious leaders such as Cardinal Brady, head of Ireland’s Catholic Church, encourage parishioners to use Twitter to spread “the gift of prayer”, as they microblog their daily prayers for their friends and family. Cardinal Brady commented that, “such a sea of prayer is sure to strengthen our sense of solidarity with one another and remind us those who receive them that others really do care\" (emphasis mine). Indeed, Cardinal Brady’s observation is instructive to the “Twitness” of faithful microbloggers who desire to shape the blogosphere, and create new faith connections. “JesusTweeters” is a faith-based social networking site, and a service which allows users to send out?messages from any random tweet from the Bible Tweet Library, or their own personal?messages?on a scheduled basis. The site reports that over 500 members of JesusTweeters, each with an average of 500 followers, have signed up to help “spread the Word” worldwide through Twitter. This is an interesting emergent form of Twitter action, as it translates to more than 2.5 million faith tweets being circulated online daily. ? Moreover, Twitter encourages ‘connected presence’ whereby the use of microblogging enables online faith believers to enjoy an intimate, ‘always on’ virtual presence with their other congregational members during times of physical absence. In the recently released e-book The Reason Your Church Must Twitter, subtitled Making Your Ministry Contagious, author and self-proclaimed ‘technology evangelist’ Anthony Coppedge advocates churches to adopt Twitter as part of their overall communication strategy to maintain relational connectedness beyond the boundaries of established institutional practices. In his book, Coppedge argues that Twitter can be used as a “megaphone” for updates and announcements or as a “conversation” to spur sharing of ideas and prayer exchanges. In line with education scholars who promote Twitter as a pedagogical tool to enhance free-flowing interactions outside of the classroom (Dunlap & Lowenthal), Coppedge encourages pastors to tweet “life application points” from their sermons to their congregational members throughout the week, to reinforce the theme of their Sunday lesson. Ministry leaders are also encouraged to adopt Twitter to “become highly accessible” to members and communicate with their volunteers, in order to build stronger ecumenical relationships. Communication technology scholar Michele Jackson notes that Twitter is a form of visible “lifelogging” as interactants self-disclose their lived-in moments (731). In the case of faith tweets, co-presence is constructed when instantaneous Twitter updates announce new happenings on the church campus, shares prayer requests, confirms details of new events and gives public commendations to celebrate victories of staff members. In this way, microblogging helps to build a portable church where fellow believers can connect to each-other via the thread of frequent, running commentaries of their everyday lives. To further develop ‘connected presence’, a significant number of Churches have also begun to incorporate real-time Twitter streams during their Sunday services. For example, to stimulate congregational members’ sharing of their spontaneous reactions to the movement of the Holy Spirit, Westwind Church in Michigan has created a dozen “Twitter Sundays” where members are free to tweet at any time and at any worship service (Rochman). At Woodlands Church in Houston, a new service was started in 2009 which encourages parishioners to tweet their thoughts, reflections and questions throughout the service. The tweets are reviewed by church staff and they are posted as scrolling visual messages on a screen behind the pastor while he preaches (Patel).? It is interesting to note that recurring faith tweets spatially filling the sanctuary screens blurs the visual hierarchies between the pastor as foreground and congregations as background to the degree that tweet voices from the congregation are blended into the church worship service. The interactive use of Twitter also differs from the forms of personal silent meditation and private devotional prayer that, traditionally, most liturgical church services encourage. In this way, key to new organisational practices within religious organisations is what some social commentators are now calling “ambient intimacy”, an enveloping social awareness of one’s social network (Pontin). Indeed, several pastors have acknowledged that faith tweets have enabled them to know their congregational members’ reflections, struggles and interests better and thus they are able to improve their teaching and caring ministry to meet congregants’ evolving spiritual needs (Mapes).Microblogging Rituals and Tweeting Tensions In many ways, faith tweets can be comprehended as microblogging rituals which have an ambient quality in engendering individuals’ spiritual self and group consciousness. The importance of examining emergent cyber-rituals is underscored by Stephen O’Leary in his 1996 seminal article on Cyberspace as Sacred Space. Writing in an earlier era of digital connections, O’Leary discussed e-mail and discussion forum cyber-rituals and what ritual gains in the virtual environment aside from its conventional physiological interactions. Drawing from Walter Ong’s understanding of the “secondary orality” accompanying the shift to electronic media, he argued that cyber-ritual as performative utterances restructure and reintegrate the minds and emotions of their participants, such that they are more aware of their interior self and a sense of communal group membership. Here, the above illustrative examples show how Twitter functions as the context for contemporary, mediated ritual practices to help believers construct a connected presence and affirm their religious identities within an environment where wired communication is a significant part of everyday life. To draw from Walter Ong’s words, microblogging rituals create a new textual and visual “sensorium” that has insightful implications for communication and media scholars. Faith tweeting by restructuring believers’ consciousness and generating a heightened awareness of relationship between the I, You and the Thou opens up possibilities for community building and revitalised religiosity to counteract claims of secularisation in technologically advanced and developed countries. “Praying the hours” guided by scripturally inspired faith tweets, for example, help seekers and believers experience epiphany and practice their faith in a more holistic way as they de-familarize mundane conditions and redeem a sense of the sacred from their everyday surrounds. Through the intermittent sharing of intercessory prayer tweets, faithful followers enact prayer chains and perceive themselves to be immersed in invariable spiritual battle to ward off evil ideology or atheistic beliefs. Moreover, the erosion of the authority of the church is offset by changed leadership practices within religious organisations which have experimented and actively incorporated Twitter into their daily institutional practices. To the extent that laity are willing to engage, creative practices to encourage congregational members to tweet during and after the service help revivify communal sentiments and a higher moral purpose through identification and solidarity with clergy leaders and other believers. Yet this ambience has its possible drawbacks as some experience tensions in their perception and use of Twitter as new technology within the church. Microblogging rituals may have negative implications for individual believers and religious organisations as they can weaken or pervert the existing relational links. As Pauline Cheong and Jessie Poon have pointed out, use of the Internet within religious organisations may bring about an alternative form of “perverse religious social capital building” as some clergy view that online communication detracts from real time relations and physical rituals. Indeed, some religious leaders have already articulated their concerns about Twitter and new tensions they experience in balancing the need to engage with new media audiences and the need for quiet reflection that spiritual rites such as confession of sins and the Holy Communion entail. According to the critics of faith tweeting, microblogging is time consuming and contributes to cognitive overload by taking away one’s attention to what is noteworthy at the moment. For Pastor Hayes of California for example, Twitter distracts his congregation’s focus on the sermon and thus he only recommends his members to tweet after the service. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, he said: “If two people are talking at the same time, somebody’s not listening”, and “You cannot do two things at once and expect you’re not going to miss something” (Patel). Furthermore, similar to prior concerns voiced with new technologies, there are concerns over inappropriate tweet content that can comprise of crudity, gossip, malevolent and hate messages, which may be especially corrosive to faith communities that strive to model virtues like love, temperance and truth-telling (Vitello).?? In turn, some congregational members are also experiencing frustrations as they negotiate church boundaries and other members’ disapproval of their tweeting practices during service and church events. Censure of microblogging has taken the form of official requests for tweeting members to leave the sanctuary, to less formal social critique and the application of peer pressure to halt tweeting during religious proceedings and activities (Mapes). As a result of these connectivity tensions, varying recommendations have been recently published as fresh efforts to manage religious communication taking place in ambience. For instance, Coppedge recommends every tweeting church to include Twitter usage in their “church communications policy” to promote accountability within the organisation. The policy should include guidelines against excessive use of Twitter as spam, and for at least one leader to subscribe and monitor every Twitter account used. Furthermore, the Interpreter magazine of the United Methodist Church worldwide featured recommendations by Rev. Safiyah Fosua who listed eight important attributes for pastors wishing to incorporate Twitter during their worship services (Rice). These attributes are: highly adaptive; not easily distracted; secure in their presentation style; not easily taken aback when people appear to be focused on something other than listenin; into quality rather than volume; not easily rattled by things that are new; secure enough as a preacher to let God work through whatever is tweeted even if it is not the main points of the sermon; and carried on the same current the congregation is travelling on. For the most part, these attributes underscore how successful (read wired) contemporary religious leaders should be tolerant of ambient religious communication and of blurring hierarchies of information control when faced with microblogging and the “inexorable advance of multimodal connectedness” (Schroeder 1). To conclude, the rise of faith tweeting opens up a new portal to investigate accretive changes to culture as microblogging rituals nurture piety expressed in continuous prayer, praise and ecclesial updates. The emergent Twitter sensorium demonstrates the variety of ways in which religious adherents appropriate new media within the ken and tensions of their daily lives.? References BBC News. “Twitter Your Prayer says Cardinal.” 27 April 2009. ??. Cheong, P.H., A. Halavis and K. Kwon. “The Chronicles of Me: Understanding Blogging as a Religious Practice. Journal of Media and Religion 7 (2008): 107-131. Cheong, P.H., and J.P.H. Poon. “‘WWW.’: (Re)structuring Communication and Social Capital Building among Religious Organizations.” Information, Communication and Society 11.1 (2008): 89-110. Christensen, Toke Haunstrup. “‘Connected Presence’ in Distributed Family Life.” New Media and Society 11 (2009): 433-451. Coppedge, Anthony. “The Reason Your Church Must Twitter: Making Your Ministry Contagious.” 2009. ??. Dunlap, Joanna, and Patrick Lowenthal. “Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence.” ?Journal of Information Systems Education 20.2 (2009): 129-135. Fox, Susannah, Kathryn Zickuhr, and Aaron Smith. “Twitter and Status Updating\" Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2009. Oct. 2009 ??. Jackson, Michele. “The Mash-Up: A New Archetype for Communication.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14.3 (2009): 730-734. Mapes, Diane. “Holy Twitter! Tweeting from the Pews.” 2009. 3 June 2009 ??. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. New York: Harcourt, 1934. Patel, Purva. “Tweeting during Church Services Gets Blessing of Pastors.” Houston Chronicle (2009). 10 Oct. 2009 ??. O’Leary, Stephen. ”Cyberspace as Sacred Space: Communicating Religion on Computer Networks.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64.4 (1996): 781-808. Pontin, Jason. “Twitter and Ambient Intimacy: How Evan Williams Helped Create the New Social Medium of Microblogging.” MIT Review 2007. 15 Nov. 2009 ??. Rice, Kami. “The New Worship Question: To Tweet or Not to Tweet.” Interpreter Magazine (Nov.-Dec. 2009). ??. Rochman, Bonnie. “Twittering in Church, with the Pastor’s O.K.” Time 3 May 2009. ??. Schroeder, Ralph. “Mobile Phones and the Inexorable Advance of Multimodal Connectedness.” New Media and Society 12.1 (2010): 75-90. Vitello, Paul. “Lead Us to Tweet, and Forgive the Trespassers.” New York Times 5 July 2009. ??.","URL":"","ISSN":"14412616","shortTitle":"Faith Tweets","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Cheong","given":"Pauline Hope"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2010",5,3]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2018",12,18]]}}}],"schema":""} (2010), religious organizations and leaders may incorporate Twitter within their practices and activities to respond to believers’ need of constant sacred connectedness. For example, Cheong ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"z0U36tv3","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(P. Cheong 2015)","plainCitation":"(P. Cheong 2015)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1373,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":1373,"type":"article-journal","title":"Tweet the Message? Religious Authority and Social Media Innovation","container-title":"The Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture","page":"1-19","volume":"3","issue":"3","source":"","abstract":"Religious believers have historically adapted Scripture into brief texts for wider dissemination through relatively inexpensive publications. The emergence of Twitter and other microblogging tools today afford clerics a platform for real time information s haring with its interface for short written texts, which includes providing links to graphics and sound recordings that can be forwarded and responded to by others. This paper discusses emergent practices in tweet authorship which embed and are inspired by sacred Scripture, in order to deepen understanding of the changing nature of sacred texts and of the constitution of religious authority as pastors engage microblogging and social media networks. Drawing upon a Twitter feed by a prominent Christian megachurch leader with global influence, this paper identifies multiple ways in which tweets have been encoded to quote, remix and interpret Scripture, and to serve as choice aphorisms that reflect or are inspired by Scripture. Implications for the changing nature of sacred digital texts and the reconstruction of religious authority are also discussed.","ISSN":"2165-9214","shortTitle":"Tweet the Message?","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Cheong","given":"Pauline"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015",5,14]]}}}],"schema":""} (2015) explored the Twitter account of a prominent megachurch leader from Singapore, Pastor Kong Hee, to discover new patterns of interaction through social media. An analysis of the pastor’s tweets suggested that Twitter often serves the purpose of quoting sacred texts and circulating them to a larger public. This study exemplifies how research on digital religion and Twitter tends to focus on specific individuals’ use of the platforms and their impact on certain audiences. Believers can also negotiate religious authority through apps. The proliferation of smartphones and other mobile devices leads to the creation of application software that performs a number of tasks. In some cases, apps also address religious practices, urging scholars to explore them in relation to creators and users’ perception of authority. For example, confession apps create new modes to approach religion while bypassing traditional authorities, as per the research of Sasha Scott ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"IhSJD2MJ","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Scott 2016)","plainCitation":"(Scott 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4167,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4167,"type":"article-journal","title":"Algorithmic Absolution: The Case of Catholic Confessional Apps","container-title":"Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet","volume":"11","issue":"0","source":"heiup.uni-heidelberg.de","abstract":"This article explores the Catholic ritual of confession as practiced through the use of mobile apps. Confession is a surprisingly persistent social form and in this article I begin by contextualising the relationship between society, confession and technology before presenting a case study of Catholic confessional apps that covers their design, marketing, and user feedback from review forums. This throws up a series of important questions about how we understand religious authenticity and authority in practices of faith that have a computational agent taking moral deviations as ‘data input’. How should we conceptualise these applications when an algorithm imparts absolution, when penance is assigned by computational code? Observing that most people do not question the automation of the confessional ritual and that users feel their use of confessional apps as entirely legitimate forms of religious practice, I argue that questions of authenticity are secondary to those of authority. In the traditional Sacrament of Penance a priest, acting in persona Christi as the minister of Christ’s mercy and drawing upon canonical law, recites the Rites of Penance, thereby performing the transition from the state of ‘penitent’ to ‘absolved’. The replacement of a priest with the silent logics of algorithmic automation has profound implications for the authoritative power of confession as a transformative ritual.","URL":"","DOI":"10.17885/heiup.rel.2016.0.23634","shortTitle":"Algorithmic Absolution","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Scott","given":"Sasha A. Q."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",12,29]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2018",8,24]]}}}],"schema":""} (2016). Catholic confession apps help people confront their sins and may include an algorithm that functions as a social agent by automatically granting absolution. Scott analyzed app designs and users’ feedback and described how certain Catholic leaders actually support the use of confessional apps. This suggests the apps are not necessarily a substitute for traditional authority, but may constitute a strategy to expand religious practices and create patterns to experience religion in an individual and independent way. Religious apps are also often connected to reading practices. Tim Hutchings ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"XkV5WTJt","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hutchings 2017b)","plainCitation":"(Hutchings 2017b)","dontUpdate":true,"noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4449,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4449,"type":"article-journal","title":"Design and the digital Bible: persuasive technology and religious reading","container-title":"Journal of Contemporary Religion","page":"205-219","volume":"32","issue":"2","source":"Taylor and Francis+NEJM","abstract":"This article analyses two ‘digital Bibles’, products that allow the user to engage with the Bible through the screen and speakers of his/her mobile phone, tablet or computer. Both products, ‘YouVersion’ and ‘GloBible’, have been created by Evangelical Christian companies. I argue that both are designed to train the user in traditional Evangelical Christian understandings of the work of reading. Digital media offer new opportunities to guide and influence the user, and this article applies the concepts of ‘persuasive technologies’ and ‘procedural rhetoric’ to analyse the design intentions of the two digital Bibles. This approach helps us to appreciate the significance of the material form of a sacred text as a vehicle for religious socialisation and raises important questions about the potential for digital media to re-shape traditional relationships of power in Evangelical Christian communities.","DOI":"10.1080/13537903.2017.1298903","ISSN":"1353-7903","shortTitle":"Design and the digital Bible","author":[{"family":"Hutchings","given":"Tim"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",5,4]]}}}],"schema":""} (2017b), for example, explored two digital Bibles, “YouVersion” and “GloBible,” that allow people to experience sacred texts through mobile devices. The apps are created by Evangelical Christian companies and function as devices of “persuasive technology” and “procedural rhetoric,” meaning that they aim to establish specific practices and reading patterns for the user. By analyzing the two apps and related marketing material, and performing interviews with product designers, Hutchings discovered that the apps change some authority relationships within religious communities. They emphasize the authority of the Bible rather than highlighting the influence and role of the designers. As a result, reading patterns are articulated outside the influence of traditional religious authorities but maintain connections with offline religious practices and communities. Scholarship on apps show how religious authority in the digital age is no longer only situated within religious institutions, but belongs to non-traditional figures, such as creators and designers, as well. In addition, people may use several Internet venues to criticize or negotiate traditional and institutional authorities, but they often continue to rely on existing textual sources. This has compelled reflection on how digital religion can impact religious authority by offering venues where people can transmit religious knowledge and establish new patterns of reading and experiencing religious texts.Future of Digital Religion StudiesIn the previous three sections, we offered an overview of key empirical studies on digital religion, highlighting dominant methods and theories applied to identity, community, and authority. This research shows that these three categories can coexist and overlap within given media platforms and are often characterized by the interconnectedness and fluidity of media practices. For example, religious blogs may allow believers to showcase their identity online, while also allowing them to form communities and facilitate the emergence of alternative religious leaders. It is nonetheless useful to think in terms of identity, community, and authority to outline the engagement of users in digital environments. In addition, these elements point to issues in need of further exploration, such as the question of access in online and offline spaces, the privatization or publicization of certain religious practices, the power dynamics involving different religious traditions, the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, and the influence of post-secular discourses on digital religion. In the following sections we briefly explore three important issues only beginning to be investigated within Digital Religion research, including (1) the possibilities and ethical challenges posed to religious communities by artificial intelligence and augmented reality, (2) the influence of post-secular discourses on this scholarship, and (3) trends towards technology use being framed as implicit religion. The Posthuman in Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence Rapid smart-technology developments like wearable computing and virtual and augmented realities that seek to enhance user digital experiences raise increasingly complex existential questions about how living in a digital world is shaping both our attitudes and behaviors towards technologies and the technological other. While Digital Religion Studies has often engaged questions around issues embodiment and authenticity of human experience and presence in digital contexts, new technologies make these explorations increasingly complex. Initially, scholars’ concerns focused on how we understand what can be considered real, and how the virtual can be evaluated as authentic relative to how human bodies or personas are represented, especially in virtual world and gaming environment (e.g., Radde-Antweiler, 2013; Campbell & Grieve, 2014). In this respect, Rachel Wagner ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"CnSOcEeX","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Wagner 2015)","plainCitation":"(Wagner 2015)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":4338,"uris":[""],"uri":[""],"itemData":{"id":4338,"type":"article-journal","title":"Video Games and Religion","source":"","abstract":"This article identifies key features of the comparison between video games and religion, focusing on contemporary video games based on specific ancient apocalypses including “The Book of the Watchers” in the Enoch corpus and the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Many contemporary video games function as rituals of order-making, creating spaces of play in which violence is a performative mode of metaphysical sorting, allowing for new negotiations between “good” and “evil.” Through a consideration of popular gaming elements (fragging, fiero, firepower, and fun), this article proposes that the strong relationship between video games and apocalyptic literature invites a closer examination of how eschatological tensions infuse contemporary times, too often inviting an overly simplistic apocalyptic response to contemporary global challenges.","URL":"","DOI":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935420.013.8","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Wagner","given":"Rachel"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015",9,10]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2018",12,4]]}}}],"schema":""} (2015), analyzing games based on ancient apocalypses in the Enoch corpus and the Book of Revelation, wrote that the interplay between producers and players can offer a metaphor of world creation through a “purposeful escape” into another reality. Over the past decade scholars have also paid attention to how digital media intersects with death rituals and understandings of common human rituals within online memorialization (e.g., Haughey & Campbell, 2013), the lifecycle of one’s digital footprint and persona, and what practices of public grieving say about religious sensibilities in digital culture of meaning (e.g., Whitehead, 2014). Focus has been placed on how digital environments can transform personal religion and memory into a mediatized communal event affirming distinct spiritual narratives about the meaning of life.In more recent work scholars have turned their attention to how digital technologies raise questions and conversations about the nature of human existence in a digital world. This expands the frame of conversations from simply considering how digital contexts may alter our understanding of life, death, and time to expanding our very notion of being in a digital-mediated world—e.g., reframing “being there, and being-in-and-with-the-world,” as argued by Lagerkvist (2017). Lagerkvist’s work on existential existence in a digital age argued our notions of gender, race, and personhood are being reframed through our technologies. This allows for a broader conversation about how sexuality and gender are informed within religious digital contexts (e.g., Lovheim, 2014). This has also opened space to discuss how innovations in AI and ics might alter our understanding of human uniqueness, as a posthuman reality is no longer a mere science-fiction. Posthumanism is an evolutionary view arguing that humanity augmented by science and technology is becoming something more than human, has become a popular discourse to discuss how human-machine experimentation may alter our future as a human-centered reality. Posthuman discourse presents a new worldview fraught with many ethical challenges, where moving toward sentient machines and technologically-enhanced humans is seen as the preferred or inevitable existence. The posthuman discourse raises interesting debates about the nature of humanity in a technologically driven world that can provide both exciting and threatening narratives for religious communities (Campbell, 2016; Lagerkvist, 2018).Secularization and the Post-secular in a Digital AgeIn the past two decades there have been many debates about whether a move towards a more globalized and technologically driven society will bring with it a move towards secularization or a post-secular society. The secularization thesis argues that as institutional religion plays a diminishing role in everyday life, religion in general will also begin to be marginalized and play a less significant role within society. However, scholars within Digital Religion Studies has generally found that claim to be questionable, as the Internet has given rise to increased individual and communal expressions of spirituality and religiosity within the digital context (Campbell, 2013). While religion online has often been proven to be more personally driven and less institutionally associated in many of its expressions, the secularization thesis has not been found to be a proven reality in era of Internet (Campbell, 2012). This has pushed scholars to consider instead a turn towards post-secular mindsets in a digital age. Post-secularism asserts people recognize the moral failings of modern society and science, and this has led to a resurgence of religion in the public sphere, in new forms, where certain religious groups seek to assert their influence alongside new postmodern spiritual sensibilities. This post-secular turn was noted in a number of recent Digital Religion Studies by scholars seeking to explain changes in the religious landscape within digital culture. For example, Evolvi’s study of religious bloggers in Europe (2016) found religious Internet engagement plays an important role in influencing political and social discourses in the public arena, and showed that the public function of religion persists in many circumstances. Similarly Piela’s study (2017) of debates over the niqab via photo-sharing websites found the Internet allows Muslim women to challenge secular and religious assumptions on a very intimate and personal level. Such studies show the presence of post-secular attitudes as religious individual’s online leverage, the agency provided by digital technologies to enable them to reframe this socio-religious discourse in their own terms, challenging public assumptions of the religiosity. Such work suggests the need for further exploration of the nature and complexities of the new post-secular digital context emerging in different spaces online. Attention should be paid to online religious rituals that allow individuals to express and live out their religion online in unique ways, as well as discourses about religion that encouraged and propagated by networked communication and viral sharing online, and created norms for how we approach religion as a worldview engaged in framing of reality and defining notions of truth. For example, research on religious discourses promoted through Internet memes, visual digital artifacts that use humour to frame popular beliefs, has shown unmediated conversation on religion online tends to promote and essentialize religious meanings in problematic ways that encourage negative stereotyping and bias towards particular groups and their beliefs (e.g., Agular et al., 2017). This suggests that scholars studying digital religion need to carefully examine to what extent the post-secular turn creates new possibilities for religious engagement and discourse online or replicates secular biases within networked society.Technology as Implicit ReligionFinally, a third emerging area of research within Digital Religion Studies revolves around how technology or technological practices may themselves be judged to have religious-like qualities or behaviors associated with them. The concept of implicit religion comes out of Religious Studies and suggests that some forms of contemporary practice or meaning-making can take on religious-like qualities to the extent that beliefs and practices associated with them can be defined as exhibiting a family resemblance to religion. Scholars in religion have previously studied sport-fandom and political adherence as implicit religion, as both provide individuals with an experience of a transcendent reality through shared beliefs and practices. The idea of technology serving as a form of implicit religion can be seen in the rise of Internet evangelists who have come out to claim the Internet is a religion, or in digital-born beliefs systems like Kopism or Pastafaranism as providing a non-spiritual sense of meaning and community for individuals online. Scholars have looked at different types of technological fandom as religious-like behavior (Campbell & LaPastina, 2010), and some discourse about the Posthuman turn (Campbell, 2016) could also be placed in this category. The devotion and ideological associations made with the push towards progress and efficiency within many public framings of emerging AI and AR technologies could also certainly be explored further through such a lens.However, another area of technology in need of further exploration as implicit religion is the extent to which technology use encourages religious-like practice that changes individuals’ understanding and meaning-making not only of the technology, but of themselves. One area in which this could be investigated would be smart phones and technologies. As our smart phones have increasingly become an extension of ourselves, embedded into our daily routine and housing increasingly personal data, our devotion to these devices could be seen as creating a new sense of personal and spiritual self (Hutchings, 2017). Studies of app use, especially religiously-oriented apps accessed through smart phones, open such issues for investigation. Recent studies of religious apps, have found individuals often use apps in order to frame their identities as a pervasive 24/7 reality (Bellar, 2016). This illustrates the fact that technologies can have both technological affordances—design features encouraging certain user practices—and religious affordances—narratives and features that cultivate certain religious identities and meanings through engagement. Bellar’s recent work on Catholic and Muslim prayer apps (2017) further showed that even when technological opportunities enabling them to reshape religious practice through a certain affordance are present in an app, religious users choose rather to shape their experience through religious affordance and transcendent beliefs.By examining the relationship between technological and religious affordances, a unique decision-making process is highlighted, showing the frames which determine whether a user lets the technology shape or create religious features, or whether spiritual beliefs shape technological features. The extent to which an individual views a technological device as inherently robust and is able to envision it as a spiritual artifact, or what factors shape individuals’ notions of spiritual practice relative to technological devices, is an important area to consider as technologies become more ingrained in our personal daily lives and experiences.While many other questions and trends could be considered in current and emerging digital religion research, this article seeks to provide an introductory map highlighting key past and present aspects of the religious study of digital culture. Through this effort we hope to open this work to a broader audience and the broader implications this work has for contemporary understandings of the role of technology for religious users and communities in a digital age.References ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Aguilar, G. K., Campbell, H. A., Stanley, M., & Taylor, E. 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