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I am still at the very beginning of this learning journey, but after having read a few dozen abstracts on “online religion” I have some observations to make.

First, in order to fully understand the topic I need to read beyond its immediate scope. For example a lot of the articles place the study in the tradition of studying the interaction of religion and media. In this context “religion and the internet” needs to be understood in a similar way to “religion and press,” “religion and radio” and “religion and television.” On one hand it makes perfect sense and I am sure there are plenty of lessons one can learn from those fields. On the other hand the internet is much more participatory so the previous models where individuals were mostly consumers of media have to be seriously modified if not fully rebuilt.

In the early days of the world wide web (say 1994-1997) there was a lot of idealism that this media will democratize the knowledge sphere and eventually all spheres of life. The idea was that individuals and small companies have equal footing with big corporations as the barrier of entry was so low. Anyone could build a website, while starting up a newspaper/radio/tv station was significantly costlier in terms of financial and technical capital. This promise did not played out to its full possible extent till the advent of Web 2.0, when the technical barrier went even lower: you don’t need any technical knowldge know to start a blogk, post your pictures or thoughts. (Even posting videos is getting less and less technical) Now that there are more sophisticated structures in place that allow not just building a website but spreading one’s message or idea on social web channels one really has a chance to crate fame and/or money with limited resources. (Check out the report and the earnings of TubeMogul’s list of top ten independent YouTube stars.)

My second point, also affecting the scope of my studies, comes directly from the first one: I need to go beyond how established offline religions (and their adherents) behave online and consider in what ways the internet enables the creation of the new religious movements*. As I pointed out above the internet has the potential to fundamentally change the relationship between media and the individual. This must have consequences in the are of religion. Two obvious examples: movements like the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the “Invisible Pink Unicorn” would have remained much smaller in the pre-internet era.

* “New religious movements” is the term used by sociologists for what in every day use would be called sects or cults, as this term is value neutral, has no pejorative connotations.

This note leads to my third point: the various lenses “online religion” can be viewed. Reading the abstracts I encountered articles examining the phenomena from the social, educational, proselytism, spatial, generational, gender point of view, but didn’t find any yet about the financial and legal questions. The latter was brought to mind, by Heidi Campbell’s post from earlier today titled “Can an online community be a church ? IRS says “No”!” She pointed to a recent court case, ruling that

religious organization that primarily holds their worship services on the Internet (or radio), did not meet the Internal Revenue Code’s definition of a “church.” (PDF) That means they are not eligible for tax-exempt status….
The full ruling it explains this online church failed meet a 14 criteria test set out by the IRS on the form/function of a church….
So to have validity the online will be forced to establish offline structures of accountability.

This was a “simple” US case, but if we consider the international nature of both the internet and organized religion the legal questions are even more complicated. E.g. Scientology is a legally accepted church in some countries are from being one in others.

To summarize, I will need to

1. familiarize myself with the study of religion and (old) media,
2. think of the two way nature of internet and religion (not just how offline religion plays out on the net, but the other way around too),
3. be aware and systematically think through the numerous disciplines the topic can be viewed from.

Paul Teusner posted three entries on his blog reflecting on presentations at the Conference on Media, Religion and Culture 2010. In the first one he summarized two presentations on “religious videos and personalities,” one on Islam and the other on Christianity, titled respectively “Building Religious Authority in the Media Age” and “The Struggle for Religious Authority in Dynamic Web 2.0 Environments.” Teusner found “in both presentations a great comparison between “viewers” and “users” in the negotiation of religious text, meaning and authority in videos in both platforms.”

His second entry is less relevant for us as it was about “the struggle between church and media as meaning-making institutions in the context of [the] television program, Rescue Me.” But his third entry focused on a presentation about “a small conservative Christian community on the Atlantic side of Canada, who wanted to go live online, by video-streaming their services.” The most important sentence from this post for me was, “Going live online for them was a test where the search for new and distant friends and fellow congregants required the relinquishment of control over their own church environment.”

Thank you, Paul, for your notes that accompanied nicely the abstracts I read earlier.

Yesterday I posted about an academic article on “Islamic applications for mobile devices.” As Ramadan starts today, I would like to point out out an NPR piece about apps for Ramadan:

Observing Ramadan? There’s An App For That

Cell phone applications such as “iPray” or “iQuran” offer a beeping reminder of requisite prayer times, while the “Find Mecca” and “mosque finder” programs help the Muslim traveler in an unfamiliar city find the nearest place to pray…

Gary R. Bunt‘s article, “Surfing the App Souq: Islamic Applications for Mobile Devices” appeared in CyberOrient, Online Journal on the “Virtual Middle East” hosted by the website Digital Islam. I learned about it from Heidi Campbell’s blog. Here is the article’s abstract and conclusion.

Abstract

This article introduces issues associated with Islamic apps for mobile devices, and surveys some of the products that have emerged into the market. It considers the potential impact of mobile phone interfaces in relation to interpretations of Islam and the use of Islamic resources, given that mobile devices have widened potential audiences for online materials in various forms, especially in areas where other forms of digital access may be more problematic. The article also explores some of the religious and ethical concerns associated with mobile phone use.

Conclusions

The impact of increased and varied phone applications in the name of Islam is transformative, in that it offers wider access to Islamic resources (amongst a competitive marketplace) and digital access continue to increase. As 3G phone technology becomes more widely available, evolves (towards 4G) and is integrated into more phones, then the key providers of apps and other phone compatible services have the potential to be a significant channel of influence and authority. Islamic software products continue to develop at the cutting edge of technological innovation, so as new products for mobile phones enter the marketplace, one can expect developers and content providers to respond with Islamically ‘appropriate’ applications. The modes and communications dynamics of scholars, opinion providers and petitioners (or consumers) are shifting in response to technological developments, while perhaps maintaining the essence of long-held traditions of religious authority and interpretation. Following these trends will be a significant area for observers of Islam in the contemporary world.

Since I started up my archive of academic articles related to online religion I kept adding to it. Since July 27 it grew by 41 articles. you can read the abstracts on the webpage or in the csv file. But for ease of references here is their list, linking where you can find the full versions.

• A Study of the Interrelationships Between the Internet and Religious Organizations: An Application of Diffusion Theory by William T. Ruppa; Alan D. Smith; Published in Services Marketing Quarterly, 2002/01
• “The Fabric of our Lives”: Catholic Church Perspectives on the Internet by Jim McDonnell; Published in Fieldwork in Religion, 2009/06
• Another Time, Another Space: Virtual Worlds, Myths and Imagination. by Beatrice Bittarello ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Believing in the Net. Implicit religion and the internet hype, 1994-2001 by Parna, Karen; Published in Leiden University Institute for Religious Studies, 2010/01
• Buddhist Meditation Through the Medium of the Internet by Joanne Miller; Published in School of Social Science, The University of Queensland. , 2010/01
• Communicating Spiritual Experience with Video Game Technology. by Gino Yu, Michael Highland ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Computer Mediated Religious Life of Technoshamans and Cybershamans. by Libuse Martinkova ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Religion and Computer-Mediated Communication by Charles Ess, Akira Kawabata, Hiroyuki Kurosaki ; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Death and the Social Network by Jed R. Brubaker and Janet Vertesi; Published in , 2010/02
• Diaspora on the Electronic Frontier: Developing Virtual Connections with Sacred Homelands by Christopher Helland; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Doing Religion in Cyberspace: The Promise and the Perils by Lorne L. Dawson,; Published in The Council of Societies for the Study of Religion Bulletin, 2001/01
• Enhancing the Spiritual Relationship: the Impact of Virtual Worship on the Real World Church Experience. by Andrea Robinson-Neal ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Gender and sexuality online on Australian Muslim forums by Roxanne D. Marcotte; Published in Contemporary Islam, 2010/04
• How Religious Leaders Communicate Trustworthiness through the Web by Stefano Pace; Published in Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 2004/08
• Inner Listening as a Basic Principle for Developing Immersive Virtual Worlds. by Simeon Simoff, Ludmil Duridanov ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Internet Use Among Religious Followers: Religious Postmodernism in Japanese Buddhism by Rev. Kenshin Fukamizu; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Islam and Online Imagery on Malaysian Tourist Destination Websites by Noor Hazarina Hashim, Jamie Murphy, Nazlida Muhamad Hashim; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Islam, Jihad, and Terrorism in Post-9/11 Arabic Discussion Boards by Rasha A. Abdulla ; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Kemetic Orthodoxy: Ancient Egyptian Religion on the Internet — A Research Note by Marilyn C Krogh* and Brooke Ashley Pillifant ; Published in Sociology of Religion, 2004/05
• Logging-on to Sai Baba: The Poetics of Sacred Globalization by Feike, Meredith Morgan ; Published in Louisiana State University, 2007/04
• Making Space for Religion in Internet Studies by Heidi Campbell; Published in The Information Society, 2005/09
• Muslim surfers on the internet: using the theory of planned behaviour to examine the factors influencing engagement in online religious activities by Shirley S. Ho, Waipeng Lee, Shahiraa Sahul Hameed; Published in New Media and Society, 2008/02
• Net worth? : Religion, cyberspace and the future by Jay Kinney; Published in Futures, 1995/07
• No More SMS from Jesus: Ubicomp, Religion and Techno-spiritual Practices by Genevieve Bell; Published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006/04
• Online Rituals in Virtual Worlds. Christian Online Service between Dynamics and Stability. by Nadja Miczek ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Online-Religion in Japan: Websites and Religious Counseling from a Comparative Cross-Cultural Perspective by Akira Kawabata, Takanori Tamura; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Religion is Becoming Virtualised. Introduction the the Special Issue on Religion in Virtual Worlds. by Kerstin Radde-Antweiler ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Rituals and Pixels. Experiments in Online Church. by Simon Jenkins ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• S(l)pirituality. Immersive Worlds as a Window to Spirituality Phenomena. by Pablo Martinez-Zarate, Isabela Corduneanu, Luis Miguel Martinez ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Technological Modernization, the Internet, and Religion in Singapore by Randolph Kluver, Pauline Hope Cheong; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Technology in spiritual formation: an exploratory study of computer mediated religious communications by “Susan P. Wyche, Gillian R. Hayes, Lonnie D. Harvel, Rebecca E. Grinter “; Published in Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2006/04
• The Church of Fools: Virtual Ritual and Material Faith. by Randy Kluver, Yanli Chen ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• The Internet as Distributor and Mirror of Religious and Ritual Knowledge by Oliver Krueger; Published in Asian Journal of Social Science, 2004/05
• UNDERSTANDING RELIGION AND CYBERSPACE: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED, WHAT LIES AHEAD? by Doris R. Jakobsh; Published in Religious Studies Review, 2007/01
• Virtual Incarnations: An Exploration of Internet-Mediated Interaction as Manifestation of the Divine by Julie Anne Lytle; Published in Religious Education, 2010/07
• Virtual Pilgrimages on the Internet by Mark W. MacWilliams; Published in Religion, 2002/10
• Virtual Religion. An Approach to a Religious and Ritual Topography of Second Life. by Kerstin Radde-Antweiler ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Virtual Worlds Today: Gaming and Online Sociality. by Gordon Calleja ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Virtually Sacred: The Performance of Asynchronous Cyber-Rituals in Online Spaces by Stephen Jacobs ; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Where Dreams and Dragons Meet. An Ethnographic Analysis of two Examples of Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) by Kathryn Stam, Michael Scialdone ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet by Heidi Campbell; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06

The little I know of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) includes the fact that sites dedicated to a certain topic get higher rankings than mixed site. For example if I had a dedicated site to the materials I collect and share related to on online religion they could be easier to find than mixed in here with my film/book reviews and other posts. Therefore Sunday night registered and created a new site: SocRelig.com. I copied all the existing posts there. Having its own site/blog also allowed me to create categories for the blog entries, while here they were all lumped under one label. From now on I will post my related entries both here, on my personal blog, and there too. You may call the reason I keep posting them here vanity or need for acknowledgment: I want this collection be associated with me, after all I am putting my time in it. But from now on when I share my content on social networks I will propagate the SocRelig.com version of it.

The 7th International Conference on Media, Religion and Culture will be held in Toronto from August 9 – 13, 2010, hosted by Joyce Smith of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University. Below I list all the sections and papers from the program (PDF, as of August 2) that are explicitly pertinent to this blog and had abstracts available. (Apologies for the unusual length of the post.) Many other presentations will touch on the topic, of course. The conference can be viewed online live. Continue reading →