Today we are having the second annual meeting of AoIR research of religion and new media (Religion, Ritual & Internet culture). Birds of a Feather (Bof) is a chance for networking and last year was the first time we had a significant enough cohort to justify such a meeting. My first 2 AoIR conference I was often the only one or one of 2 presenters of religion online so this is definitely exciting for me.
I wanted to use the occasion to announce a results of our last years meeting, the Studying Religion and New Media Wiki. There was a recognition of a need for a networking space to share resources and connect with one another. After debating whether a blog or web site might be a possible forum I decided to jump start things with a more collaborative forum. It is space that lists who's who in the area of research, create a shared bibliography on different topic, gather online resource and announce conferences & grants & what not... If you are reading this, and are are a researcher in this area and want to be part of this wiki conversation just send an email to me at heidic@tamu.edu and I will help you get started.
Showing posts with label aoir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aoir. Show all posts
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Religion Online-part 2 at AoIR
I am sitting in on the second Religion Online panel at AoIR. We have three presenters.
Maria Beatrice Bittarello is speaking on Sacred Space vs. Sacred Place. She is basically is making the argument for differnetiating that Sacred Space denotes a sense of global, generic transcent space or a an arena in which one loose the sense of self--where as sacred place she says is defined as limited localised locations which are small and communal. These distinctions may become important when seeking to categorize different virtual space and how they are formed and one interacts with them.
Tim Hutchins is presenting (or presented as due to battery issue I am finishing this post 24 hrs later) on models of Church online. He draws on the work of .... (1999) who studies relations and conflict within offline congregations and developed 4 models to look at the relatiosnhips formed online in these church groups such as i-church & st pixels that be describes as: the family, the leader, the community or the worship center/space. Facinating study.
Nadja Miscjek from University of Heidlberg is doing work in the western esoteric tradition (i.e. new age religions) and how those who connect themselves to this tradition use the internet to present a distinctive religious identity. She spoke specifically about new ager practioners web page profile as a space to present their spiritual journeys.
So a lot of diversity of topics being covered at Aoir and I am glad I am no longer the lone voice of calling for attention to be paid to the online practice of religion and its potential offline implications.
Maria Beatrice Bittarello is speaking on Sacred Space vs. Sacred Place. She is basically is making the argument for differnetiating that Sacred Space denotes a sense of global, generic transcent space or a an arena in which one loose the sense of self--where as sacred place she says is defined as limited localised locations which are small and communal. These distinctions may become important when seeking to categorize different virtual space and how they are formed and one interacts with them.
Tim Hutchins is presenting (or presented as due to battery issue I am finishing this post 24 hrs later) on models of Church online. He draws on the work of .... (1999) who studies relations and conflict within offline congregations and developed 4 models to look at the relatiosnhips formed online in these church groups such as i-church & st pixels that be describes as: the family, the leader, the community or the worship center/space. Facinating study.
Nadja Miscjek from University of Heidlberg is doing work in the western esoteric tradition (i.e. new age religions) and how those who connect themselves to this tradition use the internet to present a distinctive religious identity. She spoke specifically about new ager practioners web page profile as a space to present their spiritual journeys.
So a lot of diversity of topics being covered at Aoir and I am glad I am no longer the lone voice of calling for attention to be paid to the online practice of religion and its potential offline implications.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Greetings from AoIRing in Copenhagen (and a long hiatus)
After a long hiatus I am back in the blogosphere. I never really left but was spending most of my time researching blogs rather than on writing them the past 6 month. Also am plowing my way through finishing the book after which this blogs has been titled, and after many days of 8+ hours of writing the last things I wanted to do was to blog. But I am now at Copenhagen at the 9th Annual Association of Internet Researchers Conference which seems like the perfect time return to the blogosphere.
Today I was on a very interesting panel entitled Rethinking Religion Online. It is one of 2 panels on religion at the conference and it is great to see the growing contingent of scholars working in this area. The panel consisted of Mark Johns from Iowa who reported on a study of religious groups operating on Facebook. Paul Teusner from RMIT-Australia presented work on religious podcasting in the emerging genres and motivations found. I presented a preliminary report on a comparative study of relgious identitiy presentation and construction by Jewish, Muslim & Christian bloggers. Mia Lovheim from Sweden/Norway shared a facinating study on religious web usage in Sweden and the challenges this poses to some of the previous assumptions about religious internet use. This was followed up by Knut Lunby who did a supurb job of summing up the presentation. Will try and add more detail here post-jetlag and a good night sleep. More to come...
Today I was on a very interesting panel entitled Rethinking Religion Online. It is one of 2 panels on religion at the conference and it is great to see the growing contingent of scholars working in this area. The panel consisted of Mark Johns from Iowa who reported on a study of religious groups operating on Facebook. Paul Teusner from RMIT-Australia presented work on religious podcasting in the emerging genres and motivations found. I presented a preliminary report on a comparative study of relgious identitiy presentation and construction by Jewish, Muslim & Christian bloggers. Mia Lovheim from Sweden/Norway shared a facinating study on religious web usage in Sweden and the challenges this poses to some of the previous assumptions about religious internet use. This was followed up by Knut Lunby who did a supurb job of summing up the presentation. Will try and add more detail here post-jetlag and a good night sleep. More to come...
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