Mapping Digital Religion: Exploring the Need for New Typologies
TL;DR: In this paper, the need for new typologies of what is religious on the Internet is explored and a conceptual framework for mapping digital religion is presented based on influential classification by Helland.
About: This article is published in Religion.The article was published on 2021-05-21 and is currently open access. It has received 16 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Online and offline & Interactivity.
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TL;DR: Chidester's Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture as discussed by the authors examines elements of religious belief and practice that have materialized in the popular culture of the last twenty or thirty years.
Abstract: Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture David Chidester. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Several years ago, I attended an American Academy of Religion annual conference held at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. While on a break, I was walking along the boardwalk of one of the resort areas when a father and his small child approached a shaved ice concession stand. The father pointed to the "ices" on display and said "Are those faket" Ironically, the question was said with the same inflection, disbelief, and awe that one would intone when asking if something was real. However, in this inverted Disney "world" of inauthenticity, this man was questioning not reality, but the validity of the display's fakeness. I have often thought of that moment in my own research interests, where I am constantly plagued by questions and comments about what constitutes reality and the implied value judgments that are inherent in the distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity. So it was with great anticipation that I approached David Chidester's Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture. Chidester explores the issues of religion in a highly commercialized world in the midst of globalization by American corporations. The book examines elements of religious belief and practice that have materialized in the popular culture of the last twenty or thirty years. He examines dimensions and expressions of religious belief and practices m a wide variety of cultural institutions. Some of these institutions may not be surprising to readers, such as thinking of American baseball as religion or thinking of the potentially religious dimensions of the Coca-Cola or McDonald's corporations. Others are surprising and insightful, such as Chidester's argument that Ronald Reagan and Jim Jones in the 1980s were promoting a similar message of religious sacrifice. Chidester writes, "In the ideologies of Jim Jones and Ronald Reagan, sacrifice is that act that totalizes all the elements of a worldview into a meaningful and powerful whole" (103). At its heart, the book is making an argument for the religiosity of "The American Dream," how that myth is carried out and promoted, and how it sometimes fails as an aspect of a uniquely American religious system. Chidester's chapter headings point to the various ways in which he defines religion in American popular culture: Popular, Plastic, Embodied, Sacrificial, Monetary, Global, Transatlantic, Shamanic, and Virtual. Each of these terms in turn reflects how religion has found its way into the culture and reflects elements of the flexibility, globalization, and media expressions of religion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Each of the headings also points to a culturally constructed understanding of religion. …
61 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: The Longman History Project as discussed by the authors is designed for Key Stage 4 students at all levels of ability and is illustrated in full colour and there is support material for teachers, but it is not suitable for older students.
Abstract: Longman History Project is specifically designed for Key Stage 4 students at all levels of ability. The books are illustrated in full colour and there is support material for teachers.
59 citations
18 Aug 2021
8 citations
DOI•
25 Mar 2020
TL;DR: Ahilla.ru as discussed by the authors is an alternative platform for the articulation of alternative views of Russian Orthodox faith and identity in the digital space. But it does not address the issues of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy.
Abstract: With the rise of new computer technologies, scholars of religion and media came to raise questions of how digital communication affects institutional forms of authority. In the digital realm, a number of alternative platforms emerged that empower religious communities to partake in the production of religious narratives outside organized religion. Ahilla.ru is a recent example of such an alternative place facilitated by digital technology. Founded by a former Russian Orthodox priest in February 2017, the website is a response to the politics and official rhetoric of Orthodox Church hierarchs who appeared ever more comfortable in conflating religion and politics and presenting themselves as the moral voice of the nation. Since his enthronement in 2009, Patriarch Kirill has centralized and hierarchized the Church, widening the gap between the episcopate and the low-level clergy and laity. Criticism of institutional religious authority that provides space for the articulation of alternative views of Orthodox faith and identity is at the core of Ahilla.ru. Ahilla.ru merits special attention, as it emerged not outside but within the Russian Orthodox Church and poses a challenge, via digital media space, to the dominant discourse articulated by Orthodox Church authorities and Russian mainstream media. This article seeks to answer the question of how online communication enhances media non-professionals to reflect upon their experiences within institutional religious settings and makes these experiences—previously unmediated and unknown—part of the media discourse.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors studied the case of the digital worship collective Adorando en Casa (AeC), which was started at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemics, producing several crowdsourced original musical compositions, uploaded in popular social media sites, and distributed via messaging apps.
Abstract: During 2020–2021, the COVID-19 pandemics exacerbated the use of digital communication tools for the general population as well as for migrant and diasporic communities. Due to social distancing requirements, church activities had to be suspended or restricted, therefore, local congregations and denominations had to incorporate social media as part of their regular worship channels in an unprecedented way. At the same time, these new spaces opened an opportunity for diasporas to reconnect with their churches back home, and to participate in digital worship projects. In this paper, we study the case of the digital worship collective Adorando en Casa (AeC), which was started at the onset of the pandemics, producing several crowdsourced original musical compositions, uploaded in popular social media sites, and distributed via messaging apps. We focus on the reasons for participation of Venezuelan musicians and singers from different regions in the country, and from the large diaspora of Venezuelan Evangelicals. Additionally, we analyze the characteristics, structure, and theology of some of the songs recorded, to show how the concept of a digital diasporic spiritual consciousness is powerfully expressed through worship music.
2 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: The Rise of the Network Society as discussed by the authors is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information, which is based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world.
Abstract: From the Publisher:
This ambitious book is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information. Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of the fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world.
The global economy is now characterized by the almost instantaneous flow and exchange of information, capital and cultural communication. These flows order and condition both consumption and production. The networks themselves reflect and create distinctive cultures. Both they and the traffic they carry are largely outside national regulation. Our dependence on the new modes of informational flow gives enormous power to those in a position to control them to control us. The main political arena is now the media, and the media are not politically answerable.
Manuel Castells describes the accelerating pace of innovation and application. He examines the processes of globalization that have marginalized and now threaten to make redundant whole countries and peoples excluded from informational networks. He investigates the culture, institutions and organizations of the network enterprise and the concomitant transformation of work and employment. He points out that in the advanced economies production is now concentrated on an educated section of the population aged between 25 and 40: many economies can do without a third or more of their people. He suggests that the effect of this accelerating trend may be less mass unemployment than the extreme flexibilization of work and individualization of labor, and, in consequence, a highly segmented socialstructure.
The author concludes by examining the effects and implications of technological change on mass media culture ("the culture of real virtuality"), on urban life, global politics, and the nature of time and history. Written by one of the worlds leading social thinkers and researchers The Rise of the Network Society is the first of three linked investigations of contemporary global, economic, political and social change. It is a work of outstanding penetration, originality, and importance.
15,639 citations
"Mapping Digital Religion: Exploring..." refers background in this paper
...More and more human activities are organized as networks, decentralized and flexible, freed from the territorial restrains, with the Internet as a major tool of shaping these networks (Castells 2000)....
[...]
TL;DR: In this paper, a q-sort technique was used to identify core perceived attributes of four sample social media influencers, and a better understanding of the perceived personality of SMIs provides tools for optimizing an organization's SMI capital.
673 citations
"Mapping Digital Religion: Exploring..." refers background in this paper
...Influencers are bloggers, vloggers, social media users, etc., gaining considerable audiences (see, e.g., Freberg et al. 2011) with an interest in lifestyle in general as well as fashion, sex, medicine, education, and so on....
[...]
01 Jun 2008
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a theoretical framework for the understanding of how media work as an agent of religious change, and the concept of "banal religion" is developed to understand how media provide a constant backdrop of religious imagination in society.
Abstract: This paper presents a theoretical framework for the understanding of how media work as an agent of religious change. At the center of the theory is the concept of mediatization: religion is increasingly being subsumed to the logic of the media, both in terms of institutional regulation, symbolic content and individual practices. As a channel of communication the media have become the primary source of religious ideas, and as a language the media mould religious imagination in accordance with the genres of popular culture. Inspired by Michael Billig’s (1995) concept of “Banal Nationalism”, a concept of “banal religion” is developed to understand how media provide a constant backdrop of religious imagination in society. The media as a cultural environment have taken over many of the social functions of the institutionalized religions, providing both moral and spiritual guidance and a sense of community. As a consequence, institutionalized religion in modern, Western societies plays a less prominent role in the communication of religious beliefs, and instead the banal religious elements of the media move to the front stage of society’s religious imagination.
274 citations
"Mapping Digital Religion: Exploring..." refers background in this paper
...Media are the primary source of information about religion, and dominate and define the social order, including the religious one (Hjarvard 2008, 2014; Lövheim 2011; Lövheim and Lynch 2011)....
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Book•
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, Brasher explores the meaning of electronic faith and the future of traditional traditional religion and argues that religion's move to the online world does not mean technology's triumph over faith, but rather it assures religion's place in the wired universe, along with commerce and communications - meeting the spiritual demands of Internet generations to come.
Abstract: From the Publisher:
"No one can deny the stunning impact of Internet technology upon culture - driving the growth of commerce and spurring communications to a frantic speed. Inevitably, consumers demanding faster, cheaper, more have begun to seek encounters with the otherworldly, thus launching religion into cyberspace. Tracking this movement in her compelling book, Give Me That Online Religion, Brenda Brasher explores the meaning of electronic faith and the future of traditional religion." "As the Internet overcomes barriers of time and space, religion enjoys an ever-increasing accessibility on a global scale. Operating online allows long-established religious communities to reach the unaffiliated as never before. More startling is the ease by which anyone with Internet access can create new circles of faith. Bringing religion online also has the effect of closing the gap between pop culture and the sacred. Electronic shrines and kitschy personal Web "altars" express adoration for living celebrities, just as they honor the memory of long-departed martyrs. Looking to the future, Brasher braves a new world in which cyber-concepts and technologies challenge conventional ideas about the human condition - all the while attempting to realize age-old religious ideals of transcendence and eternal life." "As the Internet continues its rapid absorption of culture, Give Me That Online Religion offers pause for thought about spirituality in the cyber-age. Religion's move to the online world does not mean technology's triumph over faith. Rather, Brasher argues, it assures religion's place in the wired universe, along with commerce and communications - meeting the spiritual demands of Internet generations to come."--BOOK JACKET.
208 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse the evolution dans les rapports entre parole and symbole dans la liturgie chretienne, and veut demontrer que la culture electronique contemporaine peut transformer les croyances and les pratiques religieuses.
Abstract: Le cadre theorique de l'analyse de l'A. s'appuie sur les travaux de Walter J. Ong. Celui qui etudie l'impact de l'evolution des technologies de la communication sur la religion ne peut se permettre d'ignorer cette theorie evolutionniste de la culture qui met l'accent sur les modes de conscience et les formes de la communalite. En analysant les evolutions dans les rapports entre parole et symbole dans la liturgie chretienne, l'A. veut demontrer que la culture electronique contemporaine peut transformer les croyances et les pratiques religieuses
188 citations