There are many concerns that the use of social media disconnects people from one another. Conventional wisdom holds that the use of social media causes people to disregard or value less their interpersonal relationships. As a result many groups-and in particular the local churchhave tended to shy away from social media as a way to impart information and build relationships within their community. This paper is a survey of current research that provides clarity about how and why people use social media. There are several important findings in this survey that have salience for the local church and how it connects with people in their community and how information spreads. The findings indicate that instead of competing with and diminishing interpersonal relationships, the use of social media among youth and adults amplifies those relationships. Of special note is the finding that the use of social media may open up information and interaction to those who are introverted or in some way reticent in asserting themselves in face-to-face interactions. and Religion 197 FEAR NOT (Hilliker, 2003), and from the Robertsons during the era when television was taking root in homes (Boerl & Perkins, 2011). So to what can we credit this ambivalence by segments of the church in standing apart from social media, which Leslie Ciesielski (2009) calls our new universal medium of communication? The reason seems to be the so-called conventional wisdom about social media and the acceptance of an anecdotal understanding about how people are actually using social media at this point in its development. The purpose of this study is to examine the conventional wisdom, particularly worries that the online communication paradigm may not be in the best interest of the church because of its tendency toward individualism instead of communalism. This concern will be compared with recent research that shows how people appear to actually use online communication tools, and how disseminating information online can extend the reach of the local church. Conventional Wisdom and the Unconventional Reality Over the last several years, the literature in the area of online communication and social networking has grown immensely. The picture that is beginning to appear challenges a number of the widely accepted opinions about life within the social media sphere, including the foundational belief that online communication is creating a fragmentation or disregard for interpersonal relationships. Mark Bauerlein (2009) and Nicholas Carr (2010) are among the more trenchant thinkers in this area, and what they say appears to connect with common sense. It seems correct that a medium that forces one to send a message or post an idea to his or her friends must come at the expense of building and maintaining face-to-face relationships. It makes sense that this sort of Advances in the Study of Information and Religion 199 FEAR NOT communication (read: "communication" with the scare quotes) might tend to be shallow and self-centered. But this, according to recent rese...
Though it has recently fallen on difficult times though the loss of land the death of its leader, The Islamic State is a brand of Islam that styles itself as the new caliphate. ISIS fights for the liberation of the Sunni faithful and claims to be the leader of the world's Muslim population. Westerners and others who oppose ISIS have used a good deal of ink trying to explain what gives this group its power to engage the imagination-is it the extreme violence it uses on the battlefield, or is it the fact that they have boldly claimed a new caliphate and that it is obligatory for the world's Muslims to support them? This paper argues that the power of ISIS comes from the stories it tells. These stories are assessed according to the paradigm of Jim Signorelli's StoryBranding, which explains how stories can become powerful tools of persuasion that create loyal, committed followers that make lasting brands.
As the Internet rises as a center for reading and writing, many are expressing concerns about fractured reading, shallow knowledge, and shorter attention spans that digital media encourages. These criticisms miss the point: a new literacy is rising, and this literacy is bringing about a change every bit as profound as the change from oral to literate culture. Using Walter Ong’s concept of secondary orality, this study explores the likelihood that oral culture and literate culture are being forged into a new type of literacy that restores some of the virtues of oral culture to our society. Current statistics and studies indicate there is a renaissance of reading in the United States, likely as a result of reading online.
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