Media and Religious Authority Colloquium

Today I participated in an interesting colloquium organized by Tim Bulkley on Media and Religious Authority at Carey Baptist College. It brought together researchers from New Zealand and Australia (via a skype connection) interested in exploring together how the media may shape or influence various aspects of religious authority. We shared our overlapping interests and potential projects that we might bring together in a joint project. I spoke about the findings from one of my current projects on how religious bloggers portray different aspects of religious authority online. Paul Teusner is exploring how Emerging Church bloggers responded to technorati or google blog authority ranking system. Ann Hardy is beginning to work Exclusive Brethren role in attempting influencing the NZ National Election and how religious groups may use media to influence the public sphere. Peter Horsfield is interested in the interaction of new media and religious authority in Australia. Stephen Garner is considering how religious authority is manifested in comic books & graphic novels. Tim Bulkley is interested in the role of textual authority in different religious environments and authority in the Biblio-blogger community online. I am looking forward to seeing how this collaboration develops.