Thursday, December 20, 2007
Religious Communities Online: Heart & Soul Part 2
Till Saturday you can access part 2 of the BBC World's program Heart & Soul entitled "free to speak - free to worship". In it you can hear yours truly sharing reflections on my research on religious communities online, as well as how different group are using the internet to spread their faith online. I actually haven't heard the program yet as I am staying with relatives this week who only have dial-up access so the program won't download, but I have heard via others that it is interesting!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
BBC on Religion and the Internet
Several weeks ago I was interviewed by Tim Jackson of the BBC world service on my research concerning online religious community. The BBC is doing a 2 part series on their weekly program Heart & Soul exploring religion online. Part one is now available and looks at how "virtual religion is changing the way people practise their faith". The program runs about 20 mins and has interviews with researchers Chris Helland and Brenda Brasher as well as reflection of Muslim , Jews & Christian who worship in spaces such as Second Life and the impact the internet on their spiritual practice. December 16th you can check out their next program on religious communities online and hear what I had to say about how the internet is impacting offline faith communities.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Saints on Cell Phones
A cell phone company in Italy has sparked controversy within the Catholic Church by offering download-able images of saints as cell phone screen savers. Concerns seems to be that these holy images are somehow being trivialized in this new form, and that sporting an image of Pope John Paul II on one's mobile might lead to a distorted understanding of sacred images. Check out the Reuters story Saints on cellphones spark controversy in Italy.
Friday, November 16, 2007
AAR looks at New Media and Religion
Hi from the AAR in San Diego!
I just spent 2 days in Chicago at the National Communication Association where I was part of preconference workshop on Communication Ethics. I gave a small piece on the questions" Does new media raise new ethical questions?". In summation I said, No and Yes. On the "no" side I stated to that new media just amplify old ethical questions such as : what does it meant to be human, communicative justice and respecting the other in our research. On the "yes" side I stated that these new technologies as give rise to corollary areas of exploration connected to the aforementioned questions areas such as: the myth of interactivity, networked individualism and the culturing of technology. For more detail... well you'll just have to wait as this present will become the basis of a chapter in my current book project.
Now I am at the AAR preconference on Religion and Media which is focused on New Media and Religion. I gave the opening talk on that brought together 3 research projects and touched on the rise of religion and the internet and religion online research, the question of community online and then gave a report on my recent research on religious authority in blogs. It seemed to go over well and I was also asked some challenging questions in relation to my findings which was great and thought provoking on my part.
Now Tracy Fullerton at USC is presenting on her work as a game designer and the role games have to play in rethinking about new ways of thinking, interaction. She showed us clips from several games including Cloud and flOw. I was especially impressed by the game which started as student project Darfur is Dying which instead of focusing on fightign and resiting, your are diesmpoered and struggle to survive. She also talked about the tendency to explort religious narrative and imagery onto games has been around since the first US produced board game in the 1800s called Mansion of Happiness that gamers sought to make the journey towards happiness. She also showed a variety of religious narrative based games from The Shiva to Bible Fight and Catechmen to show how religion become a platform for gaming thinking.
Will try to post more as the day goes on...
I just spent 2 days in Chicago at the National Communication Association where I was part of preconference workshop on Communication Ethics. I gave a small piece on the questions" Does new media raise new ethical questions?". In summation I said, No and Yes. On the "no" side I stated to that new media just amplify old ethical questions such as : what does it meant to be human, communicative justice and respecting the other in our research. On the "yes" side I stated that these new technologies as give rise to corollary areas of exploration connected to the aforementioned questions areas such as: the myth of interactivity, networked individualism and the culturing of technology. For more detail... well you'll just have to wait as this present will become the basis of a chapter in my current book project.
Now I am at the AAR preconference on Religion and Media which is focused on New Media and Religion. I gave the opening talk on that brought together 3 research projects and touched on the rise of religion and the internet and religion online research, the question of community online and then gave a report on my recent research on religious authority in blogs. It seemed to go over well and I was also asked some challenging questions in relation to my findings which was great and thought provoking on my part.
Now Tracy Fullerton at USC is presenting on her work as a game designer and the role games have to play in rethinking about new ways of thinking, interaction. She showed us clips from several games including Cloud and flOw. I was especially impressed by the game which started as student project Darfur is Dying which instead of focusing on fightign and resiting, your are diesmpoered and struggle to survive. She also talked about the tendency to explort religious narrative and imagery onto games has been around since the first US produced board game in the 1800s called Mansion of Happiness that gamers sought to make the journey towards happiness. She also showed a variety of religious narrative based games from The Shiva to Bible Fight and Catechmen to show how religion become a platform for gaming thinking.
Will try to post more as the day goes on...
Monday, October 22, 2007
GodTube in the LA Times
David Sarno wrote an interesting piece appearing in yesterday's LA Times, called Linking into the market for ministry that questions the growing impact and development of the GodTube for the online Christian market. Yours truly is also quoted, though I would clarify that when I was interview I stated that SOME, but not all people, find that the internet offers "more sustained and satisfying personal interaction". At this point it is accurate and safe to say the internet still serves as a supplement rather than a substitute for offline religious engagement. However I still sense a fear amongst many religious practitioners about this fact. It seems GodTube is responding the idea by providing tools to consciously link religious users online with offline church interaction as well via GodCaster. The article also provides some interesting info and reflection on Muslim use of the internet.
Post AOIR
AOIR 8.0 is over, but much fun and learning occurred! On Friday afternoon I enjoyed getting to hear Henry Jenkins give a review of his work on Media Convergence and speculating on how online fandom is both informing web 2.0 corporate development as well as introducing some interesting forms of participatory knowledge making. Saturday I attended a great panel on the state of research into social networks (ala facebook, myspace, etc) and got to hear from key researchers such as Nancy Baym and danah boyd on the studies being done about users, coporations and media culturing for social purposes. There was even a fellow from Facebook there giving us his 2cents which was a greater insider perspective. It was also confirmed that not much research has been done on religion and social networking software, though I think I have prompted a friend and fellow colleague on the AOIR ethics committee Mark Johns to expand his own work on Facebook to look into religious construction of identity there. Also attended an interesting panel in the final afternoon on Blog research methodology and ethics. The Indiana University group still appear to be leaders in this are with Lois Ann Scheidt at the helm of doing interesting work on youth and blogs. All being well I plan to make it to AOIR 9.0 to be held in Copenhagen, especially since I have been elected to the executive committee of the Association!
Friday, October 19, 2007
Religion & Ritual Online (AOIR 8.0)
It's Friday and I am in blogging on the 2nd panel dealing with religion and the internet. This one is focused on Religion & Ritual Online. I came in late so missed bits but here are some of the highlights I did catch.
Nadja Micek from Heidelberg University presented on Exploring ritual action in Second Life and gave an interesting overview of the variety of online religious ritual being enacted in this virtual space. She provided a survey of the different Buddhist temples, Mosques and Christians churches which exist in second life. While some are online only entities many are also modeled after real world temples/mosques that exist in places such as Thailand & Morocco. She focus on two examples of the 10 Christian churches which hold weekly services online. The Koinonia church in Second Life is sponsored by United Church of Christ and uses voice chat so participants can to hear the service, participate in prayer, share blessings and listen to music. The ALM Cyber Church which is virtual pastor leads with an audio stream for participation in the service, and a worship animation package at the beginning of service for users to participate raising hands, dancing and singing. Her exploration of how the transfer of rituals online lead to change in process religious worship can be explore further at http://www.sl-research.de/.
Pauline Cheong presented on Playing God? Examining religious boundaries and authority online. The research is a study of epistemic authority of religious leaders and how religious leaders influence spiritual shaping of the internet. She and her colleague used observational analysis online and interviews with Christian & Buddhist religious leaders in the Toronto area. She had several interesting findings including: Most leader expressed concern about changing religious informational fields, there seems to be a changing hierarchical religious order in religious ‘place’ and response for ‘local congregation’, and an interesting Reconfiguration the geography of sacred places and instruction dynamic in wired religious campuses also seems to be going. For more details check out her forthcoming in Information, Communication & Society entitled: www.Faith.org (re) structuring communication and social capital building among religious organization.
Joon Lee presented on Cultivating the self in cyberspace, and his study of One Buddhism priest's who blog. While most said that they began blogging to attract converts to One Buddhism but but that it also served as an important tool for these priests to to construct their own religious identity online. Blogs became a way to monitor one’s level of self-enlightenment.The internet becomes a plane of consistency to work our self cultivation both inside and outside cyberspace to construct different technologies of the self.
Nadja Micek from Heidelberg University presented on Exploring ritual action in Second Life and gave an interesting overview of the variety of online religious ritual being enacted in this virtual space. She provided a survey of the different Buddhist temples, Mosques and Christians churches which exist in second life. While some are online only entities many are also modeled after real world temples/mosques that exist in places such as Thailand & Morocco. She focus on two examples of the 10 Christian churches which hold weekly services online. The Koinonia church in Second Life is sponsored by United Church of Christ and uses voice chat so participants can to hear the service, participate in prayer, share blessings and listen to music. The ALM Cyber Church which is virtual pastor leads with an audio stream for participation in the service, and a worship animation package at the beginning of service for users to participate raising hands, dancing and singing. Her exploration of how the transfer of rituals online lead to change in process religious worship can be explore further at http://www.sl-research.de/.
Pauline Cheong presented on Playing God? Examining religious boundaries and authority online. The research is a study of epistemic authority of religious leaders and how religious leaders influence spiritual shaping of the internet. She and her colleague used observational analysis online and interviews with Christian & Buddhist religious leaders in the Toronto area. She had several interesting findings including: Most leader expressed concern about changing religious informational fields, there seems to be a changing hierarchical religious order in religious ‘place’ and response for ‘local congregation’, and an interesting Reconfiguration the geography of sacred places and instruction dynamic in wired religious campuses also seems to be going. For more details check out her forthcoming in Information, Communication & Society entitled: www.Faith.org (re) structuring communication and social capital building among religious organization.
Joon Lee presented on Cultivating the self in cyberspace, and his study of One Buddhism priest's who blog. While most said that they began blogging to attract converts to One Buddhism but but that it also served as an important tool for these priests to to construct their own religious identity online. Blogs became a way to monitor one’s level of self-enlightenment.The internet becomes a plane of consistency to work our self cultivation both inside and outside cyberspace to construct different technologies of the self.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
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.
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...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
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...
Monday, October 15, 2007
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.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
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!
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
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.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
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.
Friday, September 14, 2007
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.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
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.
Friday, September 07, 2007
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.
Monday, September 03, 2007
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/
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/
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