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The Sacred in Bits and Pixels: An Analysis of the Interactional Interface in Brazilian Catholic Online Rituals

TitleThe Sacred in Bits and Pixels: An Analysis of the Interactional Interface in Brazilian Catholic Online Rituals
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2014
AuthorsSbardelotto, M
JournalJournal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture (JRMDC)
Volume3
Issue2
Start Page82
ISSN2165-9214
KeywordsBrazil, Catholic Church, Catholicism, Interaction, interface, internet, mediatization, mediatization of religion, online rituals, religion, technology
Abstract

Through digital technologies, a new form of communicational interaction between the user and the sacred occurs in an online religious experience. This phenomenon is illustrated in practice by numerous religious services present in the online Catholic environment, which manifest new modes of discourse and religious practices, beyond the scope of the traditional church – what I term here “online rituals” – marked by a process of mediatization of religion. In this paper, from a corpus of four Brazilian websites, I analyze key concepts for the understanding of this phenomenon, including digital mediatization and interface. I examine, in these Brazilian Catholic websites, the communicational configurations of the religious experience from five areas of the interactional interface: the screen; peripherals; the organizational structure of content on websites; the graphic composition of the webpages; and possible interface failures. Finally, I examine a shift in the communicational dynamics of religion today, marked by new materialities present in online religious rituals.

URLhttp://jrmdc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Sbardelotto-Catholic-Sacred.pdf