Religion at Play on the Net: community, identity and authority (AOIR 8.0)

Way Hay, here we go...Here is my report on our panel.

Paul Teusner a PhD student from RMIT down under presented on Christianity 2.0, religion for a new web. His research focuses on the emerging church dialogue and community online and how the blogs have influence the identity of this conversation and growing global network. His work focuses on the Australian context by doing content analysis and f2f interviews with Aussie Bloggers. His initial hypothesis are (1) the emerging cyberchristian, noting they represent a new global christian perspective based on personal belief and passion, a collective memory of the self and their community; (2) authentic identity and virtual community; (3) a postmodern stance
and (4) nationalisation, globalisation and being "glocal". For more details on this talk to Paul online.

Mia Lovheim gave a virtual presentation (written by Mia, ready by Lynn) on Rethinking Cyberreligion? youth and the internet in Sweden. Her project is sponsored by the Church of Sweden of the concern that young people are going online rather than offline to learn and participate in religion. She found searching through Google was the dominant way young people searched out religion with searching out general info about religious, listening to religious music and asking religious questions being the most common uses. More teens may meet religion than through traditional context, if the do use it for religious purposes they are probably already active in religion online. The internet is use for gathering info on religion mostly for school and entertainment. The internet used for individual religious purpose than social interaction.

Of course there was me. I presented the findings from a recent study on religious (specifically Christian) bloggers and how they frame their religious identity online and how they treat different sources of religious authority online. The study is based a theoretical article I write for JCMC arguing that if we are we going to make claims that the internet is challenging or affirming traditional forms of authority we need to start with a more nuanced definition of the concept of authority to ground these claims. I argue that we need to differentiate between religious roles, texts, structures and ideologies/theologies when studying and making such claims. This detailed content analysis study basically attempts to investigate claims about which of these categories are most affirmed or challenged online and what type of authorities are most referred to.

Lynn Schofield Clark from DU presented on her current work on religious discourse with in Bloggers fans of the TV show Lost. She is interested in the connection of her work with Henry Jenkins work on convergence culture and its relation to fandom. “consumption as a collective process” collective intelligence as a source of media power. Lost is a key example of this, not only the show, but also how fans interpret and discuss the show online. Online fans found Christian themes mentioned in the series to be the most decipherable and the most problematic, Islam and Judaism being these least commented on and Buddhism were the most puzzling. She has a fascinating analysis of the fan's discourse about Christian narrative and interpretations online as well as the growing Buddhism of lost in the 2nd season. This paper should be out in print soon so contact Lynn if you are interested.

AOIR 8.0 Live

I am blogging from the 8th annual Association of International Researcher's conference held in Vancouver. This is an international gathering of scholars from a variety of fields (sociology, law, communication, gender studies, political science, etc.) who studied a variety of aspects of the internet and online culture. It is a great time for networking and hearing about the latest research trends.

For instance, this morning Keynote's was a fascinating look into Second Life with Pathfinder Linden (John Lester) who talked about this history, design and purpose this virtual environment. He showed us the virtual Sistine chapel built by people from Vasser and described the interesting socialization process which has emerged around people's interaction is this online space which many people describe as spiritual. Macro scripts have been built in by the designer to block people who says wear bikinis or use coarse language from the space. This change was done at the encouragement of other users who want to keep this a sacred virtual space.

Right now I am sitting in on the panel on blogging where a a Chinese PhD student has studied and international comparison of bloggers, she found the Spanish were the most chatty online where as Northern European were the least prolific bloggers. It seems culture, educational level and media freedom seem to be the prime indicators related to the variance of different international bloggers. Am also trying to put the last touches on mu own presenation which is n the next session...

I hope to blog on some of the session that are especially related to religion and new media, we'll see how it goes...

Selling Religion...

...with half-naked Mormons?! Okay this post is not about new media but one of my students (Thanks Nyomi!) sent me a link today to an interesting story from Rolling Stone that I had to comment on. It is about a young Mormon entrepreneur who has just published a calendar called "Men on a Mission" featuring bear chested "open minded" former Mormon missionaries. Talk about an interesting mix of religion, media and popular culture--a calendar that both generates interest in religion and challenges it by addressing stereotypes of people of faith. Also check out what the Dallas Morning News & MSNBC had to say. The proceeds are to be fed back to various charities where the young men did their mission work. I wonder if we would ever see one featuring evangelical hunks on outreach or sassy Jewish gals on shabbat...

A Muslim or Jewish YouTube?

And for those of you wondering if it was only Christians that are creating religion specific versions of YouTube online...the answer is No! MyMuslimTV offers "hallal broadcasting options" for vloggers and video podcasters and Mecca.com is also set to pattern with LinkTV – Mosaic to offer similar services. Jews may want to check out JewTube or the Jewish TV Network which also offers links to videoblogs and Jewish culture video clips.

Jesus 2.0 & GodTube

GodTube has been getting a lot of media attention (from Fox to ABC News & CNN)since it's official launch in April/May. It is back on the press radar with it's upcoming expansion and soon to be released "Godcaster". I was recently interview by the Anniston Star for an article called Christian alternative to YouTube offers salvation, silliness in equal bytes exploring different impressions of the GodTube phenomenon and potential implications for offline church and religious culture. Keep an eye out out for an upcoming article in the LA Times this coming Sunday on the soon-to-be expanding GodTube complete with live video webcasting capabilities!

Advertising and Ramadan

This week in a class I am teaching on Judaism, Islam and the Media we did a case study on advertising images during Ramadan. We discussed Armburst's article “The Riddle of Ramadan: Media, Consumer Culture and the ‘Christmasization’ of a Muslim Holiday" and I also brought in reflection froman interesting article from JMR called Ramadan Advertising in Egypt: A Content Analysis With Elaboration on Select Items. We also discussed some images we found at AdBlogArabia. It is interesting to see how some ad agencies and companies are using similar strategies that companies use in the USA during Christmas to re-frame this religious holiday in terms of consumption (or in the case of Ramadan highlighting the lack or control of consumption). This obviously has raised some concern within the Arab world about de-sacralizing of the holiday by possibly trivializing religious ritual practice. Anyways, it sparked some great conversation in class.

In the News: Doing Church Online

Last week I spent 40 min talking to Scott Andron from the Miami Herald talking about my research on christian community online. The result was an interesting article on how groups in Florida and across the USA are using the internet to do church and build community online that appeared last weekend. There's even a quote by yours truly at the end of the article. Check out: Every Sunday morning, while hundreds of South Floridians converge on...

One Web Day

As the subtitle to my book proclaims, "we are one in the network" and you too can join in the harmony & connection affored by the web on "One Web Day". Organizer hope to encourage people to think of themselves as responsible for the internet, and to take good and visible actions on Sept. 22 that (1) celebrate the positive impact of the internet on the world and (2) shed light on the problems of access and information flow. For more info check out this video at youtube.

Exploring New Media Worlds (CFP)

Exploring New Media Worlds:

Changing Technologies, Industries, Cultures, and Audiences
in Global and Historical Context

An international conference hosted by
Texas A&M University, February 29 to March 2, 2008

Integrating fields of study in a time of change; setting a new agenda for media studies.

Papers and proposals are invited on any aspect of the conference themes, offering reports of new research, position-taking conceptual essays, discussions of media and telecommunication policy, and both international and historical comparisons on changing technologies, industries, cultures, and audiences.

The program will include keynote speakers, roundtable discussions, thematic panels, prominent scholars as respondents, and time for interaction. A wide selection of papers from the conference will be published. Travel grants are available for student members of the National Communication Association (see our webpage for more information).

Send papers or proposals (abstracts or annotated outlines) with a 50 word professional biography by email attachment to mediaworlds@tamu.edu. Panel proposals are also acceptable. Deadline: November 20, 2007.

For more information see https://libarts.tamu.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://comm.tamu.edu/mediaworlds
email mediaworlds@libarts.tamu.edu or Rothenbuhler@tamu.edu.

Keynote speakers:
Larry Grossberg; Steve Jones; Vinny Mosco; and Ellen Seiter.

Confirmed participants:
Carole Blair, Sandra Braman, Celeste Condit, Bruce Gronbeck, Andrea Press, Ronald Rice, Paddy Scannell, Joseph Turow, Angharad Valdivia.

And the Texas A&M faculty:
Patrick Burkart, Heidi Campbell, Antonio La Pastina, Srivi Ramasubramanian, Eric Rothenbuhler, Michael Stephenson, Randy Sumpter, and Ian Weber plus strong faculty groups in Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Health Communication, and Organizational Communication.

The Exploring New Media Worlds conference is hosted and co-sponsored by the Department of Communication, the College of Liberal Arts, the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, and the Program in Presidential Rhetoric, Texas A&M University, with support from the National Communication Association.

GodBlogCon 2007

The 3rd annual GodBlogCon is coming up in Nov 8-9, 2007, to be held in Las Vegas held in conjunction with the Blog World Expo. The conference got it's start in 2005 at Biola University in CA, and recieved media attention as the first-ever Christian blogging conference. Thsi year's confrence promises sessions on "New Media Ministry to the Myspace- Facebook Generation" and "Developing a Pod & Vidcast Ministry". I can't make the conference myself because of my teaching schedule but sounds like a great opportunity to explore the thinking and motivations behind using new media for Christian outreach.

6th International Conference on Media, Religion and Culture

The conference web site for the 6th International Conference on Media, Religion and Culture is up and running. So if you are interested in interacting with other scholars from around the world on issues related to the intersection of media and religion, and also fancy a visit to São Paulo in August 2008, check out the details for Dialogues in Diversity.

Al-Quran for Your iPod

In my continuing search for the interesting intersections between religion and the Ipod, came across this video on you tube which shows interesting demonstration of "First and Only Completely Readable 'Arabic' version of Al-Quran for your iPod" provided by theonlyword.com. The download is complete with vocal reading, chanting of the chosen portion of the koran. Here we see the digitized word married with classic sung recitation made portable and readily available to Muslims on the move.

Grad Conference CFP:In Medias Religiones

In Medias Religiones
A Conference on Religion, Media, and Material Culture
Saturday, 02 February 2008
Duke University & UNC-Chapel Hill

Call for Papers
From oral history to sacred writing on papyrus to internet evangelism, religion has been tied closely with media that convey itsmessage. What roles do specific media play in religious activities?What roles do specific religions play in media? Who producesreligious media and what are their cultural affects? This undergraduate and graduate student conference explores how a varietyof media and religious formations interact. We investigate religionas a material process by tracing how religious subjectivities aremediated by culturally-specific objects, images, and artifacts.

We invite 100-word abstracts for 20-minute papers on any topic dealing with religion & media.
Please submit abstracts toinmediasreligiones@gmail.com by 01 November 2007.

Questions? Please visit www.unc.edu/~jdelam/inmediasreligiones/

Jewish Ipod: ShasPod

Picking up on search my recent theme of religious culturing of the Ipod I came across the Shaspod. Launched in 2005 the ShasPod comes pre-loaded 20GBs of Talmudic lessons and teachings. That is about 7.5 years worth of daf yomi (the practice of reading and studying one page of the Talmud a day) for the technologically "with it" religious Jew. This was the brainchild of Rabbi Dovid Grossman of Los Angels who also has a web site providing audio and visual dowloads of the video texts via his web site DafYomi.com. Version 1.o is currently sold out but it is said that 2.0 will soon be forthcoming.

Conference Call for Papers:Media, Spiritualities and Social Change

Conference Call for Papers
Media, Spiritualities and Social Change
June 4-7, 2008
Center for Media, Religion and Culture, School of Journalism and Mass Communication University of Colorado, Boulder;

This interdisciplinary conference seeks proposals for papers and panels exploring the ways in which media culture, civic engagement and spiritualities intersect to form practices, discourses and the material expressions of social change. In an era of globalization, the media age has introduced a new set of conditions and opportunities for the nature, practice and integration of spirituality and civic engagement. Increasingly, the concept of "spirituality" has become recontextualized, reinserted and reimagined within discourses about social and environmental change. Integral to this project are the media, which provide salient values and symbols to a synthesis of public and private identities, practices and beliefs. New spiritual sensibilities articulate with new imaginaries of the civic sphere through media culture. Key questions are how and where values, practices and beliefs are articulated as spiritual and socially transformational.

In the interest of bridging theory and practice, we welcome submissions from scholars, activists, NGOs and health, business, and media professionals who wish to engage in an intellectual discussion about the engines of social change and its expressions through media culture and spiritual life. Papers and panels may employ any of a number of perspectives, issues and methodologies including but not limited to the following:

… Economics; conscious capitalism; late capitalism
… Environmental, sustainable or "green" practices, products and beliefs
… Ethics; morality; truth; philosophy; religion and spirituality
… Media culture; media technologies and applications; media institutions/policy
… Popular culture; cultural studies; material culture
… Society; community; citizenship; public-private partnerships
… Activism; social justice; social movements; positive politics; philanthropy
… Globalization; public sphere; civil society; governance and control
… "New"/alternative spiritualities
… Gender; race; age; class; identities
… Methodologies and theory
… Ideology; power; discourse

Abstracts and panel proposals due: Dec. 1, 2007 to:
Dr. Monica Emerich, Monica.emerich@colorado.edu.
By mail: Monica Emerich, Center for Media, Religion and Culture, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado, 1511 University Ave., 478 UCB, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0478.

This conference is co-sponsored and presented in association with Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado; The Reynolds School of Journalism and Center for Advanced Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno; and The Fred W. Smith Ethics Seminar Series with the financial support of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, Las Vegas, NV, USA.

A Jewish Google

My friend Oren (who recently wrapped up an interesting PhD at Hebrew University in Youth and the Internet) gave me a heads up to a new Jewish search engine known as jgog. While it looks similar to the Hebrew version of Google it is a unique Jewish focused search engine started by Israeli programmer Jossi Mor Josef. There has been some discussion online about the filtering mechanism in place in the software allowing some "unorthodox" words or searches to be blocked or re-defined, however most of these articles are in German and Hebrew. So if anyone runs across some more info in English on this site I would love to hear about it.

The Muslim IPod

I figured if there were Jewish Ipod applications, there must be a Muslim version as well and my suspicions were correct. The PenMan IQRA'A could very well be called the Muslim IPod. It is the latest in Muslim specific digital technology. Described as a Quran Digital book" it is part digital library part MP3 and video player. It comes a preloaded series of Muslim resources including a recording of the entire Quran, recorded Hadith translations, a Quilba (Mecca) indicator and other Muslim related resources. So you can keep on time to prayers, study the Quran and jam to your fav Muslim Hip Hop artist (BTW--I am currently listening to Outlandish) all with the help of a small hand held device.

Introducing the J Phone

You could skip the Jesus Phone and go for a JPhone (from Jewlarious.com). This definitely made me smile!

IPhone = Jesus Phone?!?

I've been doing some searching online for information on cell phones and religion and I came across an interesting trend...claims that the IPhone has been "dubbed the Jesus Phone by its more blindly faithful users". This metaphor was used by bloggers and then the media in news reports even before the phone was released in July. It evokes the image of Steve Jobs (the president of Apple) as Savior of all our technological needs and the IPhone as god. Some have argued that "Jesus Phone" users are like cult followers exhibiting religious like tendencies, i.e. the cult of Jesus Phone. In news reports religious language is often present, with reporters using phrase such as the "iPhone's divinity", "the messiah of all gadgets" and "the Messiah phone should find itself rich in disciples" are common and a few even provide images that suggest the the cult of mac who may "worship the Jesus phone". Even critiques of the IPhone use religious metaphor and images such as "shares many of the same handicaps that bedevil other U.S. cellular devices"

The IPod as Jesus Phone has arguably been fueled by the reviews and descriptions of the IPhone amongst the blogging community. One blogger has even set up a blog called IPhone Saviour dedicated to the culture and conversation emerging around the new phone using many religious images and heavily religious language. While the significance of this phenomenon is in need of further consideration, it does show the powerful currency religious imagery and language still hold in our media culture.

A Jewish IPod?

Check this out. You can buy the Chai Pod iPod T-shirt...and download IDaven (Jewish prayers for the IPod) and Jewish users can make their IPod experience "Qof-Dalet-Shin".

Update: On an unrelated note "JPod" is not the name for a Jewish IPod, but the name of a recent novel from Douglas Coupland.