While many themes have been explored in relation to religion online-ritual, identity construction, community-what happens to religious authority and power relationships within online environments is an area in need of more detailed investigation. In order to move discussions of authority from the broad or vague to the specific, this article argues for a more refined identification of the attributes of authority at play in the online context. This involves distinguishing between different layers of authority in terms of hierarchy, structure, ideology, and text. The article also explores how different religious traditions approach questions of authority in relation to the Internet. Through a qualitative analysis of three sets of interviews with Christians, Jews, and Muslims about the Internet, we see how authority is discussed and contextualized differently in each religious tradition in terms of these four layers of authority.
This article examines the motivation behind bounded groups’ creation of digital enclaves online. Through in-depth interviews with 19 webmasters and staff of selected Israeli Orthodox websites three critical areas of negotiation are explored: (1) social control; (2) sources of authority; and (3) community boundaries. Examining these tensions illuminates a detailed process of self-evaluation which leads religious stakeholders and internet entrepreneurs to form these digital enclaves in order to negotiate the core beliefs and constraints of their offline communities online. These offer spaces of safety for members within the risk-laden tracts of the internet. Examining the tensions accompanying the emergence of these religious websites elucidates community affordances as well as the challenges to the authority that integration of new media poses to closed groups and societies.
This article explores the labeling of the iPhone as the ‘Jesus phone’ in order to demonstrate how religious metaphors and myth can be appropriated into popular discourse and shape the reception of a technology. We consider the intertextual nature of the relationship between religious language, imagery and technology and demonstrate how this creates a unique interaction between technology fans and bloggers, news media and even corporate advertising. Our analysis of the ‘Jesus phone’ clarifies how different groups may appropriate the language and imagery of another to communicate very different meanings and intentions. Intertextuality serves as a framework to unpack the deployment of religion to frame technology and meanings communicated. We also reflect on how religious language may communicate both positive and negative aspects of a technology and instigate an unintentional trajectory in popular discourse as it is employed by different audiences, both online and offline.
This article provides an overview of the development of Digital Religion studies and the theoretical approaches frequently employed within this area. Through considering the ways and theories of mediatization, mediation of meaning, and the religious–social shaping of technology have been engaged and applied in studies of new media technologies, religion, and digital culture we see how Digital Religion studies has grown into a unique area of inquiry informed by both Internet studies and media, religion, and culture studies. Overall, it offers a concise summary of the current state of research inquiry within Digital Religion studies.
This article argues that paying close attention to key findings within the study of religion and the Internet, a subfield of Internet Studies, can enhance our understanding and discussion of the larger social and cultural shifts at work within networked society. Through a critical overview of research on religion online, five central research areas emerge related to social practices, online–offline connections, community, identity, and authority online. It is also argued that observations about these themes not only point to specific trends within religious practice online, but also mirror concerns and findings within other areas of Internet Studies. Thus, studying religion on the Internet provides an important microcosm for investigating Internet Studies’ contribution in a wide range of contexts in our contemporary social world.
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