Assessing changes in the study of religious communities in digital religion studies

Abstract

This article provides a focused review of researches undertaken within Digital religion studies in the last three decades, specifically highlighting how religious communities have been studied and approached within this area. It highlights the dominant theoretical and methodological approaches employed by scholars during what is being described as the four stages of research on religious communities emerging over this period of time. Thus, this article presents the findings of key studies emerging during these stages to illuminate how the study of religious communities online has evolved over time. It also offers insights into how this evolution specifically relates to the study of Catholic community online. Finally, a theoretical analysis is given, assessing current research on religious communities within Digital Religion studies, and approaches for future research are proposed. ARTICLE HISTORY

Mediatized Catholicism—Minority Voices and Religious Authority in the Digital Sphere

“…The research on religious communities 2 in digital religion studies can be divided into four stages according to Campbell and Vitullo (2016): a first stage of description and documentation; a second stage of classification; a third stage of analysis of how offline religious communities made use of digital platforms and technology; and the current stage focusing on the intersections and interactions between online and offline community practices. The research presented in this paper is situated in the fourth stage, and it focuses on the online activity of a particular community (which is the first stage of a larger project focusing on online and offline interactions).…”

“…As Campbell and Vitullo (2016) observe, little attention has been paid to unofficial Catholic communities online so far (cfr. Sbardelotto 2016;Kołodziejska 2018).…”

Social media and the birth of an Islamic social movement: ODOJ (One Day One Juz) in contemporary Indonesia

“…Through its offline ‘blind date’ activities, ODOJ maintains the emotional attachment of its members. The parallels between offline ‘blind date’ activities and online activities are evidence of how netizens using social media are concerned with creating a sustainable continuum of networks (see also Campbell and Vitullo 2016 ). ODOJ elites are aware of the nature of social media activism which tends to be loose.…”

Interview with Rosalind I. J. Hackett on Religion and Digital Media Trends in Africa

“…What are the important topics for future studies on this subject? JH: As noted above and in the literature, there are particular challenges to conducting research on digital media 13 , especially when it comes to religious engagement and experience (Campbell and Vitullo, 2016). It would help to decide what to focus on in one's research: an organization, platform, leader or leaders, user group, user category or individual user.…”

“…Needless to say, there are a range of deployable theoretical or thematic concepts for this area of research: agency, affordance, affect, experience, performance, authority, identity, authenticity, proselytization, community/communitas, discourse, and ritual practice. As noted by Campbell and Vitullo (2016), key questions that have emerged from the more recent research phase are to document and analyze the relationships between changing digital and religious cultures, and between online and offline religion. Furthermore, they claim, it is not just what religious Internet users do online that should interest us, but how they interpret and perceive these practices in relation to their broader religious and social identities 15 .…”