@article {2099,
	title = {The Virtual Construction of the sacred{\textendash}Representation and Fantasy in the Architecture of Second Life Churches},
	journal = {Nordic Journal of Religion and Society},
	volume = {27},
	year = {2014},
	pages = {59{\textendash}73},
	abstract = {This study aims to construct a typology of the visual style of Christian spaces in the online virtual world of Second Life (SL). Virtual worlds offer diverse new possibilities for architectural style, unrestricted by gravity, weather or scarcity of materials. These new regions also operate largely beyond the control and indeed awareness of established religious authorities, so they can also offer users new opportunities to reconsider the social structure of their communities. This research project aims to survey religious responses to these new potential freedoms. Research to date on religion in SL has focused on small samples of spaces or activity, but we found 114 Christian spaces. An overwhelming number of the locations we visited featured a Christian church building. 81 of 114 included a church building that reproduced a recognizable offline architectural style, and only 9 included a church with an entirely different style. Only 15 Christian locations had buildings that cannot be characterised as churches. 
},
	keywords = {Church, Sacred, Second Life Churches, Virtual},
	url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279318282_The_virtual_construction_of_the_sacred_-_Representation_and_fantasy_in_the_architecture_of_second_life_churches},
	author = {Gelfgren, S and Hutchings, T}
}
@article {144,
	title = {Diaspora on the electronic frontier: Developing virtual connections with sacred homelands},
	journal = {Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication},
	year = {2007},
	abstract = {This study demonstrates how diaspora religious traditions utilized the Internet to develop significant network connections among each other and also to their place of origins. By examining the early Usenet system, I argue that the religious beliefs and practices of diaspora religious traditions were a motivating factor for developing Usenet groups where geographically dispersed individuals could connect with each other in safe, supportive, and religiously tolerant environments. This article explores the new forms of religious practices that began to occur on these sites, focusing on the manner in which Internet technology and the World Wide Web were utilized for activities such as long-distance ritual practice, cyber pilgrimage, and other religiously-motivated undertakings. Through these new online religious activities, diaspora groups have been able to develop significant connections not only among people, but also between people and the sacred homeland itself.
},
	keywords = {electronic frontier, Online, Sacred, virtual communities},
	url = {http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/helland.html},
	author = {Helland, Christopher}
}
@book {1288,
	title = {Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion, and Culture },
	year = {2013},
	publisher = {Columbia University Press},
	organization = {Columbia University Press},
	address = {New York},
	abstract = {increasingly, the religious practices people engage in and the ways they talk about what is meaningful or sacred take place in the context of media culture{\textemdash}in the realm of the so-called secular. 

Focusing on this intersection of the sacred and the secular, this volume gathers together the work of media experts, religious historians, sociologists of religion, and authorities on American studies and art history. Topics range from Islam on the Internet to the quasi-religious practices of Elvis fans, from the uses of popular culture by the Salvation Army in its early years to the uses of interactive media technologies at the Simon Wiesenthal Center{\textquoteright}s Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance. The issues that the essays address include the public/private divide, the distinctions between the sacred and profane, and how to distinguish between the practices that may be termed {\textquotedblleft}religious{\textquotedblright} and those that may not.},
	keywords = {Beit Hashoah, popular culture, quasi-religious practices, Sacred, Salvation Army, Secular},
	url = {http://books.google.com/books?id=9aDg8Ih78QAC\&dq=religion+and+internet\&lr=\&source=gbs_navlinks_s},
	author = {Stewart M. Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark}
}
@article {332,
	title = {Virtually Sacred: The Performance of Asynchronous Cyber-RItuals in Online Spaces},
	journal = {Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication},
	volume = {12},
	year = {2007},
	abstract = {This article explores how the design of sacred spaces and ritual performance are transformed in the move from offline to online contexts. A semiotic analysis of two websites{\textemdash}a Christian Virtual Church and a Hindu Virtual Temple{\textemdash}suggests the potential for demarcating distinct online sacred spaces, in a Durkheimian sense, in which devotees can engage in ritual activity. The article focuses on the performance of cyberpuja in the Virtual Temple and the posting of prayers in the Virtual Church. Interviews with the Web designers and an analysis of the sites suggest that the virtual is primarily conceived in terms of a simulation of the "real." Consequently these sites are envisaged in terms of conventional notions of sacred space and ritual performance, rather than as something radically new.},
	keywords = {cyberspace, Performance, Ritual, Sacred},
	url = {http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/jacobs.html},
	author = {Jacobs, S}
}
@inbook {517,
	title = {Contested Communication. Mediating the Sacred},
	booktitle = {Implications of the Sacred in (Post)Modern Media},
	year = {2006},
	pages = {43-62},
	publisher = {Nordicom},
	organization = {Nordicom},
	address = {Gothenburgh},
	abstract = {In recent years, there has been growing awareness across a range of academic disciplines of the value of exploring issues of religion and the sacred in relation to cultures of everyday life. Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age offers inter-disciplinary perspectives drawing from theology, religious studies, media studies, cultural studies, film studies, sociology and anthropology. Combining theoretical frameworks for the analysis of religion, media and popular culture, with focused international case studies of particular texts, practices, communities and audiences, the authors examine topics such as media rituals, marketing strategies, empirical investigations of audience testimony, and the influence of religion on music, reality television and the internet.Both academically rigorous and of interest to a wider readership, this book offers a wide range of fascinating explorations at the cutting edge of many contemporary debates in sociology, religion and media, including chapters on the way evangelical groups in America have made use of The Da Vinci Code and on the influences of religion on British club culture and electronic dance music.
},
	keywords = {Communication, media, Sacred},
	url = {http://books.google.com/books?id=HRmYapWETqcC\&printsec=frontcover$\#$v=onepage\&q\&f=false},
	author = {Lundby, Knut.}
}
@book {2830,
	title = {The Sacred in the Modern World: A Cultural Sociological Approach},
	year = {2014},
	publisher = {Oxford University Press},
	organization = {Oxford University Press},
	abstract = {The central aim of this book is to provide a theoretical framework for using the concept of the sacred as a tool for social and cultural analysis. It differentiates between ontological theories of the sacred which locate the sacred in the essence of the cosmos or the human person, and a cultural sociological approach which understands the sacred as culturally constructed. Adopting the latter, a critical re-reading is given of Emile Durkheim{\textquoteright}s understanding of the sacred, and of later theoretical contributions made by Edward Shils, Robert Bellah, and Jeffrey Alexander. Using this framework, the intersection of multiple sacred forms is used to analyse the cultural meanings surrounding the systemic abuse and neglect of children within the Irish industrial school system. The role of public media in circulating sacred meanings is also discussed, and the case of the BBC{\textquoteright}s refusal to air a humanitarian appeal for Gaza in 2009 is explored to demonstrate the tensions between the sacred function of public media and journalistic notions of impartiality. The book concludes by examining whether human society without sacred forms is possible, and argues that the communicative structure of the sacred underlies the very notion of moral, human society. A critical approach to the sacred is required which involves both a recognition of the harm that can be done through the pursuit of sacred commitments, and the development of critical practices that make it possible to understand the significance of the sacred in social life.},
	keywords = {child abuse, cultural sociology, Edward Shils, Emile Durkheim, industrial schools, Jeffrey Alexander, media, Robert Bellah, Sacred},
	url = {https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557011.001.0001/acprof-9780199557011},
	author = {Lynch, Gordon}
}
@article {205,
	title = {The Sacred and the Virtual: Religion in Multi-User Virtual Reality},
	journal = {Journal of Computer Mediated Communication },
	volume = {4},
	year = {1994},
	abstract = {This paper explores the social interaction among participants in a church service in an online multi-user virtual reality (VR) environment. It examines some of the main features of prayer meetings in a religiously-oriented virtual world and also what sets this world apart from other virtual worlds. Next, it examines some of the issues of research ethics and methods that are raised in the study of online behavior in virtual worlds. The paper then analyzes the text exchanges between participants in a virtual church service and some of the ways in which these compare with the content of a conventional church service. Finally, the paper draws out some implications for our understanding of the relation between interaction in the virtual and in the {\textquotedblleft}real{\textquotedblright} world.},
	keywords = {Church, Interaction, Sacred, Virtual},
	url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1998.tb00092.x/full},
	author = {Schroeder, Ralph and Heather, Noel and Lee, Raymond M.}
}
@book {518,
	title = {Implications of the Sacred in (Post)Modern Media},
	year = {2006},
	publisher = {Nordicom},
	organization = {Nordicom},
	address = {Gothenburgh},
	keywords = {Modern, Sacred},
	url = {http://books.google.com/books/about/Implications_of_the_sacred_in_post_moder.html?id=wzccAQAAIAAJ},
	author = {Sumiala-Sepp{\"a}nen, Johanna and Lundby, Knut and Salokangas, R.}
}
