@book {391, title = {Holy mavericks: evangelical innovators and the spiritual marketplace}, year = {2009}, publisher = {New York University Press}, organization = {New York University Press}, address = {New York}, abstract = {Joel Osteen, Paula White, T. D. Jakes, Rick Warren, and Brian McLaren pastor some the largest churches in the nation, lead vast spiritual networks, write best-selling books, and are among the most influential preachers in American Protestantism today. Spurred by the phenomenal appeal of these religious innovators, sociologist Shayne Lee and historian Phillip Luke Sinitiere investigate how they operate and how their style of religious expression fits into America{\textquoteright}s cultural landscape. Drawing from the theory of religious economy, the authors offer new perspectives on evangelical leadership and key insights into why some religious movements thrive while others decline. Holy Mavericksprovides a useful overview of contemporary evangelicalism while emphasizing the importance of "supply-side thinking" in understanding shifts in American religion. It reveals how the Christian world hosts a culture of celebrity very similar to the secular realm, particularly in terms of marketing, branding, and publicity. Holy Mavericksreaffirms that religion is always in conversation with the larger society in which it is embedded, and that it is imperative to understand how those religious suppliers who are able to change with the times will outlast those who are not.}, url = {http://books.google.com/books?id=OC__qJdUgeMC\&printsec=frontcover$\#$v=onepage\&q\&f=false}, author = {Lee S.L. and Sinitiere P.L.} } @article {2702, title = {Media, Racism and Islamophobia: The Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media}, journal = {Sociology Compass}, year = {2007}, abstract = {This article examines the representation of Islam and Muslims in the British press. It suggests that British Muslims are portrayed as an {\textquoteleft}alien other{\textquoteright} within the media. It suggests that this misrepresenatation can be linked to the development of a {\textquoteleft}racism{\textquoteright}, namely, Islamphobia that has its roots in cultural representations of the {\textquoteleft}other{\textquoteright}. In order to develop this arguement, the article provies a summary/overview of how ethnic minorities have been represented in the British press and argues that the treatment of British Muslims and Islam follows these themes of {\textquoteleft}deviance{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}un-Britishness{\textquoteright}. }, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229720560_Media_Racism_and_Islamophobia_The_Representation_of_Islam_and_Muslims_in_the_Media}, author = {Saeed, Amir} } @article {1185, title = {The Effects of Religiousity on Internet Consumption}, journal = {Information, Communication \& Society}, year = {2012}, pages = {1-21}, abstract = {The relationship between technology adoption and religion has received scant research attention. The complicated process of Internet use among contemporary religious people is affected by the tension between technological developments and religious beliefs. The current research aims to explore the effects of religiosity on Internet consumption in a newly industrialized Muslim country, Turkey. The study utilized a cross-sectional design based on data from 2,698 subjects, selected by stratified random sampling, covering all 12 regions of the country. By offering an exploratory approach, this study sheds light on how various interpretations of religion enable culture-specific observations on Internet consumption patterns, and its relation with different levels of religiosity. The findings revealed that the level of religiosity has a significant effect on the patterns of Internet consumption.}, keywords = {Internet use, religion, religiousity, social media}, doi = {10.1080/1369118X.2012.722663}, url = {http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2012.722663$\#$.UijPtkoo7Mw}, author = {Ozlem Hesapci Sanaktekina and Yonca Aslanbayb and Vehbi Gorguluc} } @article {287, title = {Tweeting Prayers and Communicating Grief over Michael Jackson Online}, journal = { Bulletin of Science, Technology, \& Society}, volume = {30}, year = {2010}, pages = {328-340}, abstract = {Death and bereavement are human experiences that new media helps facilitate alongside creating new social grief practices that occur online. This study investigated how people{\textquoteright}s postings and tweets facilitated the communication of grief after pop music icon Michael Jackson died. Drawing upon past grief research, religion and new media studies, a thematic analysis of 1,046 messages was conducted on three mediated sites (Twitter, TMZ.com, and Facebook). Results suggested that social media served as grieving spaces for people to accept Jackson{\textquoteright}s death rather than denying it or expressing anger over his passing. The findings also illustrate how interactive exchanges online helped recycle news and {\textquotedblleft}resurrected{\textquotedblright} the life of Jackson. Additionally, as fans of deceased celebrities create and disseminate web-based memorials, new social media practices like {\textquotedblleft}Michael Mondays{\textquotedblright} synchronize tweets within everyday life rhythms and foster practices to hasten the grieving process. }, keywords = {blogs, celebrity, internet, microblogging, popular culture, religion, social media}, doi = {10.1177/0270467610380010}, url = {http://www.paulinehopecheong.com}, author = {Sanderson, James and Pauline Hope Cheong} } @article {204, title = {Tweeting Prayers and Communicating Grief over Michael Jackson Online}, journal = {Bulletin of Science Technology \& Society}, volume = {30}, year = {2010}, pages = {328-340}, abstract = {Death and bereavement are human experiences that new media helps facilitate alongside creating new social grief practices that occur online. This study investigated how people{\textquoteright}s postings and tweets facilitated the communication of grief after pop music icon Michael Jackson died. Drawing on past grief research, religion, and new media studies, a thematic analysis of 1,046 messages was conducted on three mediated sites (Twitter, TMZ.com, and Facebook). Results suggested that social media served as grieving spaces for people to accept Jackson{\textquoteright}s death rather than denying it or expressing anger over his passing. The findings also illustrate how interactive exchanges online helped recycle news and {\textquotedblleft}resurrected{\textquotedblright} the life of Jackson. Additionally, as fans of deceased celebrities create and disseminate web-based memorials, new social media practices such as {\textquotedblleft}Michael Mondays{\textquotedblright} synchronize tweets within everyday life rhythms and foster practices to hasten the grieving process.}, keywords = {Communication, Death, Grief, Social Practices}, url = {http://www.paulinehopecheong.com/media/DIR_21201/c5be8d3f13534b9ffff86d3ffffe417.pdf}, author = {Sanderson, Jimmy and Pauline Hope Cheong} } @article {1593, title = {The Sacred in Bits and Pixels: An Analysis of the Interactional Interface in Brazilian Catholic Online Rituals}, journal = {Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture (JRMDC)}, volume = {3}, year = {2014}, chapter = {82}, 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 {\textendash} what I term here {\textquotedblleft}online rituals{\textquotedblright} {\textendash} 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.}, keywords = {Brazil, Catholic Church, Catholicism, Interaction, interface, internet, mediatization, mediatization of religion, online rituals, religion, technology}, issn = {2165-9214}, url = {http://jrmdc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Sbardelotto-Catholic-Sacred.pdf}, author = {Mois{\'e}s Sbardelotto} } @article {1594, title = {La reconstrucci{\'o}n de lo {\textquotedblleft}religioso{\textquotedblright} en la circulaci{\'o}n en redes socio-digitales}, journal = {La Trama de la Comunicaci{\'o}n}, volume = {18}, year = {2014}, chapter = {151}, abstract = {En este art{\'\i}culo, se presenta una reflexi{\'o}n sobre la mediatizaci{\'o}n digital de la religi{\'o}n, fen{\'o}meno socio-comunicacional en que se sit{\'u}a la actual reconstrucci{\'o}n de lo religioso. En sitios cat{\'o}licos brasile{\~n}os, se analiza el desv{\'\i}o de la pr{\'a}ctica de la fe al ambiente online a partir de l{\'o}gicas medi{\'a}ticas, los llamados rituales online, que complejizan el fen{\'o}meno religioso y las procesualidades comunicacionales. Se describen tres modalidades de oferta y apropiaci{\'o}n de lo sagrado: la inter faz interaccional, las interacciones discursivas y las interacciones rituales. A partir de esas nuevas modalidades de percepci{\'o}n y de expresi{\'o}n de lo sagrado, se analizan las pr{\'a}cticas de instituciones sociales como la Iglesia y la sociedad en general al hablar p{\'u}blicamente sobre lo religioso en las redes digitales {\textendash} en este caso, lo {\textquotedblleft}cat{\'o}lico{\textquotedblright}, es decir, constructos simb{\'o}licos que la sociedad considera como vinculados a la doctrina y tradici{\'o}n de la Iglesia Cat{\'o}lica-. Se analizan, entonces, los conceptos de reconexi{\'o}n y dispositivos conexiales. Como conclusi{\'o}n, se afirma que, en esa reconstrucci{\'o}n de lo {\textquotedblleft}cat{\'o}lico{\textquotedblright}, surge una religiosidad en experimentaci{\'o}n marcada por e-rej{\'\i}as, o sea, nuevos sentidos simb{\'o}licos de lo religioso en red, {\textquotedblleft}bricolajes de la fe{\textquotedblright} en el ambiente digital. This article presents a reflection on the digital mediatization of religion, socio-communicational phenomenon in which stands the current reconstruction of the religious. In Brazilian Catholic sites, it analyzes the displacement of the practice of the faith to the online environment based on mediatic logics, the so-called rituals online, that turn the religious phenomena and the communication processualities more complex. It describes three forms of of fer and appropriation of the sacred: the interactional inter face, the discursive interactions and the ritual interactions. From these new modes of perception and expression of the sacred, it analyses practices of social institutions as the Church and society in general to speak publicly about religion in digital networks {\textendash} in this case, the {\textquotedblleft}Catholic{\textquotedblright}, ie symbolic constructs that society considers as linked to the doctrine and tradition of the Catholic Church. It then discusses the concepts of reconnection and connectial devices. In conclusion, it is stated that in the reconstruction of the {\textquotedblleft}Catholic{\textquotedblright} arises a religiosity in experimentation marked by e-resies, ie new symbolic meanings of the networked religious, {\textquotedblleft}bricolages of faith{\textquotedblright} in the digital environment.}, keywords = {Catholic Church, Catholicism, circulation, connectial dispositifs, mediatization, mediatization of religion, reconnections, socio-digital networks}, issn = {1668-5628}, url = {http://www.latrama.fcpolit.unr.edu.ar/index.php/trama/article/view/472}, author = {Mois{\'e}s Sbardelotto} } @article {468, title = {{\textquoteright}E o Verbo se fez bit{\textquoteright}: Uma an{\'a}lise da experi{\^e}ncia religiosa na internet}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Com a manifesta{\c c}{\~a}o de um fen{\^o}meno de apropria{\c c}{\~a}o da Internet por parte das institui{\c c}{\~o}es religiosas cat{\'o}licas, este texto busca analisar o funcionamento das intera{\c c}{\~o}es entre fiel-Igreja-Deus para a viv{\^e}ncia, a pr{\'a}tica e a experi{\^e}ncia da f{\'e} nos rituais online do ambiente digital cat{\'o}lico brasileiro. Examina-se particularmente, por meio de uma metodologia anal{\'\i}tica qualitativa, fundamentada nas contribui{\c c}{\~o}es do pensamento sist{\^e}mico e complexo, um corpus de pesquisa de quatro sites cat{\'o}licos: CatolicaNet, Irm{\~a}s Ap{\'o}stolas do Sagrado Cora{\c c}{\~a}o de Jesus {\textendash} Prov{\'\i}ncia do Paran{\'a}, A12 e Pe. Reginaldo Manzotti. Perscruta-se, assim, que religi{\~a}o resulta dessa manifesta{\c c}{\~a}o de pr{\'a}ticas religiosas a partir do emprego e da atividade dos meios digitais, com o objetivo de colaborar com a an{\'a}lise das primeiras consequ{\^e}ncias diretas que esse fen{\^o}meno est{\'a} trazendo para a religi{\~a}o e, particularmente, para a Igreja Cat{\'o}lica como a conhecemos hoje. A partir de uma leitura de alguns estudos que abordam a interface entre comunica{\c c}{\~a}o e fen{\^o}meno religioso na Internet, reflete-se sobre alguns conceitos e perspectivas de an{\'a}lise para a investiga{\c c}{\~a}o dos sites cat{\'o}licos institucionais brasileiros, como a midiatiza{\c c}{\~a}o digital do sistema religioso; a quest{\~a}o da t{\'e}cnica transformada em meio; novas modalidades de experiencia{\c c}{\~a}o; e novas configura{\c c}{\~o}es de tempo-espa{\c c}o-materialidades na experi{\^e}ncia religiosa do fiel-internauta. Em seguida, descrevem-se tr{\^e}s modalidades de estrat{\'e}gias de oferta de sagrado por parte do sistema e de apropria{\c c}{\~a}o por parte do fiel nos sites cat{\'o}licos brasileiros, a partir de infer{\^e}ncias obtidas em nosso corpus de pesquisa: os n{\'\i}veis tecnol{\'o}gico e simb{\'o}lico da interface interacional; quatro fluxos de intera{\c c}{\~o}es discursivas; e dois fluxos, com dois subfluxos cada, de intera{\c c}{\~o}es rituais. Como pistas de conclus{\~a}o, aponta-se que, por meio dessas estrat{\'e}gias interacionais, a religi{\~a}o que nasce no ambiente online {\'e} vivenciada, praticada e experienciada por meio de novas temporalidades, novas espacialidades, novas materialidades, novas discursividades e novas ritualidades marcadas pelos protocolos e processualidades da Internet.}, keywords = {Interaction, internet, mediatization, religion, system}, isbn = {1806-003X}, url = {http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/images/stories/cadernos/ihu/035cadernosihu.pdf}, author = {Mois{\'e}s Sbardelotto} } @article {1312, title = {Close Ties, Intercessory Prayer, and Optimism Among American Adults: Locating God in the Social Support Network}, journal = {Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion}, volume = {52}, year = {2013}, chapter = {35}, abstract = {Prayer is often an interpersonal phenomenon. It represents not only a form of social support shared between or among people, but also a means of embedding an unobservable actor (God) within a conventionally observable social network. This study considers whether the receipt of intercessory prayer from close network ties is associated with future-oriented well-being. Analyses use social network module data from the Portraits of American Life Study (PALS), a nationally representative study of American adults containing a breadth of information not available in prior studies of networks, prayer, and well-being. Despite experiencing more instances of recent adversity (mental or physical health problem, financial trouble, and unemployment), prayed-for PALS respondents report the highest levels of optimism. Furthermore, the association between network prayer and optimism is robust to inclusion of individual-level indicators of religiosity. Finally, other forms of social support that an individual receives from his or her close ties do not explain the benefits of intercessory prayer.}, keywords = {intercession, offline, optimism, Prayer, religion, social networks, social support, well-being}, url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12010/abstract}, author = {Markus H. Schafer} } @mastersthesis {50, title = {Conceptualising Hinduism}, volume = {PhD}, year = {2009}, month = {March 2009}, school = {Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore}, address = {Singapore}, abstract = {There is not a homogenous religion that can be referred to as Hinduism. Instead, {\textquoteleft}Hinduism{\textquoteright} encompasses a diverse range of practices, beliefs, and groups that can be subsumed under the term {\textquoteleft}Hindu.{\textquoteright} Despite this, Hinduism is often used in both popular and academic works to refer to a religion that is comparable to, for example, Christianity or Islam. This is clearly highly problematic. In this paper I show that although there is certainly not a homogenous religion that can be referred to as Hinduism, the use of the term is still acceptable. However, use of the term demands that it is adequately conceptualized. With such a conceptualization, the term can be used with confidence. After I have shown that the term {\textquoteleft}Hinduism{\textquoteright} should be retained, I want to briefly consider aspects of Hinduism in the light of key ideas in the work of Baudrillard. The reason for this is that Baudrillard has interesting things to say regarding the nature of images and the image is of extreme importance within Hinduism. Furthermore, it is worthwhile considering Baudrillard{\textquoteright}s ideas in the light of Hindu images because in his work {\textquoteleft}Simulacra and Simulations{\textquoteright} he makes specific reference to religious images. I will argue that his conclusions regarding religious images are not universal and are highly questionable when applied to Hinduism. Finally, despite my reservations concerning the applicability of Baudrillardian ideas to Hinduism, I consider online images of Hindu deities in the light of the theory of simulacra. This is because there does not appear to be a strong link between the medium of the Internet and Baudrillard{\textquoteright}s notion of hyper-real simulacra. However, I can conclude that replicated images of Hindu deities on the WWW are no more hyper-real than their original counterparts.}, url = {http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/docs/wps/wps09_110.pdf}, author = {Heinz Scheifinger} } @inbook {1179, title = {Hindu Worship Online and Offline}, booktitle = {Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds}, year = {2013}, publisher = {Routledge}, organization = {Routledge}, chapter = {8}, keywords = {cyberspace, Hindu, New Media and Society, New Technology and Society, Religion and the Internet, religious engagement, Sociology of religion}, author = {Heinz Scheifinger} } @article {65, title = {Internet Threats to Hindu Authority: Puja Ordering Websites and the Kalighat Temple}, journal = {Asian Journal of Social Science}, year = {2009}, abstract = {This article investigates threats to authority within Hinduism as a result of the Internet. It focuses upon websites which allow for pujas (devotional rituals) to be ordered to be carried out at the important Kalighat Temple in Kolkata. The two groups which currently exercise authority at the temple are identified, along with the specific forms of authority which they exercise. The processes which are occurring as a result of the puja ordering websites and the activities of those responsible for them are then demonstrated. The argument put forward is that, in addition to the puja ordering services being a threat to both the authority of the temple administration and the priests working there, they also have the potential to affect the relationship between these two groups. Findings from the Kalighat Temple case study further suggest that the effects at temples of online puja ordering services are dependent upon the current situation at respective temples.}, keywords = {Authority, Hinduism, internet, Kalighat Temple, Puja ordering websites, Pujas}, url = {http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/saj/2010/00000038/00000004/art00007}, author = {Heinz Scheifinger} } @inbook {2121, title = {The Significance of Non-Participatory Digital Religion}, booktitle = {Digital Hinduism: Dharma and Discourse in the Age of New Media}, year = {2017}, publisher = {Lexington Books}, organization = {Lexington Books}, chapter = {1}, abstract = {This edited volume seeks to build a scholarly discourse about how Hinduism is being defined, reformed, and rearticulated in the digital era and how these changes are impacting the way Hindus view their own religious identities. It seeks to interrogate how digital Hinduism has been shaped in response to the dominant framing of the religion, which has often relied on postcolonial narratives devoid of context and an overemphasis on the geopolitics of the Indian subcontinent post-partition. From this perspective, this volume challenges previous frameworks of how Hinduism has been studied, particularly in the West, where Marxist and Orientalist approaches are often ill-fitting paradigms to understanding Hinduism. This volume engages with and critiques some of these approaches while also enriching existing models of research within media studies, ethnography, cultural studies, and religion.}, keywords = {Digital Religion, Hinduism, non-participatory}, issn = {978-1498559171}, url = {https://books.google.com/books?hl=en\&lr=\&id=irNFDwAAQBAJ\&oi=fnd\&pg=PA3\&ots=dYssx4peYU\&sig=sbJlVpGgZujcmVRVHwctsemfhWk$\#$v=onepage\&q\&f=false}, author = {Scheifinger, H} } @inbook {166, title = {Israel: Chutzpah and Chatter in the Holy Land}, booktitle = {Perpetual Contact. Mobile Communication Private Talk, Public Performance}, year = {2002}, pages = {30-41}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, organization = {Cambridge University Press}, address = {Cambridge, UK}, url = {http://pennstate.academia.edu/AmitSchejter/Papers/959184/Israel_chutzpah_and_chatter_in_the_Holy_Land}, author = {Schejter, Amit and Cohen, Akiba} } @inbook {392, title = {Religion and the information society}, booktitle = {Religion and Mass Media: Audiences and Adaptations }, year = {1996}, pages = {261-289}, publisher = {Thousand Oaks, Ca}, organization = {Thousand Oaks, Ca}, address = {Sage Publications}, abstract = {How do religious audiences react to and use the media? How do institutional religious influences and expectations affect how they experience media news and entertainment? Drawing on theory and empirical research, contributors to Religion and Mass Media explore these questions from Jewish, Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Protestant, Fundamentalist and Mormon audience perspectives. The book looks at recent theoretical developments in the sociology of religion and communication theory; offers an overview of specific religious beliefs; examines audience behaviour; and describes specific case studies including the use of gospel rap and contemporary music in black religious communities.}, url = {http://eatemadifard.blogfa.com/post-1.aspx}, author = {Schement, J.R and Stephenson H.C.} } @article {393, title = {Listening Communities? Some Remarks on the Construction of Religious Authority in Islamic Podcasts}, journal = {Die Welt des Islams}, volume = {48}, year = {2008}, pages = {457-509}, abstract = {n the context of the vivid activity of Muslim individuals and groups on the Internet and the recent technological developments in the field of computer mediated communication, podcasts offering a wide range of religious information and/or advice to Muslim (and non-Muslim) listeners play an increasingly important role. Being an integral part of the Web 2.0{\textquoteright}s online landscape and presenting, at the same time, many characteristics of more {\textquotedblleft}traditional{\textquotedblright} audio media such as cassette recordings, podcasts cannot only be located at the intersection between virtual space and {\textquotedblleft}real world{\textquotedblright}, but represent, as a medium, also a direct continuation of older forms of Muslim media usage for da{\textquoteright}wa-purposes and propagandistic aims. This article attempts to analyze in how far the use of podcasts (and to a smaller extent of videocasts) by Muslim groups and individuals contributes to the emergence of a Muslim online {\textquotedblleft}counter public{\textquotedblright} sometimes challenging, sometimes reinforcing existing authority structures. Special attention is paid to the question which means and features specific to this new medium Muslim podcasters use to legitimize their religious authority, and to the question in how far established symbol systems commonly relied upon in the Muslim community are used as instruments for the construction of religious online authority and the redistribution of Definitionsmacht. Furthermore, it discusses to what extent questions of {\textquotedblleft}right belief{\textquotedblright} and {\textquotedblleft}correct religious practice{\textquotedblright} play a role in these processes. For this purpose, style and content of four selected podcasts (Zaytuna Institute Knowledge Resource Podcast, MeccaOne Media Podcast, Ahmadiyya Podcast, Alt.muslim Review) are analyzed in order to illustrate different ways in which this new medium is used by Muslim groups today. It is shown that podcasts{\textemdash}as part of the overall media spectrum{\textemdash}are used by Muslim groups for internal and external da{\textquoteright}wa-purposes, as well as for the reinforcement of existing power and authority structures (e.g. by projecting the presence of the group{\textquoteright}s leader both into time and into space) and as a means to cope with institutional and communal crisis. They might also become an important instrument not for the (re-)construction, but for the deconstruction of religious authority.}, keywords = {community, Islam, Podcast}, url = {http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/dwi/2008/00000048/F0020003/art00007?token=00561dd544be1455875dd67232d45232b4624736a4d3b2046287a743568293c6c567e504f58762f460c793}, author = {Scholz, J. and Selge, T. and Stille, M. and Zimmerman, J.} } @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 {167, title = {Habits of the High-Tech Heart. }, year = {2002}, publisher = {Baker Academic}, organization = {Baker Academic}, address = {Grand Rapids, MI}, url = {http://www.acton.org/sites/v4.acton.org/files/pdf/6.1.264-266.REVIEW.Schultze,\%20Quentin--Habits\%20of\%20the\%20High-Tech\%20Heart.pdf}, author = {Schultze, Quentin} } @book {1249, title = {Christianity and the mass media in America : toward a democratic accommodation}, series = {Rhetoric and public affairs series.}, year = {2003}, publisher = {East Lansing, Mich. : Michigan State University Press}, organization = {East Lansing, Mich. : Michigan State University Press}, abstract = {Demonstrates how religion and the media in America have borrowed each other{\textquoteright}s rhetoric. In the process, they have also helped to keep each other honest, pointing out respective foibles and pretensions. Christian media have offered the public as well as religious tribes some of the best media criticism - better than most of the media criticism produced by mainstream media themselves. Meanwhile, mainstream media have rightly taken particular churches to task for misdeeds as well as offered some surprisingly good depictions of religious life}, keywords = {America, Christian media, communication research, media, media criticism, religion, religious life, Religious sociology, rhetoric}, url = {http://www.worldcat.org/title/christianity-and-the-mass-media-in-america-toward-a-democratic-accommodation/oclc/53045150/editions?referer=di\&editionsView=true}, author = {Quentin J Schultze} } @book {schulz2011muslims, title = {Muslims and New Media in West Africa: Pathways to God}, year = {2011}, publisher = {Indiana University Press}, organization = {Indiana University Press}, isbn = {9780253223623}, url = {http://books.google.com.au/books?id=9mQdb6Exta4C}, author = {Schulz, D.E.} } @article {2734, title = {Algorithmic Absolution: The Case of Catholic Confessional Apps}, journal = {Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This article explores the Catholic ritual of confession as practiced through the use of mobile apps. Confession is a surprisingly persistent social form and in this article I begin by contextualising the relationship between society, confession and technology before presenting a case study of Catholic confessional apps that covers their design, marketing, and user feedback from review forums. This throws up a series of important questions about how we understand religious authenticity and authority in practices of faith that have a computational agent taking moral deviations as {\textquoteleft}data input{\textquoteright}. How should we conceptualise these applications when an algorithm imparts absolution, when penance is assigned by computational code? Observing that most people do not question the automation of the confessional ritual and that users feel their use of confessional apps as entirely legitimate forms of religious practice, I argue that questions of authenticity are secondary to those of authority. In the traditional Sacrament of Penance a priest, acting in persona Christi as the minister of Christ{\textquoteright}s mercy and drawing upon canonical law, recites the Rites of Penance, thereby performing the transition from the state of {\textquoteleft}penitent{\textquoteright} to {\textquoteleft}absolved{\textquoteright}. The replacement of a priest with the silent logics of algorithmic automation has profound implications for the authoritative power of confession as a transformative ritual.}, url = {https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/religions/article/view/23634}, author = {Scott, Sasha A. Q.} } @article {2088, title = {Gender, religion and new media: attitudes and behaviors related to the internet among Ultra-Orthodox women employed in computerized environments}, journal = {International Journal of Communication System~}, volume = {5}, year = {2011}, pages = {875{\textendash}895}, abstract = {This article focuses on the interface between gender, religion, and new technology, and examines the attitudes and behaviors pertaining to the Internet among ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) women working in designated {\textquotedblleft}technological hothouses.{\textquotedblright} }, keywords = {GENDER, internet, New Media, religion, ultra Orthodox, Women}, url = {https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:18004/datastreams/CONTENT/content}, author = {Shahar, RNB and Lev-On, A} } @mastersthesis {42, title = {The Bible on the Internet}, year = {2008}, month = {April 2008}, school = {Washington and Lee University}, address = {Lexington, Virginia}, abstract = {For centuries, different groups have read the Bible as a closed system or as open system. The {\textquotedblleft}closedness{\textquotedblright} or {\textquotedblleft}openness{\textquotedblright} of the Bible depends on how different religious communities treat, approach, and use the Bible. Churches that apply many of the characteristics of stable systems to the Bible promote or favor less open readings; churches with many of the characteristics of complex systems allow for more open readings. The Internet, itself a complex system, seems to favor an open reading of the Bible, offering the ability to move instantly from passage to passage or passage to commentary, an overwhelming amount of additional information and context, and a sense of interactivity all at once. In this paper, the author will discuss each of instance in the history of the Bible that gave rise to a more open perspective of on the text as well as use web sites to demonstrate how the digitalization of the Bible relates back historical movements towards open reading. It will also include exceptions to the openness the Internet invites, showing how digital technology can also be used to maintain hierarchical, stable systems and keep the Bible closed. Though the digital Bible may share characteristics with the previous versions, it ultimately marks a unique setting for biblical text and readers. Because the Bible serves as Christianity{\textquoteright}s central text, reading it online could have broader implications for Christians. The sacred experience or sacred mystery associated with the physical book of the Bible, as a holy object, may be lost in the Internet{\textquoteright}s timelessness and placelessness, which makes biblical text universally accessible. Or, this sense of sacred may be enhanced by the infiniteness the Internet, where meaning can emerge out of individual choices made within a complex system.}, url = {http://religion.wlu.edu/shellnutt/links.html}, author = {Kathryn Shellnutt} } @article {629, title = {The Technology of Religion: Mapping Religious Cyberscapes}, journal = {The Professional Geographer }, volume = {64}, year = {2012}, pages = {602-617}, abstract = {This article combines geographical studies of both the Internet and religion in an analysis of where and how a variety of religious practices are represented in geotagged Web content. This method provides needed insight into the geography of virtual expressions of religion and highlights the mutually constitutive, and at times contradictory, relationship between the virtual and material dimensions of religious expression. By using the spatialities of religious practice and contestation as an example, this article argues that mappings of virtual representations of material practices are important tools for understanding how online activities simultaneously represent and reproduce the material world.}, keywords = {cyberscapes, geography, internet, religion}, doi = {10.1080/00330124.2011.614571}, url = {http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00330124.2011.614571}, author = {Shelton, Taylor}, editor = {Zook, Matthew} } @inbook {2156, title = {The People of the Nook: Jewish Use of the Internet}, booktitle = {The Changing World Religion Map}, year = {2015}, pages = {3831-3856}, publisher = {Springer}, organization = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, abstract = {Considered both an ethnic group and a religious group, there are about 13{\textendash}14 million Jews worldwide (0.2 \% of the population). The 6.7 million Jews in the U.S. constitute about 2 \% of the American population. Internet usage by the American Jewish community is significant as an educational resource and a communication tool. As early as 2000, the National Jewish Population Survey found that 40 \% of Jewish adults used the internet for Jewish-related information in 1999, a remarkable figure given that the internet only really entered the public domain in a significant way in the mid-1990s. Thus, the {\textquotedblleft}People of the Book{\textquotedblright} have embraced technology to become the {\textquotedblleft}People of the Nook.{\textquotedblright} First, we examine those using the internet both for general information about Jewish-related items and their local Jewish communities. The extent to which various demographic and religious subgroups of American Jews use the internet is also explored. Second, internet uses are examined, including educational purposes, ritual obligations (z{\textquoteright}manim, counting the Omer, eruvim, electronic Yahrtzeit boards), convening a minyan, and conducting research. From the proliferation of mobile applications and web-based communication tools to the ever-growing storehouse of information, modern technology has made a significant imprint upon Jewish religious practice. The internet continues to play an important and positive role in Jewish religious life, as both an educational medium and a tool for performing religious tasks. Judaism, like other faiths, puts significant emphasis on community and physical proximity. The use of the internet to form a community by overcoming geographic space at almost no cost is an exciting opportunity allowing people to participate who might otherwise be unable because of time and cost constraints or physical limitations. But does this community downplay the physical proximity that allows one to comfort a mourner by a hug or a pat on the back?}, keywords = {internet, Jewish}, issn = {978-94-017-9375-9}, url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6_202$\#$citeas}, author = {Sheskin, I and Liben, M} } @article {3010, title = {Algorithmic culture}, journal = {European Journal of Cultural Studies}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Over the last 30 years or so, human beings have been delegating the work of culture {\textendash} the sorting, classifying and hierarchizing of people, places, objects and ideas {\textendash} increasingly to computational processes. Such a shift significantly alters how the category culture has long been practiced, experienced and understood, giving rise to what, following Alexander Galloway, I am calling {\textquoteleft}algorithmic culture{\textquoteright}. The purpose of this essay is to trace some of the conceptual conditions out of which algorithmic culture has emerged and, in doing so, to offer a preliminary treatment on what it is. In the vein of Raymond Williams{\textquoteright} Keywords, I single out three terms whose bearing on the meaning of the word culture seems to have been unusually strong during the period in question: information, crowd and algorithm. My claim is that the offloading of cultural work onto computers, databases and other types of digital technologies has prompted a reshuffling of some of the words most closely associated with culture, giving rise to new senses of the term that may be experientially available but have yet to be well named, documented or recorded. This essay, though largely historical, concludes by connecting the dots critically to the present day. What is at stake in algorithmic culture is the gradual abandonment of culture{\textquoteright}s publicness and the emergence of a strange new breed of elite culture purporting to be its opposite.}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1367549415577392}, author = {Shifas, T.} } @article {3009, title = {Algorithmic culture}, journal = {European Journal of Cultural Studies}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Over the last 30 years or so, human beings have been delegating the work of culture {\textendash} the sorting, classifying and hierarchizing of people, places, objects and ideas {\textendash} increasingly to computational processes. Such a shift significantly alters how the category culture has long been practiced, experienced and understood, giving rise to what, following Alexander Galloway, I am calling {\textquoteleft}algorithmic culture{\textquoteright}. The purpose of this essay is to trace some of the conceptual conditions out of which algorithmic culture has emerged and, in doing so, to offer a preliminary treatment on what it is. In the vein of Raymond Williams{\textquoteright} Keywords, I single out three terms whose bearing on the meaning of the word culture seems to have been unusually strong during the period in question: information, crowd and algorithm. My claim is that the offloading of cultural work onto computers, databases and other types of digital technologies has prompted a reshuffling of some of the words most closely associated with culture, giving rise to new senses of the term that may be experientially available but have yet to be well named, documented or recorded. This essay, though largely historical, concludes by connecting the dots critically to the present day. What is at stake in algorithmic culture is the gradual abandonment of culture{\textquoteright}s publicness and the emergence of a strange new breed of elite culture purporting to be its opposite.}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1367549415577392}, author = {Shifas, T.} } @article {3011, title = {Speculative post on the idea of algorithmic authority }, year = {2009}, url = {https://stoweboyd.typepad.com/message/2009/11/a-speculative-post-on-the-idea-of-algorithmic-authority-clay-shirky.html}, author = {Shirky, C. A.} } @inbook {3013, title = {Design \& domestication of ICTs: Technical change and everyday life}, booktitle = {Communicating by design: The politics of information and communication technologies}, year = {1996}, publisher = {Oxford University Press. }, organization = {Oxford University Press. }, address = {Oxford}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239065099_Design_and_the_Domestication_of_Information_and_Communication_Technologies_Technical_Change_and_Everyday_Life}, author = {Silverstone, R. H. L.} } @inbook {3012, title = {Information and communication technologies and the moral economy of the household}, booktitle = {Consuming technologies: Media and information}, year = {1992}, abstract = {This paper, which draws on ongoing empirical work in the UK, considers the particular dynamics of time within domestic settings. It situates those dynamics within arguments that have drawn attention to the power of the new information and communication technologies to transform our perceptions of, and relations to, time (and space). It suggests that an understanding of the patterns of everyday life, both inside and outside the home, provides a basis for a more sensitive awareness of the complex patterns of temporality which emerge around the consumption of new media technologies.}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0961463X93002003001}, author = {Silverstone, R. and Hirsch, E. and Morley, D.} } @article {2787, title = {Lost in translation? The emergence of the digital Guru Granth Sahib}, journal = {Sikh Formations}, year = {2018}, abstract = {This article explores the impact of the digital online environment on the religious lives of Sikhs with a particular focus on the emergence of the {\textquoteleft}Digital Guru{\textquoteright}, i.e. digital versions of the Guru Granth Sahib. Using data gathered through interviews and an online survey, I examine how the {\textquoteleft}Digital Guru{\textquoteright} is impacting on the transmission of the Sikh tradition and on Sikh religious authority. I then explore some of the issues faced in engaging with the {\textquoteleft}Digital Guru{\textquoteright} and the consequences of the emergence of online translations. Given that {\textquoteleft}going online{\textquoteright} has become an everyday practice for many, this article contributes to understandings of the impact of the online environment on the religious adherents in general, and on Sikhs in particular.}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17448727.2018.1485355?journalCode=rsfo20}, author = {Singh, Jasjit} } @inbook {660, title = {Global Sikh-ers: Transnational Learning Practices of Young British Sikhs}, booktitle = {Sikhs Across Borders Transnational Practices of European Sikhs}, year = {2012}, pages = {167-192}, publisher = {Bloomsbury}, organization = {Bloomsbury}, chapter = {9}, address = {London}, issn = {9781441113870}, author = {Singh, Jasjit} } @inbook {2081, title = {Young Sikhs religious engagement online}, booktitle = {Digital methodologies in the sociology of religion~}, year = {2016}, pages = {83{\textendash}96}, publisher = {Bloomsbury Publishing}, organization = {Bloomsbury Publishing}, address = {London, England}, abstract = {This volume considers the implementation difficulties of researching religion online and reflects on the ethical dilemmas faced by sociologists of religion when using digital research methods.}, keywords = {Online, religious, Sikhs}, issn = {9781472571182}, url = {https://books.google.com/books?id=O_5kCgAAQBAJ\&pg=PA83\&lpg=PA83\&dq=Young+Sikhs+religious+engagement+online\&source=bl\&ots=HRCrNq_OUx\&sig=kNvWujFL9DXVg0ikGZLYFQcCIwY\&hl=en\&sa=X\&ved=0ahUKEwjNzoaxldzbAhUDSa0KHc0fCokQ6AEIQDAD$\#$v=onepage\&q=Young\%20Sikhs\%20religi}, author = {Singh, J} } @mastersthesis {43, title = {Identity and Community in the Weblogs of Muslim Women of Middle Easter n and North African Descent Living in the United States}, volume = {xxxx}, year = {2006}, month = {2006}, pages = {xxxx}, school = {University of Florida}, address = {Gainesville, Florida}, abstract = {In recent years, media attention in the United States increasingly has turned to Arabs and Muslims. But few of the voices speaking are those of the people in question. Muslim women, especially, are seldom heard in the mainstream. However, many of them are speaking, telling their stories to audiences large and small through new technology on the Internet. Weblogs, online personal journals, allow anyone with access to the Internet to become a published author. These sites of dialogue and intimate revelation offer unique insights into their authors{\textquoteright} lives. In this thesis, in-depth qualitative textual analysis was used to examine the weblogs of six Muslim women of Middle Eastern or North African descent (MMENA) living in the United States and writing in English to understand how they use their blogs to negotiate identity and create community. Intercultural communication theories (specifically Ting-Toomey{\textquoteright}s identity negotiation theory, Hofstede{\textquoteright}s cultural dimensions, and Tajfel{\textquoteright}s social identity theory), computer-mediated communication theories, and existing literature on Muslim women were all incorporated. The women addressed identity within several different areas, in each one displaying a {\textquotedblleft}paradox of identity{\textquotedblright}: what Edward Said also called {\textquotedblleft}plurality of vision{\textquotedblright} or {\textquotedblleft}a constant contest between cultures.{\textquotedblright} They were aware of more than one culture (that of mainstream United States and the culture of their heritage), were fully part of neither of them, and fully felt the dissonances between them. This conflict was strengthened by their membership in a culture currently faced with prejudice from United States culture as a whole. Their blogs seemed to be a kind of identity workshop, a fluid space between the different aspects of who they are. Within them, they negotiated personal identity, gender identity, and cultural/ethnic identity. They built two kinds of community through their blogs: that which was based on face-to-face relationships and was an extension of everyday interactions, and that which was based primarily on computer-mediated interactions. The blogs all displayed, to some extent, a "sense of community" involving feelings of membership, the fulfillment of needs, and a shared emotional connection. This is the first study to address MMENA women in relation to their use of blogs. The paradox of identity the women experienced is important to understand in the context of today{\textquoteright}s society in the US. It appears that outsiders{\textquoteright} perceptions of MMENA Americans have a great impact on these women, perhaps greater than they would have on women of different backgrounds, because of their high level of communalism and their status as female members of a non-dominant group within the US.}, url = {http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0014380/sink_a.pdf}, author = {Ashley Dyess Sink} } @article {2129, title = {Creating a Place of Prayer for the {\textquoteright}Other{\textquoteright}: A Comparative Case Study in Wales Exploring the Effects of Re-shaping Congregational Space in an Anglican Cathedral}, journal = {Journal of Empirical Theology}, volume = {30}, year = {2017}, pages = {218-235}, abstract = {Provision of spaces for personal prayer and reflection has become a common phenomenon within historic churches and cathedrals in England and Wales, offering an example of devotional activity that operates largely outside that of traditional gathered congregations, but also in relationship with them. Over the past decade, the apSAFIP (the ap Si{\^o}n Analytic Framework for Intercessory Prayer) has been employed to examine the content of personal prayer requests left in various church-related locations, mapping similarities and differences in pray-ers{\textquoteright} concerns. Building on this research tradition, the present study examines whether changes to physical environment in an Anglican cathedral in Wales has an effect on the personal prayer activity occurring within it, with a particular focus on intercessory prayer requests.}, keywords = {Anglican Cathedral, Prayer, theology, World Christianity}, url = {http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15709256-12341356}, author = {ap Si{\^o}n, T} } @article {266, title = {Palestine in Pixels: The Holy Land, Arab-Israeli Conflict, and Reality Construction in Video Games}, journal = {Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication}, volume = {2}, year = {2009}, pages = {275{\textendash}292}, abstract = {This article explores the ways in which Palestine is envisioned, and its representation constructed, in contemporary video games. At the same time, capitalizing on Bogost{\textquoteright}s notion of "procedurality", this article discusses the potential and limitations of various game genres for modeling complex historical, social, and political realities. It focuses particularly on the ways in which the Arab-Israeli conflict is mediated and its perception and evaluation subsequently shaped by these games. By doing so, this article analyzes how the (re)constructions of reality as provided by the video games{\textquoteright} graphical, textual, and procedural logic, serve parallel - albeit contradictory - political and ideological interpretations of real-world events. Essentially, this article argues that the procedural forms, i.e. the common models of user interaction as utilized by particular video game genres, fundamentally shape and limit the ways in which reality is communicated to the players. Therefore, on a more general level, this article aims to further develop the game genres{\textquoteright} critique by focusing on two contrasting, but equally significant and simultaneous, aspects of video games - the persuasive power of procedurality and the inherent limitations thereof.}, url = {http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/mjcc/2009/00000002/00000002/art00007?token=00471231d7275c277b42576b462176743b702c492b5f592f653b672c57582a72752d703}, author = {Sisler, Vit} } @inbook {265, title = {Video Games, Video Clips, and Islam: New Media and the Communication of Values}, booktitle = {Muslim Societies in the Age of Mass Consumption}, year = {2009}, publisher = {Cambridge Scholars Publishing}, organization = {Cambridge Scholars Publishing}, address = {Newcastle}, abstract = {In the course of the 20th century, hardly a region in the world has escaped the triumph of global consumerism. Muslim societies are no exception. Globalized brands are pervasive, and the landscapes of consumption are changing at a breathtaking pace. Yet Muslim consumers are not passive victims of the homogenizing forces of globalization. They actively appropriate and adapt the new commodities and spaces of consumption to their own needs and integrate them into their culture. Simultaneously, this culture is reshaped and reinvented to comply with the mechanisms of conspicuous consumption. It is these processes that this volume seeks to address from an interdisciplinary perspective. The papers in this anthology present innovative approaches to a wide range of issues that have, so far, barely received scholarly attention. The topics range from the changing spaces of consumption to Islamic branding, from the marketing of religious music to the consumption patterns of Muslim minority groups. This anthology uses consumption as a prism through which to view, and better understand, the enormous transformations that Muslim societies Middle Eastern, South-East Asian, as well as diasporic ones have undergone in the past few decades.}, url = {http://books.google.com/books/about/Muslim_societies_in_the_age_of_mass_cons.html?id=2XIOQgAACAAJ}, author = {Sisler, Vit} } @article {2750, title = {Procedural religion: Methodological reflections on studying religion in video games}, journal = {New Media \& Society}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The article discusses the methodological aspects of studying religion in video games. It examines the concept of {\textquotedblleft}procedural religion,{\textquotedblright} that is, the representations of religion via rule-systems in games, and investigates how we can formally analyze these representations. The article uses Petri Nets, a mathematical and a graphical tool for modeling, analyzing, and designing discrete event systems, in order to analyze how religion is represented in the rule-systems of two different mainstream video games{\textemdash}Age of Empires II, developed in the United States, and Quraish, developed in Syria. By comparing the rule-systems of both games, the article provides empirical evidence on how game rule-systems migrate between cultures and influence local game production by providing local game developers with pre-defined formulas for expressing their ideas while simultaneously limiting the scope of such expression with schematized patterns. On a more general level, the article discusses what rule-system analysis can tell us about video games as cultural and religious artifacts.}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444816649923?journalCode=nmsa}, author = {Sisler, Vit} } @inbook {268, title = {Representation and Self-Representation: Arabs and Muslims in Digital Games}, booktitle = {Gaming Realities: A Challenge for Digital Culture}, year = {2006}, pages = {85 - 92}, abstract = {This paper presents the ways in which Muslims and Arabs are represented in mainstream European and American digital games. It analyzes how games {\textemdash} particularly of the action genre {\textemdash} construct the Arab or Muslim {\textquoteleft}Other.{\textquoteright} Within these games, one finds the diverse ethnic and religious identities of the Islamic world reconstructed into a series of flat social typologies, often presented within the framework of hostility and terrorism. The second part of the paper deals with selected digital games created in the Middle East, whose authors are knowingly working with the topic of self-representation. Recent digital games originating in the Middle East can be perceived as examples of an ongoing digital emancipation taking place through the distribution of media images and their corresponding meanings. A key part of this ongoing digital emancipation involves the construction of Arab and Islamic heroes, a process accomplished by exploiting distinctive narrative structures and references to Islamic cultural heritage.}, url = {http://www.digitalislam.eu/article.do?articleId=1423}, author = {Sisler, Vit} } @article {267, title = {Digital Arabs: Representation in Video Games}, journal = {European Journal of Cultural Studies}, volume = {11}, year = {2008}, pages = {203-220}, abstract = {This article presents the ways in which Muslims and Arabs are represented and represent themselves in video games. First, it analyses how various genres of European and American video games have constructed the Arab or Muslim Other. Within these games, it demonstrates how the diverse ethnic and religious identities of the Islamic world have been flattened out and reconstructed into a series of social typologies operating within a broader framework of terrorism and hostility. It then contrasts these broader trends in western digital representation with selected video games produced in the Arab world, whose authors have knowingly subverted and refashioned these stereotypes in two unique and quite different fashions. In conclusion, it considers the significance of western attempts to transcend simplified patterns of representation that have dominated the video game industry by offering what are known as {\textquoteright}serious{\textquoteright} games.}, url = {http://ecs.sagepub.com/content/11/2/203.abstract}, author = {Sisler, Vit} } @article {2666, title = {The Internet Movie Database and Online Discussions of Religion}, journal = {Journal of Religion in Europe}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Religion and film scholars have long used the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) as a source for material on audience responses, but not much thought has been given to what the material found on the site constitutes. This article highlights possibilities and problems with researching sites such as the IMDb, discussing how studies of Internet communication, community, and fan culture can help contextualize the material and provide a better comprehension of the discussions of religion on the site. The potential of the IMDb to offer noteworthy voices on religion is exemplified with an analysis of reviews of three religiously themed Nordic films. The views on religion expressed are theorized as a form of {\textquoteleft}playable religion{\textquoteright} reflecting contemporary attitudes to religion.}, url = {https://brill.com/view/journals/jre/6/3/article-p358_5.xml}, author = {Sj{\"o}, Sofia} } @inbook {2145, title = {Social media and Islamic practice: Indonesian ways of being digitally pious}, booktitle = {Digital Indonesia: Connectivity and Divergence}, year = {2017}, pages = {146-162}, publisher = {ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute}, organization = {ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute}, abstract = {This book places Indonesia at the forefront of the global debate about the impact of {\textquoteright}disruptive{\textquoteright} digital technologies. Digital technology is fast becoming the core of life, work, culture and identity. Yet, while the number of Indonesians using the Internet has followed the upward global trend, some groups -- the poor, the elderly, women, the less well-educated, people living in remote communities -- are disadvantaged. This interdisciplinary collection of essays by leading researchers and scholars, as well as e-governance and e-commerce insiders, examines the impact of digitalisation on the media industry, governance, commerce, informal sector employment, education, cybercrime, terrorism, religion, artistic and cultural expression, and much more. It presents groundbreaking analysis of the impact of digitalisation in one of the world{\textquoteright}s most diverse, geographically vast nations. In weighing arguments about the opportunities and challenges presented by digitalisation, it puts the very idea of a technological {\textquoteright}revolution{\textquoteright} into critical perspective.}, keywords = {Digital, Indonesian, Islamic, social media}, issn = {9789814762991}, url = {https://books.google.com/books?id=rpsnDwAAQBAJ\&dq=9+Social+media+and+Islamic+practice:+Indonesian+ways+of+being+digitally+pious\&source=gbs_navlinks_s}, author = {Slama, M} } @book {421, title = {The Internet and Society}, year = {2000}, publisher = { Polity Press}, organization = { Polity Press}, address = {Cambridge, UK}, abstract = {The Internet and Society explores the impact of the internet on modern culture beyond the fashionable celebration of {\textquoteright}anything goes{\textquoteright} online culture or the overly pessimistic conceptions tainted by the logic of domination.}, url = {http://books.google.com/books?id=RFhlV8DcksgC\&printsec=frontcover$\#$v=onepage\&q\&f=false}, author = {Slevin, J.} } @article {459, title = {Atheisms Unbound: The Role Of The New Media In The Formation Of A Secularist Identity}, journal = {Secularism and Non-Religion}, volume = {1}, year = {2012}, abstract = {In this article we examine the Internet{\textquoteright}s role in facilitating a more visible and active secular identity. Seeking to situate this more visible and active secularist presence{\textemdash}which we consider a form of activism in terms of promoting the importance of secularist concerns and issues in public discourse{\textemdash}we conclude by looking briefly at the relationship between secularist cyber-activism and secular organizations, on one hand, and the relationship between secularist activism and American politics on the other. This allows us to further underscore the importance of the Internet for contemporary secularists as it helps develop a group consciousness based around broadly similar agendas and ideas and secularists{\textquoteright} recognition of their commonality and their expression in collective action, online as well as off. }, keywords = {Atheism, identity, New Media, Secular}, url = {http://www.ryananddebi.com/secularismjournal/index.php/snr/article/view/3}, author = {Christopher Smith and Richard Cimino} } @mastersthesis {45, title = {The Christian potential of cyberspace: An appraisal}, year = {2002}, month = {13 May 2002}, school = {Gustavus Adolphus College}, address = {St. Peter, Minnesota}, abstract = {Today the Internet is increasingly permeating industrial societies. Affluent people in these cultures are e-mailing their friends and family, browsing the Web, and participating in online discussions through newsgroups and "chat rooms." Churches are sprouting Web sites; online "communities," such as beliefnet.com, offer prayer groups and religion news and information; and some amateur theologians are using the Internet to publish their own theologies. But some believe that the Internet{\textquoteright}s contributions to religion may be far greater. For example, some people see the Internet leading to a greater and greater connectivity among all people, culminating in what Catholic theologian Teilhard de Chardin called the "Omega Point," a type of global consciousness. Others believe that it will be possible for individuals one day to transfer (upload) their consciousnesses into a computer and communicate electronically with other such people through a network. Some have suggested that the Internet might be a metaphor for God. People might easily dismiss these predictions, such as mind uploads, since the technology is not here yet or because they sound ridiculous. But the fact that some have conceptualized a computerized eschatology (such as the Omega Point) or a network god invites examination. Do these claims have any theological value, that is, do they contribute anything new to the discussion about God, or are they simply new manifestations of the dreams of immortality and omniscience that Western civilization has long sought to realize? This thesis assesses whether the Internet can contribute anything "new" to Christian theology, that is, whether the hopes of seeing in the Internet a metaphor for God or using it as a mechanism for searching for God are possible. Or does the Internet instead make possible for worldwide religious communities and an image for contemplating process theology? In other words, can religion speak theologically about the Internet?}, url = {http://gustavus.edu/academics/religion/theses/}, author = {Alec Sonsteby} } @book {2100, title = {Cybertheology. Thinking Christianity in the Era of the Internet}, year = {2014}, publisher = {Fordham Press}, organization = {Fordham Press}, address = {New York}, abstract = {we think Christianity and its theology. Cybertheology is the first book to explore this process from a Catholic point of view. Drawing on the theoretical work of authors such as Marshall McLuhan, Peter Levy, and Teilhard de Chardin, it questions how technologies redefine not only the ways in which we do things but also our being and therefore the way we perceive reality, the world, others, and God. "Does the digital revolution affect faith in any sense?" Spadaro asks. His answer is an emphatic Yes. But how, then, are we to live well in the age of the Internet?}, keywords = {Christianity, Cybertheology, internet}, issn = {9780823256990}, url = {https://books.google.com/books/about/Cybertheology.html?id=mUhGCgAAQBAJ}, author = {Spadaro, A and Maria Way} } @article {2822, title = {Between Secrecy and Transparency: Conversions to Protestantism Among Iranian Refugees in Germany}, journal = {Entangled Religions}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Present-day scholarship on religious conversions diverts from classic Protestant paradigms of sudden conversions and instant transformations of the self. Instead, it stresses that converts make active choices that are influenced by specific contexts and historical changes. This becomes evident in an ethnographic study of one controversial aspect of the recent refugee influx in Germany: the so-called mass conversions of Iranian refugees from Shia Islam to Christianity, which have been highly publicized and criticized since the height of immigration in 2015. The analysis draws on interview data with Iranian refugee converts and their pastors in Protestant churches in North Rhine-Westphalia between October 2017 and January 2018. The study reveals the need to theorize the symbiotic connection between religious contacts, forced migration, and conversion to Christianity. It applies Rambo{\textquoteright}s (1993) stage model of conversion and the analytical concept of secrecy (Jones 2014, Manderson et al. 2015, Simmel 1906) to demonstrate that the Iranian refugees{\textquoteright} conversions are shaped by contexts, crises, encounters, quests, interactions, commitments, and consequences (Rambo 1993) as they negotiate the forces of secrecy, risk, transparency, and the benefits of being a Christian. The goal of this paper is to find thematic patterns in their narratives that can be systematized and can build a foundation for further study.}, url = {https://er.ceres.rub.de/index.php/ER/article/view/8322}, author = {Stadlbauer, Susanne} } @article {2737, title = {Seeking new language: Patriarch Kirill{\textquoteright}s media strategy}, journal = {Religion, State and Society}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Media have become important arenas where religious institutions, alongside other players, articulate moral values and seek to shape societal norms and identities. Patriarch Kirill recognised early on the potential of using the media in spreading the Russian Orthodox Church{\textquoteright}s mission and reaching out to wider audiences. From the very first days of his enthronement on 1 February 2009 he has taken the lead in developing a comprehensive media strategy aimed at increasing the Church{\textquoteright}s presence in the public sphere. Both his words and deeds provide evidence of a momentous turnaround in the Church{\textquoteright}s information and communication policy. His pursuit to endorse a revisited media strategy is determined by attempts to influence and control the way Russian Orthodoxy is portrayed in the public sphere. Moreover, the development of a large-scale media policy is motivated by the rising criticism towards the Church, voiced most notably on the internet. Based on the analysis of original and previously unexplored sources, this article illustrates the impact of media on a traditional religious organisation such as the Russian Orthodox Church and the response of the Church{\textquoteright}s leadership to emerging challenges in a radically changing media environment.}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09637494.2018.1510213?journalCode=crss20}, author = {Staehle, Hanna} } @book {168, title = {God and the Chip. Religion and the Culture of Technology}, year = {1999}, publisher = {Wilfred Laurier University Press.}, organization = {Wilfred Laurier University Press.}, address = {Waterloo, Ontario}, abstract = {Our ancestors saw the material world as alive, and they often personified nature. Today we claim to be realists. But in reality we are not paying attention to the symbols and myths hidden in technology. Beneath much of our talk about computers and the Internet, claims William A. Stahl, is an unacknowledged mysticism, an implicit religion. By not acknowledging this mysticism, we have become critically short of ethical and intellectual resources with which to understand and confront changes brought on by technology.}, url = {http://books.google.com/books?id=g7L27aJS7WcC\&printsec=frontcover$\#$v=onepage\&q\&f=false}, author = {Stah, William} } @inbook {1315, title = {Religion from Scholarly Worlds to Digital Games: The Case of Risen}, booktitle = {Religions in Play. Games, Rituals, and Virtual Worlds}, series = {CULTuREL}, number = {CULTuREL, Vol. 2}, year = {2012}, pages = {262-273}, publisher = {Pano}, organization = {Pano}, address = {Zurich}, abstract = {A content analysis of the fantasy role-playing game Risen is conducted. Methodically, the case study shows that the ludological concept of hit points may be taken as a starting point for the investigation of the religious repertoire. In addition, the comparison with the original German work of Dutch phenomenologist Gerardus van der Leeuw suggests that Risen{\textquoteright}s ludological-narrative complex of hit points ({\textquotedblleft}life energy{\textquotedblright}) enacts a 20th century essentialistic and phenomenological conception of religion that has made its way into, and was specifically framed by, the new medium of digital games.}, keywords = {Computer games, digital games, religion}, issn = {978-3-290-22010-5}, author = {Steffen, Oliver}, editor = {Bornet, Philippe and Burger, Maya} } @inbook {1314, title = {Introduction: Approaches to Digital Games in the Study of Religions}, booktitle = {Religions in Play. Games, Rituals, and Virtual Worlds}, series = {CULTuREL}, number = {2}, year = {2012}, pages = {249-259}, publisher = {Pano}, organization = {Pano}, address = {Zurich}, abstract = {The content and structure of entertaining digital games often refer to the imaginary worlds of historical religion. However, the religious dimensions of this new medium have hardly been addressed by scholars of both, game studies and religious studies. In this introductory article, initial thoughts on areas of study and approaches are given to scholars of religion who investigate computer games.}, keywords = {Computer games, digital games, religion}, issn = {978-3-290-22010-5}, author = {Steffen, Oliver}, editor = {Bornet, Philippe and Burger, Maya} } @article {269, title = {Gaming at The End of the World: Coercion, Conversion and the Apocalyptic Self in Left Behind: Eternal Forces Digital Play}, journal = {Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture}, volume = {10}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a real-time strategy game based on Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins{\textquoteright} best-selling eschatological novels, an immensely popular series featuring embattled Christians fighting evil at the world{\textquoteright}s end. The spin-off game allows players to "wage a war of apocalyptic proportions" against the Antichrist{\textquoteright}s minions. The players defend themselves with prayer and hymn-singing; if spiritual means fail, however, more violent tactics are invoked as Christian alliances evolve into the military units of the "Tribulation Force." This merging of what the game{\textquoteright}s website calls "physical and spiritual warfare" has generated among critics the label "kill or convert"; the conflation of the two lies at the center of an ideological controversy that intensified when ABC News announced an evangelical group{\textquoteright}s plans to send the game to US troops in Iraq. This article explores eschatological representations like Eternal Forces as a way to instill, consolidate, and hierarchicalize identity by creating an apocalyptic self that is figured in violently contestatory terms. It addresses conservative evangelical leaders{\textquoteright} mobilization of that apocalyptic self in order to re-invest twenty-first century evangelicals in a renewed "combat myth" tradition that sees those of differing beliefs as fodder either for conversion or for annihilation in an ultimate battle between God and Satan. Left Behind: Eternal Forces is explored as a contemporary pop-culture expression and a new form of soteriological play in which that two-pronged choice is embodied and enacted, situating its players as divine co-strategists in an either/or world of forced and often punitive affiliation.}, url = {http://reconstruction.eserver.org/101/recon_101_steuter_wills.shtml}, author = {Steuter, Erin and Wills, Deborah} } @article {1190, title = {A Study of Church/Ministry Internet Usage}, journal = {Journal of Ministry Marketing \& Management}, volume = {7}, year = {2002}, chapter = {23}, abstract = {This manuscript reports the results of a national survey of Internet use by churches and ministries. The mail survey to a random sample of 500 churches and ministries sought to determine the proportion of churches/ministries with Internet access, how the Internet was being used by their organization, and organizational characteristics. A total of 448 questionnaires were delivered and 113 were returned resulting in a response rate of 25.2\%. About 93 percent of the respondents surveyed reported using a computer. Of that 93 percent, about 70 percent reported they had Internet access. When asked about how the Internet has helped their church, respondents reported communications with others as the most important benefit, followed by staying better informed on products and services, and as a research tool for sermons and Bible studies. Among respondent churches who had Internet access, about 37 percent had a webpage. Of those who did not have a webpage, 58 percent plan on having one within a year. The most common ways churches use their website were found to be (1) describing features of the church such as service times or scheduled events, (2) creating a way to communicate with others about the church, (3) providing a way for people to contact the church by e-mail, and (4) image creation. Respondents cited several benefits of having a website: (1) improved communication, (2) increased member knowledge about church programs and (3) increased attendance at church services or activities.}, keywords = {Church, Computer, Contemporary Religious Community, cyberspace, internet, Internet access, Internet use by churches and ministries, Mass media, national survey, network, New Media and Society, new media engagement, New Technology and Society, online activities, online communication, Online community, religion, religion and internet, Religion and the Internet, religiosity, religious engagement, religious identity, Religious Internet Communication, Religious Internet Communities, religious organizations, sociability unbound, Sociology of religion, users{\textquoteright} participation, virtual community, virtual public sphere, {\textquotedblleft}digital religion{\textquotedblright}, {\textquotedblleft}media and religion{\textquotedblright}, {\textquotedblleft}media research{\textquotedblright}, {\textquotedblleft}online identity{\textquotedblright}, {\textquotedblleft}religion online{\textquotedblright}, {\textquotedblleft}religious congregations{\textquotedblright}, {\textquotedblleft}religious media research{\textquotedblright}}, url = {http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J093v07n01_03$\#$.Uin3-Masim5}, author = {Robert E. Stevens and Paul Dunn and David L. Loudon and Henry S. Cole} } @mastersthesis {1197, title = {Gender, Faith, and Storytelling: An Ethnography of the Charismatic Internet}, volume = {Ph.D.}, year = {2012}, school = {University of Sussex}, type = {Doctoral Thesis}, abstract = {Although early predictions that an emerging {\textquoteleft}cyberspace{\textquoteright} could exist in separation from offline life have been largely discarded, anthropological studies of the internet have continued to find notions of {\textquoteleft}virtual reality{\textquoteright} relevant as individuals use these technologies to fulfil the {\textquotedblleft}pledges they have already made{\textquotedblright} (Boellstorff, 2008; Miller \& Slater, 2001: 19) about their own selfhood and their place in the world. There are parallels between this concept of {\textquoteleft}virtual reality{\textquoteright} and the on-going spiritual labour of Charismatic Christians in the UK, who seek in the context of a secularising nation to maintain a sense of presence in the {\textquotedblleft}coming Kingdom{\textquotedblright} of God. The everyday production of this expanded spiritual context depends to a large extend on verbal genres that are highly gendered. For women, declarations of faith are often tied to domestic settings, personal narratives, and the unspoken testimony of daily life (e.g. Lawless, 1988; Griffith, 1997). The technologies of the internet, whose emerging genres challenge boundaries between personal and social, public and private, can cast a greater illumination on this inward-focused labour. This doctoral thesis is based on ethnographic research in four Charismatic Evangelical congregations and examination of the online practices of churchgoers. I have found that the use of the internet by Charismatic Christian women fits with wider religious preoccupations and patterns of ritual practice. Words posted through Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and other online platforms come to resemble in their form as well as their content Christian narratives of a life with meaning.}, keywords = {anthropological studies, Computer, Contemporary Religious Community, cyberspace, declarations of faith, digital cultures, domestic settings, Evangelic, Faith, GENDER}, url = {http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/45226/1/Stewart,_Anna_Rose.pdf}, author = {Stewart, Anna} } @inbook {2170, title = {The {\textquotedblleft}Almost{\textquotedblright} Territories of the Charismatic Christian Internet}, booktitle = {The Changing World Religion Map}, year = {2015}, pages = {3899-3912}, publisher = {Springer }, organization = {Springer }, address = {Dordrecht}, abstract = {The constantly emerging technologies of the internet are frequently described in terms that evoke space. As online technologies continue to grow in their global ubiquity, it is appropriate to consider how the virtual geographies that are conjured in online engagement extend beyond the web browser. This chapter builds upon anthropological approaches studying religious communication to consider how internet engagement with some religious Believers creates and provides a sense of presence in an inspirited world. I first discuss how anthropologists approached the relationship between religious communication and space before considering Charismatic Christians in the UK. Following 12 months of fieldwork in their churches in the South of England, I describe a range of everyday internet practices and the spiritual implications held by my informants. The key finding is that the technologies of the internet provide for Believers contexts in which they are able to perceive and directly experience the dimensions of their spiritual battles. While British Christianity continues to suffer steady decline, web-based resources allow Christians opportunities to experience connections with others as part of an unstoppable, global, wave of revival. This sense of sanctified online community is tempered by knowledge that words transmitted in some online contexts may be witnessed by non-Believers. While this knowledge is mostly welcomed by members, shared spaces such as Facebook or Youtube can become sites for spiritually hazardous confrontations. In their engagement with online media these Christians experience online comments lists, blog entries, and social networking platforms as sites in which struggles for global, national, and personal salvation are staged and restaged. For these Christians, the spaces of the internet come to be experienced as territories in constant transition.}, keywords = {Christianity, Communication, internet, social media}, issn = {978-94-017-9375-9}, url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6_206$\#$citeas}, author = {Stewart, A} } @article {371, title = {Who watches the watchers? Towards an ethic of surveillance in a digital age}, journal = {Studies in Christian Ethics}, volume = {21}, year = {2008}, pages = {362-381}, abstract = {The essay considers contemporary surveillance strategies from a Christian ethical perspective. It discusses first surveillance as a form of speech in the light of biblical themes of truthfulness, then draws on principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. Surveillance is dignified as human work whilst its dehumanizing outcomes are challenged. It is concluded that surveillance must contribute to human dignity and that accountability for data must follow a revised model of subsidiarity, appropriate to network rather than linear socio-political relationships. Mutual responsibility for one another{\textquoteright}s data-image is derived from solidarity which, further, offers a response to the angst of a culture of suspicion.}, keywords = {Digital, Privacy, Surveillance}, url = {http://sce.sagepub.com/content/21/3/362.abstract}, author = {Stoddart, E.} } @book {1283, title = {Deus in Machina:Religion, Technology, and the Things in Betwee}, year = {2013}, publisher = {Fordham University Press}, organization = {Fordham University Press}, address = {New York}, abstract = {The essays in this volume explore how two domains of human experience and action--religion and technology--are implicated in each other. Contrary to commonsense understandings of both religion (as an "otherworldly" orientation) and technology (as the name for tools, techniques, and expert knowledges oriented to "this" world), the contributors to this volume challenge the grounds on which this division has been erected in the first place. What sorts of things come to light when one allows religion and technology to mingle freely? In an effort to answer that question, Deus in Machina embarks upon an interdisciplinary voyage across diverse traditions and contexts where religion and technology meet: from the design of clocks in medieval Christian Europe, to the healing power of prayer in premodern Buddhist Japan, to 19th-century Spiritualist devices for communicating with the dead, to Islamic debates about kidney dialysis in contemporary Egypt, to the work of disability activists using documentary film to reimagine Jewish kinship, to the representation of Haitian Vodou on the Internet, among other case studies. Combining rich historical and ethnographic detail with extended theoretical reflection, Deus in Machina outlines new directions for the study of religion and/as technology that will resonate across the human sciences, including religious studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, history, anthropology, and philosophy.}, keywords = {Buddhist, Christian, Egypt, Haitian, Islamic, Japan, medieval, religion and technology, religious studies, Spiritualist movement, Vodou}, url = {http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780823250240}, author = {Jeremy Stolow} } @book {465, title = {Media and Religion: Foundations of an Emerging Field }, year = {2012}, publisher = {Routledge}, organization = {Routledge}, abstract = {This is the first text to examine the history, theory, cultural context, and professional aspects of media and religion. While religion has been explored more fully in psychology, sociology, anthropology, and the humanities, there is no clear bridge of understanding to the communication discipline. Daniel A. Stout tackles this issue by providing a roadmap for examining this understudied area so that discussions about media and religion can more easily proceed. Offering great breadth, this text covers key concepts and historical highlights; world religions, denominations, and cultural religion; and religion and specific media genres. The text also includes key terms and questions to ponder for every chapter, and concludes with an in-class learning activity that can be used to encourage students to explore the media{\textendash}religion interface and review the essential ideas presented in the book. }, url = {http://books.google.com/books/about/Media_and_Religion.html?id=p5dVywAACAAJ}, author = {Daniel A. Stout} } @article {2724, title = {Introduction: Mediatization in Post-Secular Society{\textemdash}New Perspectives in the Study of Media, Religion and Politics}, journal = {Journal of Religion in Europe}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The way the media handle religion is deeply embedded in a set of historical, cultural, and political perceptions about religion{\textquoteright}s natural, proper, or desirable place in democratic public life.}, url = {https://brill.com/view/journals/jre/10/4/article-p361_361.xml?language=en\&body=previewPdf-39133}, author = {Sumiala, Johanna} } @book {2876, title = {Media and Ritual: Death, Community and Everyday Life }, year = {2012}, publisher = {Routledge}, organization = {Routledge}, abstract = {This wide-ranging and accessible book offers a stimulating introduction to the field of media anthropology and the study of religious ritual. Johanna Sumiala explores the interweaving of rituals, communication and community. She uses the tools of anthropological enquiry to examine a variety of media events, including the death of Michael Jackson, a royal wedding and the transgressive actions which took place in Abu Ghraib, and to understand the inner significance of the media coverage of such events. The book deals with theories of ritual, media as ritual including reception, production and representation, and rituals of death in the media. It will be invaluable to students and scholars alike across media, religion and anthropology.}, url = {https://www.amazon.com/Media-Ritual-Community-Everyday-Religion/dp/0415684323}, author = {Johanna Sumiala} } @article {2811, title = {{\textquotedblleft}No More Apologies{\textquotedblright}: Violence as a Trigger for Public Controversy over Islam in the Digital Public Sphere}, journal = {Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture}, year = {2019}, abstract = {This article investigates how violence associated with religion, here namely Islam, functions as a trigger for public controversy in the Turku stabbings that took place in Finland in 2017. We begin by outlining the Lyotard-Habermas debate on controversy and compound this with current research on the digital public sphere. We combine cartography of controversy with digital media ethnography as methods of collecting data and discourse analysis for analysing the material. We investigate how the controversy triggered by violence is constructed around Islam in the public sphere of Twitter. We identify three discursive strategies connecting violence and Islam in the debates around the Turku stabbings: scapegoating, essentialisation, and racialisation. These respectively illustrate debates regarding blame for terrorism, the nature of Islam, and racialisation of terrorist violence and the Muslim Other. To conclude, we reflect on the ways in which the digital public sphere impacts Habermasian consensus- and Lyotardian dissensus-oriented argumentation.}, url = {https://brill.com/view/journals/rmdc/8/1/article-p132_132.xml?language=en}, author = {Sumiala, Johanna and Harju, Anu A.} } @article {2796, title = {Mediated Muslim martyrdom: Rethinking digital solidarity in the {\textquotedblleft}Arab Spring{\textquotedblright}}, journal = {New Media \& Society}, year = {2017}, abstract = {In today{\textquoteright}s world of networked, mobile, and global digital communication, Muslim martyrdom as a multi-layered communicative practice has experienced a new type of media saturation, thereby posing a challenge for the study of media, religion, and culture in a digital age. In this article, the analysis focuses on two cases of high symbolic relevance for the events later referred to as the {\textquotedblleft}Arab Spring{\textquotedblright}{\textemdash}the deaths of a Tunisian fruit seller Mohammed Bouazizi and a young Egyptian man Khaled Saeed. Special focus is given to the discussion of digital solidarities and their construction in circulation and remediation of martyr narratives of Bouazizi and Saeed in diverse media contexts. In this global development of digital solidarities, we identify two categories of martyr images of particular relevance{\textemdash}a {\textquotedblleft}living martyr{\textquotedblright} and a {\textquotedblleft}tortured martyr{\textquotedblright}{\textemdash}and discuss their resonance with different historical, religious, cultural, and political frames of interpretation. In conclusion, we reflect on the question of the ethics of global mediation of Muslim martyrdom and its implications for the study field of media, religion, and culture in its digital state.}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444816649918}, author = {Sumiala, Johanna and Korpiola, Lilly} } @book {2791, title = {Hybrid Media Events: The Charlie Hebdo Attacks and the Global Circulation of Terrorist Violence}, year = {2018}, publisher = {Emerald Publishing Limited}, organization = {Emerald Publishing Limited}, abstract = {What are hybrid media events? Who creates them and what kind of purpose do they serve in contemporary societies? This book addresses these questions by re-thinking media events in the contemporary digital media environment saturated by intensified circulation of radical violence. The empirical analyses draw on the investigation of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, in 2015 and the global responses those attacks stirred in the media audience. This book provides a new way of thinking about the idea of the hybrid in global media events. The authors give special emphasis to the hybrid dynamics between the different actors, platforms and messages in such events, explaining how global news media, terrorists and political elites interact with ordinary media users in social media. It demonstrates how tweets such as "Je suis Charlie" circulate from one digital media platform to another and what kind of belongings are created in those circulations during the times of distraction. In addition, the book examines how emotions, speed of communication and fight for attention become hybridized in the digital media. All these aspects, the authors argue, shape the ways in which we make sense of global media events in the present digital age. The authors invite readers to critically reflect the technological, economical, political and socio-cultural challenges connected with today{\textquoteright}s global media events and the ethical encounters they may entail.}, isbn = {978-1-78714-852-9}, doi = {10.1108/9781787148512}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324922193_Hybrid_Media_Events_The_Charlie_Hebdo_Attacks_and_the_Global_Circulation_of_Terrorist_Violence}, author = {Sumiala, Johanna and Valaskivi, Katja and Tikka, Minttu and Huhtam{\"a}ki, Jukka} } @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.} } @article {456, title = {The influence of religion on Islamic mobile phone banking services adoption}, journal = {Journal of Islamic Marketing}, volume = {3}, year = {2012}, pages = {81 {\textendash} 98}, abstract = {The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects religious affiliation and commitment have on Southeast Asian young adults{\textquoteright} intention to adopt Islamic mobile phone banking. An online self-administered survey was distributed to Southeast Asian young adults through convenience and snowball sampling and a total of 135 responses obtained. The study found Islamic mobile phone banking to be a novelty service, with little consumer awareness and experience, especially among non-Muslims. Religious affiliation and commitment were both effective segmentation strategies, as differences in adoption intention were found between Muslims and non-Muslims, as well as devout and casually religious Muslims. Overall, devout Muslims were socially-oriented with their adoption criteria whereas casually religious and non-Muslims relied upon the utilitarian attributes. The paper contributes to the existing mobile banking adoption literature by providing evidence of consumers{\textquoteright} adoption intentions toward Islamic mobile phone banking. It also uses religious commitment in addition to affiliation as segmentation tools, an approach which has not been used in previous Islamic mobile banking research.}, keywords = {banks, Islam, Mobile phone}, url = {http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=17017285\&show=abstract}, author = {Susan Sun and Tiong Goh and Kim-Shyan Fam and Yang Xue} } @article {56, title = {Digitally Enhanced or Dumbed Down? Evangelists{\textquoteright} Use of the Internet}, journal = {Moebius}, volume = {6}, year = {2008}, month = {2008}, pages = {33-43}, abstract = {Since renewalists{\textquoteright} prosperity theology is embraced by growing numbers of Christians, and since evangelical Christians are among the most active Internet users, it seemed appropriate to investigate renewalists{\textquoteright} use of the World Wide Web to reach followers. In the summer of 2007, I conducted a detailed content analysis of Web sites and podcasts produced by leading renewalist ministries. My theoretical grounding was in framing theory; I used constant comparative analysis to help organize themes that were prevalent in the media content. I identified ten areas of concern that relate to technology use, message issues, and listener responses called for by evangelists. What follows is a summary of my findings, and the obvious questions they raise as we consider whether digital media {\textquoteleft}dumbs down{\textquoteright} the Christian experience.}, url = {http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1199\&context=moebius}, author = {Douglas Swanson} } @article {2106, title = { New Media, New Relations: Cyberstalking on Social Media in the Interaction of Muslim Scholars and the Public in West Sumatra, Indonesia}, journal = {Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication}, volume = {34}, year = {2018}, pages = {153-169}, abstract = {This article explains how the presence of social media as one of the forms of new media has prompted changes in the relations and communications between ulama and the public. The relationship between ulama, religious teachings, and the ummah (Muslim community/the public) undoubtedly undergoes constant changes. In the current era of new media, this relationship experiences mediatization of differing features compared to past era of traditional media. The era of new media ushered in participative, open, interactive characteristics encouraging development of virtual communities, and interconnectedness, consequently positioning ulama in two particular positions. Firstly, ulama have full control over the contents they intend to post and the choice of whom they wish to communicate with on social media. Secondly, due to the aforementioned characteristics of social media, ulama who actively post religious contents on social media had come to experience cyberstalking. Despite having to endure and suffer from cyberstalking, the ulama remained active on social media and continued posting religious contents as they consider social media to have numerous positive values beneficial to spreading good values and religious teachings to the wider public. The research findings show that social media as a form of new media has led to the emergence of new relations that are entirely unlike previous traditional media. The research data were collected through in-depth interviews with three Muslim scholars of West Sumatra who are active on social media and have extensive social influences. }, keywords = {Cyberstalking, Indonesia, Muslim, New Media, social media}, url = {http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11734/1/20864-71671-1-PB.pdf}, author = {Syahputra, I} } @article {2110, title = {New Media, New Players: The Use of Social Media with Religious Contents among Muslim Scholars in West Sumatra, Indonesia}, journal = {Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication}, volume = {34}, year = {2018}, pages = {153-169}, abstract = {This article explains how Muslim scholars in West Sumatra utilized social media as one of the new media containing religious contents. The relationship between Muslim scholars, religious teachings, and their followers undergoes constant changes. The era of new media introduced participative, open, interactive characteristics encouraging development of virtual communities, and interconnectedness, consequently positioning Muslim scholars as new determining players in the relationship. There are two main patterns they employ in posting religious contents on social media. Firstly, it is a pattern characterized by the systematic use of religious texts originating from the Holy Koran and Hadith or ulamas{\textquoteright} opinions contained in various classical Islamic manuscripts. Secondly, it is conducted by using reflective sentences containing universal values. Both patterns have different social implications, and due to the aforementioned new media characteristics, these West Sumatra Muslim scholars who actively post religious contents on social media had come to experience cyber-stalking. Despite being harassed and threatened, they continued posting religious contents as they consider social media to have numerous positive values beneficial to spreading good values and religious teachings to the wider community. The research findings show that social media as a form of new media has led to the emergence of new players entirely unlike previous traditional media. The research data were collected through in-depth interviews with three Muslim scholars of West Sumatra who are active on social media.}, keywords = {Indonesia, Muslim, New Media, social media}, url = {http://ejournal.ukm.my/mjc/article/view/20864/7539}, author = {Syahputra, I} }