@conference {2107, title = {The Beauty of Ugliness: Preserving while Communicating Online with Shared Graphic Photos}, booktitle = {European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work}, year = {2018}, publisher = {Springer }, organization = {Springer }, address = {Nancy, France }, abstract = {In this paper, we report on interviews with 11 Shia content creators who create and share graphic, bloody photos of Tatbeer, a religious ritual involving self-harm practices on Ashura, the death anniversary of the prophet Muhammad{\textquoteright}s grandson. We show how graphic images serve as an object of communication in religious practices with the local community, the inner-self, and a wider audience. In particular, we highlight how content creators appropriated, in their own words, {\textquotedblleft}ugly{\textquotedblright} photos to preserve the authenticity and beauty of their rituals while communicating their own interpretation of such rituals to others. We suggest that ugliness may be regarded as a useful resource to inform systems that seek to invite dialogue with marginalized or minority groups.}, keywords = {Graphic Photos, Gulf Arabs, Online photo sharing, social media}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10606-018-9331-3$\#$citeas}, author = {Alshehri, M and Su, N.M} } @book {254, title = {The Blogging Church: Sharing the Story of Your Church Through Blogs}, year = {2007}, publisher = {Jossey-Bass}, organization = {Jossey-Bass}, address = {CA}, abstract = {"The Blogging Church" offers church leaders a field manual for using the social phenomenon of blogs to connect people and build communities in a whole new way. Inside you will find the why, what, and how of blogging in the local church. Filled with illustrative examples and practical advice, the authors answer key questions learned on the frontlines of ministry: Is blogging a tool or a toy? What problems will blogging solve? How does it benefit ministry? How do I build a great blog? and Who am I blogging for? "The Blogging Church" is a handbook that will inspire and equip you to join the conversation.The book includes contributions from five of the most popular bloggers in the world--Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, Kathy Sierra, Guy Kawasaki, and Merlin Mann, as well as interviews with blogging pastors such as Mark Driscoll, Craig Groeschel, Tony Morgan, Perry Noble, Greg Surratt, Mark Batterson, and many more. Praise for "The Blogging Church". "Brian Bailey makes two things crystal clear in this book: if you{\textquoteright}ve got a church, then you need to spread your story. And if you need to spread your story, blogs are now an essential tool. Time to pay attention!" Seth Godin, author, "Small Is the New Big" "I had a lot of questions about blogs and their value for my church. I{\textquoteright}m thankful that Brian and Terry are sharing their experiences to answer those questions. Their insights are for everyone in ministry. Whether you are reading blogs, writing blogs, or just trying to figure out how to use the word in a sentence, this book is for you." Mark Beeson, senior pastor, Granger Community Church "My talking head is limited to the pulpit proper. I thank God that there{\textquoteright}s a tool to reach outside the church, to those that are, sadly, outside the church. Thank you Brian and Terry for "The Blogging Church."" Bob Coy, senior pastor, Calvary Chapel, Ft. Lauderdale}, keywords = {Blog, Christianity, Church, story}, url = {http://books.google.com/books?id=0IKlJ-okiaYC\&printsec=frontcover$\#$v=onepage\&q\&f=false}, author = {Bailey, Brian and Storch, Terry and Young, Ed} } @article {351, title = {Blogging: report from a grassroots revival}, journal = {Stimulus}, volume = {12}, year = {2004}, pages = {24-30}, abstract = {The article reports on the current growth rate of weblogs and bloggers. According to research firm Gartner Inc., 200 million people have given up blogging, more than thrice as many as are active. Blog aggregator Technorati.com estimates that 3 million new blogs are launched every month. It is said that the secret of some of the top Christian blogs is that they are team efforts.}, keywords = {Blog, Blogging, Christianity}, url = {http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=c0057ab8-7d48-4813-86c0-881d143c76b7\%40sessionmgr10\&vid=2\&hid=21\&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ\%3d\%3d$\#$db=a9h\&AN=26940153}, author = {Bednar, T.} } @article {1309, title = {Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self-Disclosure in Social Media}, journal = {Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion}, volume = {50}, year = {2011}, chapter = {744}, abstract = {This study measured the prevalence of religious self-disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N = 560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self-disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although relatively few profile owners (30 percent) said anything about religion outside the religion-designated field. Most affiliation reports (80 percent) were consistent with the profile owner{\textquoteright}s reported affiliation on the survey. Religious profile owners disclosed more about religion when they also believed that religion is a public matter or if they evaluated organized religion positively. Evangelical Protestants said more about religion than other respondents. Religiosity, believing that religion is a public matter, and the religiosity of profile owners{\textquoteright} friendship group were all positively associated with religious identification and self-disclosure.}, keywords = {emerging adults, New Media, religious identity, self-disclosure, social media}, url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2011.01597.x/abstract;jsessionid=9B8826AC18C2E87FC1ED90C4479B63D2.f01t04}, author = {Piotr S. Bobkowski and Lisa D. Pearce} } @article {88, title = {Bloggers and religious authority online}, journal = {Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication}, volume = {15}, year = {2010}, pages = {251-266}, chapter = {251}, abstract = {It is often argued that the internet poses a threat to traditional forms of authority. Within studies of religion online claims have also been made that the internet is affecting religious authority online, but little substantive work has backed up these claims. This paper argues for an approach to authority within online studies which looks separately at authority: roles, structures, beliefs/ideologies and texts. This approach is applied to a thematic analysis of 100 religious blogs and demonstrates that religious bloggers use their blogs to frame authority in ways that may more often affirm than challenge traditional sources of authority.}, keywords = {Authority, blogs, religion, religious authority}, url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2010.01519.x/full}, author = {Heidi Campbell} } @article {40, title = {The Basilica of Guadalupe on the Internet: The Diffusion of Religious Practices in the Era of Information Technologies}, journal = {Renglones, Revista Arbitrada en Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades}, volume = {61}, year = {2009}, month = {September 2009}, pages = {27-36}, publisher = {Instituto Tecnol{\'o}gico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente, A.C.}, address = {Tlaquepaque, Mexico}, abstract = {This article discusses the use of new information technologies for the purpose of disseminating religious beliefs. It deals in particular with the web awareness strategy used by the Basilica of Guadalupe, a pioneering institution in the use of an Internet site for religious purposes in Mexico. The author examines the relationship between media and people, rituals and spaces involved in religious practices; he also gives an overview of the different communication models favored by the Catholic Church at different moments in the history of media. With a qualitative research method, using in{\textendash}depth interviews as data collection tool, a semantic content analysis is performed, allowing identification of the main courses for the Basilica{\textquoteright}s online awareness strategy. One conclusion is that the main use for the web site is broadcasting information and providing services to the faithful, which subordinates the religious message to the advantages and conditions imposed by the medium, as well as its specific hazards, from the emitter{\textquoteright}s point of view. Given its relevance in Mexico, the communication strategy applied by the Basilica can shed light on the steps that other entities linked to the Catholic Church in this country could take in the future.}, keywords = {Basilica of Guadalupe, Catholic Church, communication {\textendash} group and community, information technologies, internet, media, religion, religious practices {\textendash} diffusion}, url = {http://renglones.iteso.mx/upload/archivos/pablo_aburto.pdf}, author = {Pablo Ignacio Aburto Carvajal} } @article {251, title = {A Better Life Through Information Technology? The posthuman person in contemporary speculative science}, journal = {Zygon}, volume = {41}, year = {2006}, pages = {267-288}, abstract = {The depiction of human identity in the pop-science futurology of engineer/inventor Ray Kurzweil, the speculative robotics of Carnegie Mellon roboticist Hans Moravec, and the physics of Tulane University mathematics professor Frank Tipler elevate technology, especially information technology, to a point of ultimate significance. For these three figures, information technology offers the potential means by which the problem of human and cosmic finitude can be rectified. Although Moravec{\textquoteright}s vision of intelligent robots, Kurzweil{\textquoteright}s hope for immanent human immorality, and Tipler{\textquoteright}s description of humanlike von Neumann machines colonizing the very material fabric of the universe all may appear to be nothing more than science fictional musings, they raise genuine questions as to the relationship between science, technology, and religion as regards issues of personal and cosmic eschatology. In an attempt to correct what I see as the cybernetic totalism inherent in these techno-theologies, I argue for a theology of technology that seeks to interpret technology hermeneutically and grounds human creativity in the broader context of divine creative activity. }, url = {https://eric.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10036/48019/Zygon\%20Paper\%20-\%20a\%20better\%20life.pdf?sequence=1}, author = {Michael Delashmutt} } @book {2859, title = {Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age}, series = {Routledge}, year = {2007}, abstract = {In a society overrun by commercial clutter, religion has become yet another product sold in the consumer marketplace, and faiths of all kinds must compete with a myriad of more entertaining and more convenient leisure activities. Brands of Faith argues that in order to compete effectively faiths have had to become brands {\textendash} easily recognizable symbols and spokespeople with whom religious prospects can make immediate connections Mara Einstein shows how religious branding has expanded over the past twenty years to create a blended world of commerce and faith where the sacred becomes secular and the secular sacred. In a series of fascinating case studies of faith brands, she explores the significance of branded church courses, such as Alpha and The Purpose Driven Life, mega-churches, and the popularity of the televangelist Joel Olsteen and television presenter Oprah Winfrey, as well as the rise of Kaballah. She asks what the consequences of this religious marketing will be, and outlines the possible results of religious commercialism {\textendash} good and bad. Repackaging religion {\textendash} updating music, creating teen-targeted bibles {\textendash} is justifiable and necessary. However, when the content becomes obscured, religion may lose its unique selling proposition {\textendash} the very ability to raise us above the market.}, isbn = {9780415409773}, url = {https://www.routledge.com/Brands-of-Faith-Marketing-Religion-in-a-Commercial-Age/Einstein/p/book/9780415409773}, author = {Einstein, Mara} } @book {2738, title = {Blogging My Religion: Secular, Muslim, and Catholic Media Spaces in Europe}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Religion in Europe is currently undergoing changes that are reconfiguring physical and virtual spaces of practice and belief, and these changes need to be understood with regards to the proliferation of digital media discourses. This book explores religious change in Europe through a comparative approach that analyzes Atheist, Catholic, and Muslim blogs as spaces for articulating narratives about religion that symbolically challenge the power of religious institutions. The book adds theoretical complexity to the study of religion and digital media with the concept of hypermediated religious spaces. The theory of hypermediation helps to critically discuss the theory of secularization and to contextualize religious change as the result of multiple entangled phenomena. It considers religion as being connected with secular and post-secular spaces, and media as embedding material forms, institutions, and technologies. A spatial perspective contextualizes hypermediated religious spaces as existing at the interstice of alternative and mainstream, private and public, imaginary and real venues.By offering the innovative perspective of hypermediated religious spaces, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, the sociology of religion, and digital media.}, isbn = {9780367584870}, url = {https://www.routledge.com/Blogging-My-Religion-Secular-Muslim-and-Catholic-Media-Spaces-in-Europe/Evolvi/p/book/9780367584870}, author = {Evolvi, Giulia} } @article {2155, title = {Building the sacred community online: the dual use of the Internet by Chabad}, journal = {Media, Culture \& Society }, volume = {38}, year = {2015}, pages = {71-88}, abstract = {Religious communities have ongoing concerns about Internet use, as it intensifies the clash between tradition and modernity, a clash often found in traditionally inclined societies. Nevertheless, as websites become more useful and widely accessible, religious and communal stakeholders have continuously worked at building and promoting them. This study focuses on Chabad, a Jewish ultra-Orthodox movement, and follows webmasters of three key websites to uncover how they distribute religious knowledge over the Internet. Through an ethnographic approach that included interviews with over 30 webmasters, discussions with key informants, and observations of the websites themselves, the study uncovered webmaster{\textquoteright}s strategies to foster solidarity within their community, on one hand, while also proselytizing their outlook on Judaism, on the other. Hence, the study sheds light on how a fundamentalist society has strengthened its association with new media, thus facilitating negotiation between modernity and religious piety.}, keywords = {Chabad, community, Digital Religion, fundamentalism, religion, religious communities}, url = {http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443715615415}, author = {Golan, O and Stadler, N} } @book {2158, title = {Buddhism, the Internet, and Digital Media: The Pixel in the Lotus}, series = {Routledge Studies in Religion and Digital Culture}, year = {2014}, publisher = {Routledge }, organization = {Routledge }, abstract = {Buddhism, the Internet and Digital Media: The Pixel in the Lotus explores Buddhist practice and teachings in an increasingly networked and digital era. Contributors consider the ways Buddhism plays a role and is present in digital media through a variety of methods including concrete case studies, ethnographic research, and content analysis, as well as interviews with practitioners and cyber-communities. In addition to considering Buddhism in the context of technologies such as virtual worlds, social media, and mobile devices, authors ask how the Internet affects identity, authority and community, and what effect this might have on the development, proliferation, and perception of Buddhism in an online environment. Together, these essays make the case that studying contemporary online Buddhist practice can provide valuable insights into the shifting role religion plays in our constantly changing, mediated, hurried, and uncertain culture.}, keywords = {Buddhism, digital media, internet}, issn = {9781317950349}, url = {https://books.google.com/books?id=-6uQBAAAQBAJ\&dq=Internet+and+Buddhism/+Internet+and+Buddhists\&lr=\&source=gbs_navlinks_s}, author = {Grieve, G.P and Veidlinger, D} } @article {303, title = {Buddha Machine}, year = {2012}, publisher = {Buddha Machine}, address = {Greensboro, NC}, abstract = {The Buddha Machine was created by sampling found images form the Internet Internet Archive, a San Francisco based non-profit whose library includes texts, audio, moving images and archived WebPages. The video generates trsna (the Buddhist notion of desire) by visually embodying Gilles Deleuze and F{\'e}lix Guattari{\textquoteright}s notion of the desiring machine. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied, and lies at the root of suffering. Suffering, or duḥkha, literally means to be {\textquotedblleft}stuck{\textquotedblright} or stopped. Similarly, for Deleuze and Guattari, desire is not to be identified with lack, with the law, or with the signifier, but rather with production, or really with the stoppage of production. As they write in Anti-Oedipus {\textquotedblleft}a machine may be defined as a system of interruptions or breaks.{\textquotedblright} The Buddha Machine is connected visually to the viewer, and creates desire by breaking visual flow. However, simultaneously, it is at the same time also a flow itself, or the production of a flow.}, url = {http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAbxGCuv6-Q\&feature=player_embedded}, author = {Grieve, Gregory} } @inbook {143, title = {Bible Reading and Critical Thinking}, booktitle = {Critical Thinking and the Bible in the Age of New Media}, year = {2004}, pages = {77-94}, publisher = {University Press of America}, organization = {University Press of America}, address = {Landham, MD}, abstract = {In Critical Thinking and the Bible in the Age of New Media, Charles Ess collects contemporary scholarship to address the question: What does critical thinking about the Bible mean as the Bible is _transmediated_ from print to electronic formats? This volume, the first of its kind, is made up of contributions originally developed for a conference sponsored by the American Bible Society. Ess provides a collection grounded in a wide diversity of religious traditions and academic disciplines--philosophy, biblical studies, theology, feminism, aesthetics, communication theory, and media studies. His introduction summarizes the individual chapters and develops their broader significance for contemporary debates regarding media, postmodernism, and the possible relationships between faith and reason.}, keywords = {Bible, Critical thinking, postmodernism}, url = {http://books.google.com/books?id=BbabHjKHGE0C\&pg=PA77\&lpg=PA77\&dq=Bible+Reading+and+Critical+Thinking+Hardmeier\&source=bl\&ots=aN0NlENhsf\&sig=33jdVzCpd2VI_4Q8NTU_ki8Cu7I\&hl=en\&ei=RXOwTrLLI4atsAK76M3CAQ\&sa=X\&oi=book_result\&ct=result\&resnum=1\&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA}, author = {Hardmier, Chris} } @book {429, title = {Baraetika suru shukyo バラエティ化する宗教 (Religion transformed into entertainment)}, year = {2010}, publisher = {Seikyusha}, organization = {Seikyusha}, address = {Tokyo}, author = {Kenji Ishii} } @book {2943, title = {A better atonement: Beyond the depraved doctrine of original sin}, year = {2012}, publisher = {The JoPa Group }, organization = {The JoPa Group }, address = {Edina, MN}, abstract = {In A Better Atonement, theologian Tony Jones debunks the traditional doctrine of Original Sin and shows how that doctrine has polluted our view of the atonement. In an intriguing interlude, Jones distances himself from other progressive theologians and biblical scholars by strongly defending the historical crucifixion and physical resurrection of Jesus. Jones then summarizes various understandings of the atonement, from the ancient church to today, ultimately proposing a view that both takes into account a realistic view of sin and maintains an robust belief in the Trinity.}, url = {https://www.amazon.com/Better-Atonement-Depraved-Doctrine-Original-ebook/dp/B007MD0AK8}, author = {Jones, T} } @article {2756, title = {Between individualisation and tradition: transforming religious authority on German and Polish Christian online discussion forums}, journal = {Religion}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The aim of this paper is to connect the debates on individualisation and mediatisation of religion and transformations of religious authority online on theoretical and empirical basis. The classical and contemporary concepts of individualisation of religion, rooted in the secularisation debate, will be connected with Campbell{\textquoteright}s [2007. {\textquotedblleft}Who{\textquoteright}s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet.{\textquotedblright} Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (3): 1043{\textendash}1062] concept of four layers of religious authority online. The empirical material consists of a joint analysis of German Christian and Polish Catholic Internet forums. In a transnational comparison, the findings show similar tendencies of individualisation and emerging communities of choice, as well as a lasting significance of textual religious authorities, although different levels of authority are negotiated and emphasised to a varying extent. However, in both cases critique of the Church and religion usually emerges offline, and is then expressed online. While the forums do not have a subversive potential, they facilitate adopting a more independent, informed, and reflexive approach to religion.}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0048721X.2016.1219882?journalCode=rrel20}, author = {Ko{\l}odziejska, Marta and Neumaier, Anna} } @article {417, title = {Blogging as social action: a genre analysis of the weblog}, journal = {Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs}, volume = {18}, year = {2004}, url = {http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action.html?referer=http\%3A\%2F\%2Fscholar.google.com\%2Fscholar\%3Fq\%3DBlogging\%2Bas\%2Bsocial\%2Baction\%3A\%2Ba\%2Bgenre\%2Banalysis\%2Bof\%2Bthe\%2Bweblog\%26hl\%3Den\%26as_sdt\%3D0\%26as_vis\%3D1\%26oi\%3Dscholart$\#$se}, author = {Miller, C. R. and Shepherd, D.} } @mastersthesis {61, title = {Believing in the Net: Implicit Religion and the Internet Hype, 1994-2001}, volume = {PhD}, year = {2010}, month = {2010}, school = {Leiden University Press}, address = {Leiden, the Netherlands}, abstract = {Starting with Weber{\textquoteright}s disenchantment thesis, a sociological tradition has developed that associates modernity with a crisis of meaning. The de-mystification of our worldview and the decreasing influence of religious traditions in specific are seen as obstacles for making sense of human existence. But in fact, modern societies are full of meaning and they continue to be religious. This study shows that, in an implicit form, religion can be found everywhere in our culture. The Internet hype of the 1990s was a particularly effervescent example of implicit religiosity. The hopeful discourse about the Internet that typified this hype drew on religious ideas and language, and it inspired strong belief. This dissertation explores the appeal of the Internet as an object of faith and it looks at how it could serve as a source of meaning.}, keywords = {Anomie, Disenchantment, Giving meaning, Hypes, ICT, Implicit religion, internet, Modernity, Sociology of religion, Technophilia}, url = {http://netage.org/2011/03/26/believing-in-the-net/}, author = {Karen P{\"a}rna} } @article {2818, title = {Beyond Fashion Tips and Hijab Tutorials:~ The Aesthetic Style of Islamic Lifestyle Videos}, journal = {Film Criticism}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Among young women, lifestyle videos have become extremely popular on YouTube, and a similar trend has emerged among young Muslim women who share modest fashion tips and discuss religious topics. This paper examines the videos of two prominent Muslim women on YouTube, Amena Khan and Dina Torkia, in an effort to understand how they engage with aesthetic styles in order to work against Western stereotypes of Muslim women as oppressed and lacking individuality. Islamic lifestyle videos might appear to simply promote a vacuous focus on appearances, but I argue that it is through the aesthetics and affects of these videos that Amena and Dina do political work to redistribute the sensible and shift what is considered attractive, beautiful and pleasurable in Western society. Additionally, the hybrid aesthetic styles and affects of authenticity and pleasure, which are possible in digital spaces like YouTube, offer Amena and Dina the chance to control their own visual images and to resist being coopted as icons of Western freedom or Islamic piety.}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304337122_Beyond_Fashion_Tips_and_Hijab_Tutorials_The_Aesthetic_Style_of_Islamic_Lifestyle_Videos}, author = {Peterson, Kristin M.} } @article {419, title = {Beyond the traditional-modern binary: faith and identity in muslim women{\textquoteright}s online matchmaking profiles}, journal = {CyberOrient}, volume = {5}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Finding a suitable partner in both diasporic and non-diasporic settings proves increasingly challenging for young Muslims, especially those unable or not wanting to search within their kinship networks. At the same time, religious matchmaking websites are becoming increasingly common especially among Muslim women. As studies of Muslim matchmaking sites tend to focus on the ever-popular topic of the headscarf and its associations in the matchmaking context, a much more comprehensive study of the specificity of the online religious identities and self-representation is required. This paper examines a number of profiles of young Muslim women using online matchmaking sites and discusses broad themes of faith, ethnicity and identity that emerge in the analysis.}, keywords = {identity, information and communication technology, matchmaking, Muslim women, social aspects, websites}, url = {http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=6219}, author = {Piela, A.} } @inbook {2137, title = {{\textquoteleft}Blogging Sometimes Leads to Dementia, Doesn{\textquoteright}t It?{\textquoteright} The Roman Catholic Church in Times of Deep Mediatization}, booktitle = {Communicative Figurations}, number = { Transforming Communications {\textendash} Studies in Cross-Media Research}, year = {2018}, pages = {267-286}, publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan, Cham}, organization = {Palgrave Macmillan, Cham}, abstract = {The chapter analyzes religious authorities in Catholicism in times of deep mediatization. Like few other organizations, the Catholic Church seems to be caught between the general tendency of deep mediatization and its own reluctance to adapt to a mediatized world and society. One topic that is directly connected to media change is the construction of religious authority. Unlike earlier perspectives on the relation of religious authority and media, the figurational perspective offers the possibility to look at changes in the construction of religious authority and their interrelation with media change on different levels. Those different levels refer to different actor constellations and different media ensembles, as well as to different levels of authority, in other words local and translocal authority. In this chapter, we will explore how official religious authorities in the Catholic Church, namely priests in different positions, deal with deep mediatization. This includes the question concerning how they use media themselves, in which situations they use or don{\textquoteright}t use media, how and why they are reluctant; but also how they define their own and other{\textquoteright}s authority in a mediatized society and how all of this effects the organization as a whole. We will find out that there are different scopes in which authority is constructed differently: while the degree of mediatization is relatively low on the local scope, religious authorities are expected to go with mediatization in a translocal and global scope.}, keywords = {Blogging, dementia, mediatization, Roman Catholic Church}, issn = {978-3-319-65583-3}, url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-65584-0_11$\#$citeas}, author = {Radde-Antweiler, K and Gr{\"u}nenthal, H and Gogolok, S} } @inbook {3006, title = {The bases of social power}, booktitle = {Studies in social power }, publisher = {Institute for Social Research}, organization = {Institute for Social Research}, address = {Ann Arbor, MI}, abstract = {5 types of social influence, leading to various research hypotheses, are distinguished: referent power, expert power, reward power, coercive power, and legitimate power. Referent power, involving identification of P with O, will tend to have the broadest range. Coercion will produce decreased attraction of P toward O and high resistance. Reward will result in increased attraction and low resistance. "The more legitimate the coercion the less it will produce resistance and decreased attraction." 42 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)}, url = {https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1960-06701-004}, author = {Raven, B. H. and French, J.} } @article {894, title = {The Beast Within: Anthrozoomorphic Identity and Alternative Spirituality in the Online Therianthropy Movement}, journal = {Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions}, volume = {16}, year = {2013}, pages = {7-30}, keywords = {NRMs, popular occulture, shape-shifters, Therianthropy}, url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/nr.2013.16.3.7}, author = {Venetia Laura Delano Robertson} } @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 {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 {169, title = {Between {\textquotedblleft}cultural enclave{\textquotedblright} and {\textquotedblleft}virtual enclave{\textquotedblright}: Ultra-Orthodox society and the digital media}, journal = {Kesher}, volume = {32}, year = {2002}, pages = {47-55}, author = {Tsarfaty, Orly and Blais, Dotan} } @article {2840, title = {The Buddhist Dharma for Sale: Who Owns the Past? The Internet and Objects of Worship}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Is it possible to claim ownership of the Buddhist dharma; the teachings of the Buddha? Does a group{\textquoteright}s relationship to its cultural productions constitute a form of ownership? Can a religious image be copyrighted? This article will focus on the emergence and transformation of the Moji-Mandala or Gohonzon (御本尊), created by the Japanese monk Nichiren (1222-1282). Nichiren{\textquoteright}s followers were persecuted, and some were executed when the scroll was found in their possession. Nichiren{\textquoteright}s hanging mandala was previously available only to individuals seriously practicing Nichiren{\textquoteright}s Buddhism. Currently, Nichiren{\textquoteright}s mandala is reproduced electronically over the internet by websites claiming to represent various Buddhist lay organizations. The digital revolution has increased the ability of individuals to appropriate and profit from the cultural knowledge of religious groups that are largely unprotected by existing intellectual property law. }, url = {http://www.globalbuddhism.org/jgb/index.php/jgb/article/view/238}, author = {Wallinder-Pierini, Linda S E} } @book {1782, title = {The Bishop, the Mullah, and the Smartphone}, pages = {312}, publisher = {Wipf \& Stock}, organization = {Wipf \& Stock}, address = {Eugene, Oregon}, abstract = {Not so long ago the world resisted change, often using religious-reasoning. Small wonder--the printing press, a sixteenth century disruptive device, split Christianity. Now the globe welcomes digital disruption, even praising it as a solution for faltering economies. Religions don{\textquoteright}t have much choice but to follow, because information is a prime asset of faith. Believers treasure and reframe their past, and present. However, both old and current data is now available in huge quantities, visually and instantly. Movies provide more spiritual guidance than holy texts, and terror merchants use the uncontrollable Internet to gain hearts and minds. Nevertheless a turbulent re-mythologization of adherents towards peaceful versions of their belief can be tracked. There are positive things we can all do to help, which is just as well in a world that suggests only political acts count.}, keywords = {bishop, Christianity, Digital, history, Islam, mullah, smartphone}, isbn = {1498217923}, issn = {978-1498217927}, url = {http://www.amazon.com/Bishop-Mullah-Smartphone-Journey-Religions/dp/1498217923}, author = {Bryan Winters} }