@article {2860,
	title = {Religion, Robots and Rectitude: Communicative Affordances for Spiritual Knowledge and Community},
	journal = {Applied Artificial Intelligence},
	year = {2020},
	abstract = {In light of growing concerns on AI growth and gloomy projections of attendant risks to human well-being and expertise, recent development of robotics designed to fulfill spiritual goals can help provide an alternative, possibly uplifting vision of global futures. To further understanding of the potential of robots as embodied communicators for virtuous knowledge and community, this paper discusses the affordances or possibilities of action of robots for spiritual communication by drawing upon the recent highly publicized case of Xian{\textquoteright}Er the robot monk (XE). By discussing XE{\textquoteright}s communicative affordances including its searchability, multimediality, liveliness and extendibility, findings illustrate how robots can facilitate religious education, augment priestly authority and cultivate spiritual community. Contrary to abstract and dystopic visions of AI, findings here temper extreme pronouncements of societal disorder and points to prospects for pious and positive interplays between AI technology and society while also identifying various limitations for spiritual communication. In doing so, this paper unpacks the profound relations between religion, robots and rectitude, contributing interdisciplinary insights into an understudied area of AI development as faith leaders and adherents interact with new technological features and applications in their desire for transcendence.
},
	url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08839514.2020.1723869},
	author = {Cheong, Pauline Hope}
}
@article {2719,
	title = {The vitality of new media and religion: Communicative perspectives, practices, and changing authority in spiritual organization},
	journal = {New Media \& Society},
	abstract = {We are witnessing the growth of a distinct sub-field focusing on new media and religion as the relationship between the two is not just important, it is vital. I discuss in this article how this vitality is both figurative and literal in multiple dimensions. Mediated communication brings forth and constitutes the (re)production of spiritual realities and collectivities, as well as co-enacts religious authority. In this way, new mediations grounded within older communication practices serve as the lifeblood for the evolving nature of religious authority and forms of spiritual organizing. Further research to identify diverse online and embodied religious communication practices will illuminate a richer understanding of digital religion, especially as a globally distributed phenomenon.},
	keywords = {Authority, Communication},
	url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444816649913},
	author = {Cheong, Pauline Hope}
}
@article {1926,
	title = {Cheong, P. H. (2014). Tweet the Message? Religious Authority and Social Media Innovation. Journal of Religion, Media \& Digital Culture, 3(3), 2{\textendash}19.},
	journal = {Religion, Media, and Digital Culture},
	volume = {3},
	year = {2014},
	pages = {1-19},
	abstract = {Religious believers have historically adapted Scripture into brief texts for wider
dissemination through relatively inexpensive publications. The emergence of Twitter and other microblogging tools today afford clerics a platform for real time information sharing with its interface for short written texts, which includes providing links to graphics and sound recordings that can be forwarded and responded to by others. This paper discusses emergent practices in tweet authorship which embed and are inspired by sacred Scripture, in order to deepen understanding of the changing nature of sacred texts and of the constitution of religious authority as pastors engage microblogging and social media networks. Drawing upon a Twitter feed by a prominent Christian megachurch leader with global influence, this paper identifies multiple ways in which tweets have been encoded to quote, remix and interpret Scripture, and to serve as choice aphorisms that reflect or are inspired by Scripture. Implications for the changing nature of sacred digital texts and the reconstruction of religious authority are also discussed.},
	keywords = {Bible, pastors, religious authority, Singapore, social media, Twitter},
	url = {http://jrmdc.com/papers-archive/volume-3-issue-3-december-2014/},
	author = {Cheong, Pauline Hope}
}
