Creating digital enclaves: Negotiation of the internet among bounded religious communities

Abstract

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.

Undergraduate Haredi Students Studying Computer Science: Is Their Prior Education Merely a Barrier?

“…The field of computing does not conflict with faith and ideology. One can work from home and use a 'kosher Internet program', namely have access to the Internet, which is restricted according to different Haredi requirements (Campbell & Golan, 2011). In a survey conducted in 2008 by the Ministry of Economy, 49% of ultraorthodox men were interested in academic education, and of these, 23% were interested in computer education of some sort (Malachi, Cohen, & Kaufman, 2008).…”

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

“…Popular research themes at this stage included considering how the Internet challenges established religious authorities (Barker 2005), empowers new religious leaders (i.e., Campbell and Golan 2011), and provides new opportunities for traditional leaders to re-assert influence online (Barzilai-Nahon and Barzilai 2005). New theoretical and methodological frameworks were also taking shape.…”

The New Scroll Digital Devices, Bible Study and Worship

“…Interest in religious groups continues. For example, scholars have examined Internet use among communities of Islam (Anderson, 1999;Scholz, Selge, Stille, & Zimmermann, 2008), Buddhism (see Busch, 2011;Cheong, Huang, & Poon, 2011a;Kim, 2005), Hinduism (Scheifinger, 2010), and Orthodox Judaism (Campbell & Golan, 2011), to name a few. In addition, a few studies have looked at the religious use of technology among specific nations, such as Cheong, Poon, Huang, and Casas's (2009) investigation of Internet use by Christian and Buddhist groups in Singapore.…”

“…The intertextuality of technology and spirituality suggests that "the integration of religious language with technology provides a cultural shorthand and a rich platform for communicating multiple meanings" (p. 1203). Campbell and Golan (2011) used in-depth interviews with 19 Orthodox Israeli Web masters and Web staff members to explore variations in how the digital spaces they create may be used to reinforce ties among the community without overt challenges to authority. Cheong et al (2011a) explored the interactions of religious authority and Internet communications in Buddhist organizations and among Christian congregations (Cheong et al, 2011b), concluding that "the immunity from accountability that clergy once enjoyed may have weakened in light of a more technologically networked congregation" (p. 954).…”