How Social Media is Like Ice Cream

Being a huge ice cream fan I just had to follow up a link sent out on the Association of Internet Researchers elist this morning about How Social Media is Like Ice Cream . What I found is a great video that explains in simple terms how social networks and media work (and a craving for mint chocolate brownie ice cream). Check it out:

iMuslims is coming

Amazon.com just sent me a notice that Gary Bunt's new book--iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam (Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks)-- will soon be out. Bunt is well known for his work on documenting the latest uses of the internet and digital technology in the Muslim world Virtually Islamic and Islam in the Digital Age. His new book iMuslims seeks to look at how not only the internet has shaped Islamic practices and society but perceptions of Islam in a globalized information society. His work describes how new SNS sites are being used within Islam and how his over ten years of research highlight certain trends with Muslim use of the Internet.

According to a review in Publishers's weekly Bunt suggests, "..that Muslims have an “open-source” educational legacy. This open-source nature of Islamic theology inclines Muslims, possible more than other faith adherents, towards an online “rewiring” of their faith." I haven't read the book yet myself but it promises to be an important contribution for those studying Islam online. Bunt's blog Virtually Islamic provides a great source for info on the book and other info about Islam online, and he also he has an online bibliography for his book which is well worth checking out.

State of Belief on Religion Online

I was interview this past week for the radio show "State of Belief" hosted by Rev C. Welton Gaddy which seeks to cover positive topics on religion. In a 15 min segment we discuss how faith communities are making use of the latest in new media - from Twitter masses to Jewish Blackberry ("Jewberry) prayer books. Check it out here.

Religion in Virtual Worlds Study Group

I learned about an interesting study group on religion online that meets in Second Life. Here are the details for researchers who might be interested in joining.

Time: May 22, 2009 from 8am to 9:30am

Location: Second Life

Organized By: Beth Davies-Stofka Event

Description:Religion in Virtual Worlds Study Group

The Religion in Virtual Worlds Study Group meets on the 3rd Friday of the month at 8:00 AM Second Life time.The May meeting will take place on May 22nd (in order to avoid overlap with end-of-semester duties). The agenda is Buddhist Death in Second Life

Dr. Beth Davies-Stofka presents the educational goals and strategies behind the Second Life Bardo Game. Designed by members of the Center for EduPunx, the Second Life Bardo Game creates the "in between" state of the dead person as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, challenging the player to find her way to enlightenment.There are a few design issues that we need help resolving, and we'll present those to the group.

Discussion: would you like to use this game in your classroom? What questions or considerations concern you? How can we help?Religion in Virtual Worlds Study Group meetings normally last an hour and a half, but feel free to come late and leave early!

All are welcome. All meetings are held on the Front Range Island. Front Range Island is private, so please RSVP in advance with your avatar name to beth.davies@frontrange.edu.

Thanks, and we look forward to seeing you on May 22nd!

Next meeting: June 19. Agenda will be set at the May meeting.

Patheo and Religion Online

Patheos.org is a relatively new web site that seeks to be an interactive site devoted to the exploration and discussion of religious belief and experience. They have assembled an impressive list of experts and advisors for the site which offers on only info on different religious traditions but place for interaction, debate and special topics discussion. This week the topic in the Public Square forum is Religion on the Web. They offer an impressive range of article from why Catholic spiritual mentors need to take Facebook seriously to a reflection on what What Muhammad would advise Muslims to do about the internet. I was interview for one of three lead article in the section, one specifically titled Religion 2.0 that looks at the future of religion in an internet world. With so many interesting pieces the site and this week's public square discussion is especially worth checking out.

Kid's morals in Virtual Worlds: online morals match offline

I recent came across an interesting research article which talks about kid's morals in virtual worlds. In the article, Gender, race and morality in the virtual world and its relationship to morality in the real world, researchers from Michigan state university argue that children’s offline moral behavior and attitudes is largely carried over in their behavior and beliefs online. The team's systematic interviews with over 500 young people found that morality online was related to morality offline, confirming the finding of many researchers that the online and offline social (and religious/moral) context are intimately interconnected. For more info check out the full article:

Jackson LA et al (2009). Gender, race and morality in the virtual world and its relationship to morality in the real world. Sex Roles DOI 10.1007/s11199-009-9589-5

CFP: Church and Mission in a Multireligious Third Millennium

I just got an e-announcement for who looks like a very interesting conference coming up in 2010. The Church and Mission in a Multireligious Third Millennium conference seeks to bring together especially scholars from the Nordic context to discuss issues a variety of related to issues of ecclesiology, ecumenism and missiology. The participant includes some of my friends and research colleagues including LeRon Schults, Knut Lundby and Goran Larrson.

One of the core themes is the "Church in Cyberspace." In this section they welcomes papers examining the relationship between church, mission and the new media, especially the Internet. How do the new media affect the ways in which the church operates? What impact do secularization, globalization and multireligiosity have on the church in cyberspace? Does the Internet offer new alternatives to traditional approaches to mission? Can church and congregational communities be built in cyberspace? If you are interested in more information contact, Peter Fischer-Nielsen at pfn@teo.au.dk

A Science and Religion Primer Online

It is a bit of shameless self-promotion but I wanted to announce the website for my most recent book went live today. A Science and Religion Primer is an introductory guide to dialogues in science and religion and functions as a hybrid between a dictionary, encyclopedia and annotate bib. While this is only tangently relevant to the study of religion and new media it does have some interesting entries on topics such as technology and posthumanism (written by yours truly). If you are interested in the current debates on science and religion or are trying to get your head around such topics as the Duhem Quien Thesis or Mind-Body problems in science check it out!

Monasticism Online

I just learned of a new form of digital monasticism. Prayerbuddy.org describes itself as "ubiquitously digital spiritual community in which daily contact and familiarity are the rule" It seeks to create the sociological resemblance of monastic community in a networked form. Prayerbuddy helps member become part of a small online community (of about 8 members) that seek to they follow a simple rule of life in which they engage in classical practices (including daily prayer, lectio divina, spiritual journaling & spiritual direction) supported by technology. This digital monastic life also encourages new forms of interconnection such as "Perpetual, Wireless, Semantically Rich Presence To One Another" and "Semi Monthly Spiritual Conference Centered Around A Meal". So those who have always desired to fulfill their monastic inner calling of live as a contemplative, but can't live without your wireless no worries, prayerbuddy can help you marry the two!

4 days till Internet Evangelism day

This coming Sunday some evangelical churches will highlight the potential of the Internet , by holding an 'Internet Evangelism Day'. The organizers see that the Web is a God-given tool for outreach, and provides help for Christians to use it effectively. They encourage
churches to build a presentation into their services or other activities on or near that day. Their website also serves as a year-round online resource guide with many ideas for web outreach and strategy . Internet Evangelism Day also offers an online self-assessment questionnaire, enabling churches to enhance their websites to reach out into the community. "Your church website is a 'shop window' for your community," says IE Day coordinator Tony Whittaker. The questionnaire creates a free evaluation report to highlight areas of a site that can be developed.

The Networked Congregation Report

The Alban Institute has just released an interesting report entitled, Networked Congregations: Embracing the Spirit of Experimentation which seeks to analyze the challenges and possibilities being confronted by religious congregations in the digital age. The report is linked to an event I participated in a year ago at the Alban institute, but it is more than just a synopsis of the events topics. Rather Andrea Useem has woven together a number of interesting interview and in-depth personal narratives from people like Jeff Kivett and David Ambrose at Lifechurch.tv, pastor-blogger Rick Lord, Lisa Colton of Darim Online, Greg Atkinson of Church 2.0 and others. If you are interested in exploring the question" What does the digital age mean for religious congregations?" I encourage you to check this out!

Chag Sameach & the Facebook Haggadah

Passover Blessings to you. It's the time of year when Jews ready their passover tables and pull out their haggadahs. The haggadah is the story of the Jewish exodus read by families during passover as a mark of communal rememberance and there are are multiple online versions of the haggadah such as the do-it-yourself open source haggadah. But this year a new and very playful one was brought to my attention called the the Facebook Haggadah which has to be one of the most creative versions I have seen recently. According to my friend Barry Wellman you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy this, but he says it helps.

A Study of Christian participation in online communities.

I recently got an email from a student at the The University of Illinois at Chicago who is trying to survey Christians' opinion and participation in online communities. I volunteered to help him out by posting his call for survey respondents here. So...if the shoe fits, I encourage you to take time to respond to the call below...
------------------------------------------

Hello everyone.
I am heading up a research project at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The project measures Christian opinions and participation in online communities.We need your help.

We need respondents to the following survey: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/112059/ec-involvement-in-online-communities-1

The survey is hosted on a professional online survey service. The survey is anonymous, so your privacy is protected.Participating in the survey is completely voluntary. The benefits of completing the survey are data for present and future research, as well as personal satisfaction. You may also request a copy of the research report once the survey has been completed. Your participation would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time.--

Kyong James Cho
Department of Communication
University of Illinois at Chicago

CFP: Chapters on the Internet and Apocalyptic Belief

I saw this CFP and thought that this might be of interest to some readers...

Network Apocalypse: Visions of the End in an Age of Internet Media

This edited collection of work by international scholars would document how Internet communication is creating, adapting, and recreating beliefs about an imminent mass transformation resulting in the end of human history. How are ancient prophetic beliefs faring in our everyday lives as they have become technologized by network communication? How do religious communities sharing these beliefs use the Internet? Are everyday religious believers empowered or disempowered by Internet technologies? Are gender, ethic, and racial divisions being broken down or reinforced? How are text-based prophetic traditions adapting to the more dynamic and fluid understanding of the Word in our digital age?

The answers to these questions are important for scholars from a wide range of disciplines working on questions about how the Internet is changing some of our most powerful and recurring religious beliefs.Each chapter of this book will focus on a specific sample of discourse that features apocalyptic beliefs. Comparative and theoretical chapters are also welcomed. Methods may be quantitative, qualitative, or a combination of both.

Chapter topics might include by are not limited to:Christian, Islamic, Jewish, or other traditional apocalyptic expression online;specific apocalyptic groups using the Internet;online prophecy and/or prayer practices;apocalyptic games, gamers, or gaming;apocalyptic expression in virtual worlds;apocalyptic communication via mobile communication technologies;new apocalyptic religious movements using the Internet;apocalyptic ideas or discourses that rely on theories of technology including concepts of “Gaia-mind,” “singularity,” and etc.

Please submit the following documents via email to Rob Howard (rgh@rghoward.com) by May 1, 2009:
1) a preliminary title for the proposed chapter
2) a 100-250 word abstract of the proposed chapter
3) a current CV

The successful abstracts will form part of a book proposal submitted in response to a request from Sheffield Phoenix Press for a series titled “The Apocalypse in Popular Culture.” Full texts will be requested at a later date. Sheffield Phoenix Press is an academic press specializing in topics of religion that is seeking to expand its catalog on apocalyptic belief in contemporary society.

Robert Glenn Howard http://rghoward.com/
University of Wisconsin -- Madison
Associate Professor, Department of Communication Arts
Associate Chair, Folklore Program

Getting Centered Online

We are now coming to the end of week 5 of Lent and I have found it a week where centering prayer has helped keep me sane during a hectic time. Center or Contemplative prayer is a form of christian meditation. While many sites provide detailed explanations of the practice I have only found one so far that offers a guided virtual experience. At Contemplative Prayer for Everyone run by the Trappist of St Benedict's monastery offer audio teachings, a short online course on lectio divina and a contemplative prayer chapel, which takes you through a 2o minute guided reflection intended to help you center down and still one's self in prayer. So if you are looking for a Monastic guide online to assist you in your prayer time check out this site.

It is finished...

After five long years of researching, reading and writing about Judaism, Islam and Christian engagment with new media the draft of "When Religion Meets New Media" is finished. It is now in the hands of the series editors of Routledge's media, religion and culture series for review and evaluation. I probably won't hear anything definitive for a few months so for the moment I am rejoicing that it is off my desk at long last and am hoping the editors will be as excited about it as I am. I will keep you posted as the book hopefully moves forward.

HOW VIRTUAL IS REALITY?

The folks from University of Bremen, the University of Oldenburg and the Jacobs-University (Bremen) have put together an interesting summer school on "How Virtual is reality?" The school is aimed at Master students and PhD candidates interested in doing work and religion and the internet. The course will broach the issue of the relevance of new environments like "Second Life" or "World of Warcraft" for culture and social life with special focus on rituals and religions.

They state that Summer School participants will be able to design and perform research projects on religion in and within Virtual Worlds. I think this sounds like a great program for future religion and internet researchers and only wish something like this had been around when I was a PhD student.

Sacred Spaces online for Lent

For over a decade Sacred Space has offered opportunities to "spend ten minutes, praying here and now, as you sit at your computer, with the help of on-screen guidance and scripture chosen specially every day". During the Lenten season the site run by the Irish Jesuits offers a number of features from participating in an online way of the cross, be led through reflective daily prayers, sign up for an guided lenten sacred space retreat, or even send a Lenten Ecard. Unlike some of daily prayers offered on web sites it combines bible reading with prayer and appears on the screen in small chunks at a time so that you have to hit a forward arrow to progress through it. The slow transisitions give a meditative rythmn to the prayer which is quieting. The site also offers other options and links including an opportunity to pray with the pope.

A Kosher google

It was only a matter of time... Koogle is new religious big portal in Israel that contains an index of business is kosher comprehensive and facilities to the orthodox jews. It features news to religious information on religious products especially for rabbis and the general religious public. Also is you are looking for a kosher torah search engine check out 4Torah.com recently launched as well.

CFP: Islam and the Media

I wanted to post this interesting Call for Papers for an upcoming conference on the Islam and the Media to be held January 7-10, 2010. It will be hosted by The Center for Media, Religion and Culture in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Here's the info...

The events of September 11, 2001 have unleashed an unprecedented period of global re-thinking of issues in media and religion. Islam has emerged as a major focus of inquiry and debate, but the interaction between contemporary Islam and the media has rarely been addressed.

This conference will thus engage a set of questions on the place of Islam within global, regional, national and local media.If we believe the torrent of popular headlines on Islam today, it seems that only Muslim extremists are talking about their religion, pursuing a project that claims to defend it from “secularized” Western culture. From Bin Laden’s call to jihad to the angry reaction of Muslims to the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, Muslims are portrayed in the media as irrational followers of a religion adamantly out of step with modernity. In the face of this, and perhaps in order to balance their coverage of Islam, Western journalists, pundits, and others have been asking “where are the moderate Muslims?” But few true moderates have emerged. Instead, some Western media have turned to another extreme: Muslim secularists or “Muslim non-believers”--voices which deserve media attention, but which arguably stand at the opposite fringe, rather than nearer the center of how Islam is lived and understood today.Muslims, both in the Muslim world and in the diaspora, have found themselves compelled to speak for the ‘real’ Islam and explain its relevance in modernity both to themselves and to non-Muslims. This process is at the same time generating divergent discourses that arguably are already coming to challenge the religious authority of clerical Islam. Today, Muslim men and women, young and old, secularists and Islamists, Westerners and Easterners, gay and straight, rappers and comedians, journalists and scholars, bloggers and televangelists, are changing the conventional pathways of religious discourse and disintegrating the old centers of knowledge production within Islam. In fact, Muslims around the world are taking advantage of new media platforms like the Internet and other forms of conventional media like satellite television, music and film to articulate an arguably ‘pure’ or ‘modern’ Islam. These media have become prime discursive spaces in which Islamic knowledge is contested, reinterpreted, and popularly re-mediated.

Given the unprecedented amplification of this inner struggle within Islam, it is imperative to ask questions such as: who speaks for Islam today using what original platforms? Does the pluralization of Muslim voices lead necessarily to innovations in the core of Islamic teachings or is it merely a shift in method to reaffirm a message of orthodoxy? Are these new voices accessible to large numbers of Muslims? And how are contemporary media deployed to facilitate this shift in Islamic knowledge production? Thus, a range of questions dealing with the mediation of Islam and other religions are also coming to the fore.

This international conference will bring together scholars on Islam and contemporary media, media professionals, activists and NGOs to reflect on the implications of these developments.

Papers and panels may address, but should not be limited to, the following topics:

• The representation of Islam in global media
• Images of Islam in Western entertainment media
• Muslim voices in Western media
• Media and the “clash of civilizations”
• Contemporary Islamic media and the transformation of religious knowledge
• The impact of new Muslim media on patterns of religious learning and practice
• The proliferation of Islamic websites and Islamic discourse on the Internet
• The weakening of traditional Islamic institutions
• Articulations of Islam in popular culture
• The intersections of Islam and consumer culture
• The impact of mediated transnational Islam on the Ummah and nation
• The role of Muslim diasporas in the new Islam
• The role of women in shaping the teachings of new Islam
• Muslim minorities’ use of media globally, regionally, and locally
• The impact of new media on social and cultural patterns in Muslim societies
• Representations of contemporary Islam in Muslim and Western media
• New Muslim media, public sphere and democracy
• Islam, globalization, and religious identity
• Contemporary Islamic thought and new mediations of Islamic heritage
•Methodologies: how to study Islam in the media age
•Methodologies: social-scientific, humanistic, and “theological” analyses
• Media and the making of Islamic religious “celebrity”

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Charles Hirschkind: University of California, Berkeley- author of The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics.

Zarqa Nawaz: filmmaker and writer of the critically-acclaimed TV series A Little Mosque in the Prairie.

Deadline: Please send a 300-word abstract by May 15, 2009 to Nabil Echchaibi at nabil.echchaibi@colorado.eduA detailed conference Website will be available shortly.

For further information and comments please contact Nabil Echchaibi at nabil.echchaibi@colorado.edu or Stewart Hoover at hoover@colorado.edu

Lent Online: Say a Prayer, Light a Candle, Read an E-devotion...

Well, we are well into the 3rd week of lent and while I have explored many other lent options online I have been remiss at posting them. (This is partially because I have been keeping my head down working on the final edits on a draft of the book for which this blog is named...) So to play catch up, here are two interesting options I have discovered:

First, at the website of St Bernards Abbey of Cullman, Alabama you can visit one of six online prayer chapels. By clicking on an candle you can enter request for prayer for yourself or a friend. The name of the person being prayed for then appears under the candle which seems to be lighted and flicker in a virtual wind. It even time burns down over time. I lit one in Christ the King chapel and saw that others had lit candles for prayers for elderly parents, children and friends in distress. So if you feel the urge to light a candle as prayer, check this out.

Another options is a Lenten Online devotional which I signed up for on Ash Wednesday. The daily devotional is written by students, staff and faculty of Goshen College and emailed each morning to subscribers. Each e-devotion offer a short reflection on a scripture portion chosen by the individual author related to their own personal lenten journey which I find quite interesting. They offer this service each Lent and Advent season. For more information check out this year's Lenten devotions.

Lent Online

Today is Ash Wednesday so one of my commitments during this lenten season is to see what online resources are available online and highlight some of the most interesting ones. I just got done listening to an online teaching on the purpose of lent found at Praying Lent, run by Creighton University. The site offers weekly audio teachings weekly, as well as a Full Audio Lenten Retreat. Or for those who are busy they offer the text of a short prayer for those on a tight schedule. This is just one of a number of sites I have come across in a search this morning and I am looking forward to exploring other options offered online during the next 40 days.

CFP: Religion and Spirituality in Cyberspace

I wanted to give people a heads up on CFP. The Australian Religion Studies Review has sent out a call for papers for a special issue on Religion and Spirituality in Cyberspace. The context for this issues is the belief that "religion online and online religion are now an integral part of Cyberspace. The intersection of religion and spirituality and the Internet is a new area of study (1990s onward) and will certainly become even more important in the future. The Internet will undoubtedly promote the emergence of new forms of spiritualities, religious expressions, experiences, identities, communities, and authorities. This thematic issue will explore some of the methodological and theoretical issues raised with the coming together of Internet with religion and spirituality and, hopefully, provide interesting case studies".

Guest Editor Roxanne Marcotte is looking for submission on topics such as cyber-theology, cyber-rituals, online religions, cyber-proselytization and cyber-polemics, cyber-pilgrimages, cyber-covens and sanghas, religious blogs, etc. Submission deadline is February 2010. For more information check out CFP or contact the editor directly.

Religion in Virtual Worlds

I am getting ready to head to Las Vegas this weekend for the Virtual Worlds and Interpretive Communities: Opportunities for Global Dialogue, host next week at UNLV. I am excited and honored to be the opening keynote at what looks to be a very interesting conference. My talk is titled"Offline Implications of Online Religious Community" and will look at the issues raised by performing Religion through Online communties in Virtual Worlds. The full skinny on my talk is that I hope to highlight the conditions within our information society that have given rises to the growth of online religious communities and the challenges this poses to offline religious groups and institutions. I will also address how the experience of community online may alter individual’s expectations of community and how authority structures are negotiated will be addressed through several case studies of different online religious communiteis including the Anglican Cathedral in Second Life, Tangle and Kipa. Basically it is a synthesis of my first book Exploring Religious Community Online and a smattering of insights learned in my current book project When Religion Meets New Media.


As a warm-up for the conference I was interviewed on KNPR's State of Nevada radio program for a story on New Media and Religion. Much of the content focused on a conversation on several of my last few blog posts on Tangle/God Tube and my reaction to Bishop Katherine Jefferys Schori statements about disembodied religion via the internet. To hear my opinions check out the forthcoming audio files.

GodTube gets Tangle-d

GodTube has officially relaunched itself as Tangle, with a new vision and services. This new incarnation is kind of a Christian You Tube meets Facebook meets p2p/sns community. It promises to allow Christian to take their faith out of the Church and embed it more fully in their online activities, or have them get Tangled in their faith 24/4. Check out their promo:

The Vatican launches YouTube Chanel

In an attempt to stay attune with today's information culture and also attempt to control its image online the Vatican has launched a special YouTube channel. The Vatican channel is updated daily and offers news coverage of the main activities of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI and of relevant Vatican events. The Catholic church have long been innovators in embracing new forms of media for religious purpose, though not without concern and thoughtful reflection about its potential impact on society (something I will explore in my forthcoming book. For more details on the site and Catholic perceptions of the internet check out at AP story about its launch.

Can online communty be incarnational?

Today a friend sent me a link to a recent radio interview [News 88.9 KNPR-Nevada on 24 Dec 2008] with Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, leader of the Episcopal Church in the US. The focus of the interview was on the state of the Episcopal church due to the on-going tensions in the church over the election of an openly gay bishop. However in the middle of the interview she made some interesting comments on the her view's about online religious community.

BISHOP: The reality is Christian communities; faith communities of all sorts need physical proximity of humane being in order to discover each other, in order to grow individually and as a community. We do not do that as well with people who are not in our presence. It is hard to build a faith community in a deep sense on the internet. We deal with caricatures; we deal with perceptions and positions rather than full human beings sitting in our presence.

INTERVIEWER: Although many people point to the Obama campaign and the social networking and the impact it made, in drawing together millions of people in this country, mobilizing them, getting them to vote getting them to knock on doors throughout the country and that would be community engagement that is philosophical engagement.

BISHOP:It is. I think it is at a different level that what is normally though of as a faith community.

INTERVIEWER: How so?

BISHOP: Because it doesn’t involve face-to-face encounter with a human being, individual whom you come to know over months and years with all that person’s gifts and warts. And learning to challenge one another in a faithful sense to grow up into all they can be.

...and later she went one to say...

"it is a hunger for intimate community of the kind that we were talking about the minute ago that is only possible in the physical proximity of other human beings. Some of it can be served on the internet but the incarnate piece is missing."

Upon reflection I both agree and disagree with the Bishop. I agree the in most case physical proximity is the ideal and may more easily facilitate the possibility for intimate community, however in my experience and research physical presence does not necessarily mean that intimacy and care will be achieved in community. I think the incarnational nature is also about what people bring to the table to create the environment and that this can be intentionally built and maintained in a "disembodied" context. I have both studied and experience this online my past 13 years of research.

But what do you think?

Research Wiki on the Move

I wanted to give you an update on the Studying Religion and New Media Wiki, designed for researcher looking to network on research questions or relevant resources about the study on religion and the internet. Currently there are over 45 members, representing scholars from all over the world looking at different aspects of religion online.

Due to different circumstance the wiki has been move do a new platform. This is a temporary move and I will be looking for another more permanent home for the wiki over this next semester. Just wanted to give you a heads up, hope you find the resources useful!

What would Jesus blog?

According to Jeff Brumley of the Florida Times-Union Jesus might question some of the content and critique generated by religious bloggers... Check out his article on the dilema of how the the Internet may be seen to transform individual spirituality, congregations and, in some cases, the future of entire denominations - for good and bad. You might find a quote or two from yours truly... :-)

Online Religion on PBS

PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly launched a cover story, episode 1212 today on Online Religion that features your truly. The story explores the impact and implication of doing religion online as it where. Here is and excert of what I had to say:

SEVERSON: Heidi Campbell is a professor at Texas A&M University and author of the book “Exploring Religious Community Online.” She says there are very tangible reasons why the religious experience through chat rooms and social networking sites has increased in popularity — online prayers, for example.

Dr. HEIDI CAMPBELL (Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Texas A&M University and Author, “Exploring Religious Community Online”): In fact, some of the people in my early research said that they felt more cared for and that people, when they said they were praying for them online, that they really meant it because there was some tangible artifact that they could see to really show that they were praying for them.

SEVERSON: She says the Internet extends the “global body of Christ” because someone or some prayer is always there, and she says for those too shy or introverted to speak up in church, the Internet offers anonymity.

Dr. CAMPBELL: That anonymous nature allows them to ask the questions, to get the feedback, to say things that they would never be able to say in a face-to-face environment.

For the full story check it out here.

Blogging from GCIA

I am sitting in a room full of Christian internet innovators in the beautiful Texas hill country at the GCIA conference at Laity Lodge. It is beautiful remote location on the Frio River where there is not cell phone coverage, but they got wifi installed in the conference hall especially for this conference. I am learning lots about the creativity and diverse strategies and uses of the internet by different Christian groups around the world. Some of my favorite sites that I have seen so far include http://www.biblegamezone.com/, created by Norwegians in an effort to offer a complete children’s Bible via computer games; http://www.topchretien.com/ based in France who are applying some interesting e-vangelism strategies via a number of sites and partnerships including www.GodRev.com; also http://www.erf.de/ a German web site that has launched "the Jesus experiment" as a sort of online alpha course to facilitate discovery about Christianity and many others. I have also had fascinating conversations with people from Brazil, Russia and Canada on their visions and work online.

Yesterday was a full day. We heard from the new CEO of GodTube yesterday which has grown in leaps and bounds in the last 14 months since it went public. News flash, GodTube is going through major re-branding and structuring and will be re-launching itself in January 2009 as "Tangle" as a global Christian SMS site. It will be a MySpace/Facebook hybrid that will provide options for individuals, ministries, churches groups, bands and artists and expand to include discussion forums, podcasting as well as host the prayer wall and a new feature an interactive "virtual bible' that will allow for tagging and commenting on individual verses. GodTube will still exist as the video sharing section of the site, so it sounds like interesting times are ahead for that group.

I gave a talk on my research on the rise of Christian community online and its implications for the Church and Christian ministries. I was also interviewed by the editor in chief of Alliance Presse from Switzerland for an article on how the internet is and will impact Evangelical Christianity in Europe. More ministry case studies and presentations today...It was a five hour drive from TAMU to here, but it has definitely been worth the trip.

Relfecting on Christianity online at the Global Christian Internet Alliance

On Monday I will be giving a presentation at the annual meeting of the Global Christian Internet Alliance in the Texas hill country. GCIA describes itself as "an international network of Christian ministries using the Internet to help fulfill the Great Commission". I am looking forward to hearing about Christian online innovation from around the world and especially learn about the latest happenings at GodTube. As part of my presentation--"When Religion Meets New Media"-- I am posting links to some of the most interesting studies I have come across on Christian use of the Internet here in the past 2 years as resources for the conference participants [and anyone else in the blogosphere that might be interested]. I will be highlighting some of these in my presentation summary on "where do we go from here..." on the next wave of religion and internet research.

Heidi Campbell, (2007). Who's got the power? Religious authority and the Internet. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(3), article 14.
This article explores how the internet both powers and challenge online religious authority within Christian (as well as Jewish & Muslim) communities.

Pauline H Cheong, Alexander Halavais, Kyounghee Kwon, (2008). The Chronicles of Me: Understanding Blogging as a Religious Practice. Journal of Media and Religion, Vol. 7, No. 3. (2008), pp. 107-131.
Their content analysis study of 200 blogs with mentions of topics related to Christianity, suggests that blogs provide an integrative experience for the faithful, not a “third place,” but a melding of the personal and the communal, the sacred and the profane.

Nadja Miczek, (2008) Online Rituals in Virtual Worlds. Christian Online Service between Dynamics and Stability. Online – Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet: Vol. 03.1
This article investigates online worship services and interpret them through a framework of ritual theory, to look at issues of religious invention, transformation and exclusion at different stages of ritual action. This is found in a special issue of Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet, entitled Being Virtually Real? Virtual Worlds from a Cultural Studies’ Perspective. Be sure to check out the other interesting articles on Christianity in virtual worlds, namely learn about St Pixels by Jenkins and Church of Fools by Kluver & Chen.

Paul Teusner. (2007). Christianity 2.0 - a new religion for a new web. Paper Presented at Association of Internet Researchers Conference, Vancouver, BC, Oct 2007.
Interesting reflection on interview research with emerging church bloggers, attempting to understand the Christian life via their use of media.

Studies in World Christianity, December 2007, Special Issue: In Search of Online Religion
This entire issues is a diverse and rich collection of a variety of Christian uses of the internet combined with theological reflection on religious innovation online.

How Internet Innovations Are Changing the Way We Do Church

If you are interested in learning more about the conversation that happened at the Alban Institute one days conference I was part of last April on the impact of the internet on Christian Churches and institutions, check out the following brief report How Internet Innovations Are Changing the Way We Do Church.

Still in Denmark: Learning about Mediatization in terms of Media, Religion & Culture

Hi, still from Copehnagen! After a day break after AoIR I am now involved in a facinating short conference sponsored by the Nordic Research Network on the Mediatization of Religion and Culture which is a facinating group of scholars who meet as part of a research grant to explore the interconnectedness between media, religious activities and beliefs, and broader cultural dynamics. This is the last of a series of event which is looking at Researching Media and Religion: Future Directions of Mediatization Theory and Analyses.

Today I have been learning a lot about the idea of mediatization, which is a contested term but generally describes the process which begins with a change in communication media and proceeds to subordination of the power of prevailing influential institutions .

Stig Hjarvard & Knut Lunby took different theoretical approaches to look at issues of how media transforms social networks of relations and the contrast between new and old media and how they may influence such discussions. I gave a talk on the how the iPhone has been framed as the Jesus phone as an example of the complexities of the circulations of meaning in mediatization.. My colleague Eric Rothenbuhler asserted that ifmediatization is a industrialized, technologization of the basic idea of human communication, designed for different purposes, outcomes and expectations-- then we maybe should expect media to be a generator of communicative forms
And Lynn Clark spoke about the need to consider how media contribute to an ongoing tranformaion of societal institions by thinking about how issues such as our understanding of time, space anf family may shape these. more facinating discussion to follow...

AoIR Bof & the New Media & Religion Wiki

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.

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.

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...

Consultation on Technology and Spiritual Community

Greetings from WDC (Herndon, VA actually). I am getting ready for a day consultation of faith and technology sponsored by the Congregational Resource Guide--Alban Institute. I am going to be presenting on my research on religion and the internet and along with Brian Brunius going to be part of an interesting conversation on congregational use of new media. They have assembled an interesting group of participants from members of the clergy, media professionals, bloggers and members of a variety of Congregational group. I'll give an update tomorrow on the details of the days activities.

Is SNS being used for discipleship and intentional church planting online?

I had a request for information from Lee Behar of The Maclellan Foundation. He is looking for examples of people who use SNS or web tech to do online evangelism in non-religious spaces on the internet with the intent of making converts and then building intentional churches online out of those relationships. In Lee's words: "I’m not looking for social networks that are meant to connect people to conventional churches, but rather those that may be doing church (especially the outreach part) through social networks."

I know of people doing e-vangelism in non-religious space online but not of any who did it with the direct intent of building an online church. Most of what I have seen in building online community has been more organic or when it has been intentional it has not been motivated by an initial e-vangelism focus.

I am wondering if anyone out there knows of any examples of Christian evangelism/discipleship, even church planting effort, that is using a social networking platform as its primary path for ministry? If you do both Lee and I would be grateful to hear more about these efforts!

Social Capital, Religion and the Internet

I want to recommend a recent article appearing in the journal Information, Communication and Society, check out: WWW.FAITH.ORG (Re)structuring communication and the social capital of religious organizations . In it Cheong & Poon examine the relationships between Internet and social capital building within religious organizations by looking at how Christian and Buddhist religious leaders in Toronto respond to Christian and Buddhist religious leaders in Toronto have found that their communicative norms, values, and practices are changing due to communal use of the internet and presentations of faith online.

Holy Week Online

In honor of Holy week I have gathered together some of the interesting online resource available that can help you celebrate this season of remembrance. There are numerous of version of stations of the cross: way of the cross with pictures of Jerusalem, via cruix, stations of the cross in flash and virtual pilgrimage to Rome for stations of the cross.You can find music of the Passion and the gallery of the passion for meditative images and music. To participate in a virtual Good Friday or Easter service check out the service options at the Anglican Cathedral in Second Life. (Their Palm Sunday service provided attendees with virtual Palm frond and the ambiance of donkeys hee-haw-ing). And finally for other resources you might desire related to Easter check out Easter in cyberspace.

Being Virtually Real?

Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet has just launched it's third issue under the theme "Being Virtually Real? Virtual Worlds from a Cultural Studies' Perspective". This is the only journal dedicated to issues of religion and the internet and in previous issues they have covered topic of theory and methodology related to studies of religion online and on religious rituals on the internet. In the current issue I would especially commend to you "The Church of Fools: Virtual Ritual and Material Faith" by Randy Kluver & Yanli Chen, a detailed investigation of one of the first experiment in doing Church in a virtual environment as well as "Rituals and Pixels. Experiments in Online Church" by Simon Jenkins who provides an autoethnography of his experience in this online worship experiment. A number of other interesting articles can also be found on religion in Second Life, Technoshamanism and spirituality in video gaming.

The most recent edition on the Journal of Media and Religion has featured 2 very interesting articles concerning religion and the internet. Below are links to these articles with brief summaries:

1. "Nonprofit Religious Organization Web Sites: Underutilized Avenue of Communicating with Group Members", written by Melissa Smith. This article suggests that nonprofit religious organizations do not take full advantage of its website's capabilities. For example, Smith found that religious organizations do not hire marketing professionals to aide in the website creation/upkeep, they do not track the number of visitors to the website, and they do not use the website as a recruiting tool for the organization. Additionally, Smith writes that religious organizations use other forms of technology to contact members instead of websites.

2. "The Use of Internet Communication by Catholic Congregations: A Quantitative Study", written by Lorenzo Cantoni and Slawomir Zyga. This article is a result of a study which attempted to measure internet usage among all Catholic religious groups and autonomous organizations worldwide. Based on the answers received, Cantoni and Zyga assert that centralized institutions utilize the internet to a higher degree than autonomous institutions. Within centralized institutions, a difference is noted between male and female groups. The article also presents proposals for this trend.

Church Website Design Project

Hello, my name is Lauren Gross and I am currently working as Dr. Campbell's research assistant. I will be posting helpful sites/information from time to time on Dr. Campbell's blog, so I hope the following is of use to you!

The Church Website Design Project is a company with a target market of Christian groups. The role of an employee is to consult with a church representative, learn an individual church's needs, and produce effective web communication. The creators developed this service because "As Christians we are taught to believe in the importance of spreading the Word and the ministry of our Church. This is why we have established, with clergy and church members from across the UK providing a wealth of support, the Church Website Design Project. All of us who work on this Project have a variety of backgrounds in the world of work, and worldly experience, but we all share a common goal: celebrating and communicating the faith, ministry and Word of God." Please click here if you would like to visit the website.

To better understand the project, here are the vision and values listed on the website:

- Promoting the internet as a means to extend fellowship and ministry.
- Encourage clergy and church leaders to identify the potential in developing an online church community.
- Provide support and advice on ways that the internet can enhance the work of your church community.
- Identify opportunities for not only sharing your church with the global community, but also to develop a new way to communicate with the local community.
- Sustain and develop the fellowship that exists within your churches, parishes and church groups.
- Support clergy and church members to improve existing websites, offering advice and consultation.
- Share the love and word of God and the teachings of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Upcoming conference

After a long hiatus from posting I am back...

2008 looks set to be an interesting year for exploring religion and the media, with 3 international conference coming up.

July 10-12, 2008 the "New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa" conference will be hosted in Abuja, Nigeria. The main goal of this conference is to cast a critical look at Africa's rapidly evolving religious media scene. It is particularly interested in the challenges of balancing freedom of expression and freedom of religion and belief in Africa’s fast-growing media sector. The conference is spearheaded by several international scholars including Rosalind Hackett from University of Tennessee & president of the International Association for the History of Religions, whom I have known for almost a decade as scholar doing interesting and important work on religion in Africa. Check out their Call for Papers. If my travel plans for the summer weren't so tight I think this would be a great conference to check out.

August 11-14, 2008 the Sixth International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture on "Dialogues in Diversity" will be hosted in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have been to several of these previous conferences in Scotland, Sweden & the USA which aim to be international and interdisciplinary event engaging about critical questions of the interactions between religion and the media. The Call for Papers deadline is March 31st. I will defintely be at this one.

And in November 9-12, 2008 the Second International Conference on Religion and Media will be held in Iran. I do not know much about this conference but good friends Lynn S Clark & Stewart Hoover attended the first one as guest speakers and found it a facinating experience.

So get out your passport and consider joining one of these international gatherings!

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!

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.

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.

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...

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!

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.

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!