Digital religion

Here's my chapter contribution entitled "Is Virtual Baptism a 'Real' Baptism?" in Technology and Theology ed. William Anderson (Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2020), 149-167. (for educational purposes e-copy email: jparceno@gmail.com)
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Virtual baptism is a new mode of baptism that is both immersive and interactive. This chapter will present the essence and relevance of technology, virtual reality, and digital culture in Christianity and its ordinance of baptism. In the first part, I will trace the historical roots of the meaning of believer’s baptism, its mode, and the development of its theological meaning. The second part will describe the church in the virtual world, techno-culture society, and virtual reality. The third part will discuss the integration of virtual reality as immersion applied to believer’s baptism. I will argue that virtual baptism is a viable, valid mode of baptism both theologically sound and culturally relevant.

--- Link: https://vernonpress.com/book/1154 ---
VR Baptism Youtube link: https://youtu.be/wJhOSzH4NaM

This article encourages researchers of religion, media and culture to develop new, global, comparative conversations about the meaning and purpose of public scholarship. Key terms like “religion”, “media”, “publicness” and “scholarship” can be understood and articulated differently in different social, cultural and geographical locations, and dialogue across our academic contexts is needed to help explore these parallels and divergences. This article shares three reflections from scholars who have lived and worked in west Africa, southern Europe and south-east Asia. Each contributor has been asked to address two questions: How do religious communities engage public audiences? And how can (or should) scholars communicate with the public? The conclusion to the article identifies some of the central themes of their responses: secularity, colonial legacies, globalization, power, vulnerability, and the intended audience of our public interventions.

The Introduction to this book is available here: https://www.academia.edu/34095644/Introduction_to_Materiality_and_the_Study_of_Religion_The_Body_of_St_Cuthbert.pdf

Material culture has emerged in recent decades as a significant theoretical concern for the study of religion. This book contributes to and evaluates this material turn, presenting thirteen chapters of new empirical research and theoretical reflection from some of the leading international scholars of material religion. Following a model for material analysis proposed in the first chapter by David Morgan, the contributors trace the life cycle of religious materiality through three phases: the production of religious objects, their classification as religious (or non-religious), and their circulation and use in material culture.

The chapters in this volume consider how objects become and cease to be sacred, how materiality can be used to contest access to public space and resources, and how religion is embodied and performed by individuals in their everyday lives. Contributors discuss the significance of the materiality of religion across different religious traditions and diverse geographical regions, paying close attention to gender, age, ethnicity, memory and politics. The volume closes with an afterword by Manuel Vásquez.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, religious services worldwide were forced to migrate online. This phenomenon is still yet to be properly investigated, especially in the context of religious and ethnic minorities: a research gap that this paper aims to address. Herein, 18 semi-structured in-depth interviews with members of the Russian community in South Tyrol served as methodological tool to explore: (1) the role of the Orthodox religion and (2) of digital media for the community and, finally, (3) how its members enacted religion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical results show how community members, despite being highly familiar with digital tools and technology-based solutions, deliberately chose not to use digital media to search for religious content or to attend religious services. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and an increasingly digitised world, the specific example of the Russian community in South Tyrol helps to better understand how migrant communities live and enact religion. The present study aims at contributing to the emerging field of the study of (digital) religion and embodiment of religion from a minority perspective

This article explores the integration of the mobile phone into the religious experience of Christians in Nigeria. Based on the results of an online survey and the author’s observation, it argues that the mobile phone has become an actant in the mediatization of religion, creating dependency among some users and transforming religious praxis in palpable ways. Unsurprisingly, perspectives vary on whether and how the phone should be used during worship. Attitudes coalesce around three viewpoints, leading to the emergence of user groups labelled critics, advocates, and dualists. The accounts of study participants give access into the ways some people seek to (re)configure their engagement with religion by inserting the mobile phone as a multifunctional techno-spiritual gadget.

This article provides an overview of the study of religion and gaming by outlining
the dominant approaches, development and themes in this new interdisciplinary
field of inquiry. It highlights dominant thematic and methodological approaches
currently within the field of religion and digital games studies including the study
of religiously-themed games, the role religion plays in mainstream games, and how
gaming can be seen as a form of “implicit religion". This critical review is
contextualized in relation to the studies presented in a forthcoming book, Playing
with Religion in Digital Games, which maps key theoretical approaches and
interpretive trends related to how different expressions of religion and religiosity
are manifested in various gaming genres and narratives. We show that digital
games are an important site of exploration into the intersection of religion and
contemporary culture helping us understand what religion is, does, and means in a
changing contemporary society.

My Pilgrims Way, Cyberpilgrimage and ‘Missio Dei’

Srebrenka Kunek
PhD (Monash University, Melbourne), MA (Theological Studies), University of Divinity, Melbourne (current), MA (University of Zagreb, Croatia), BA, Hon. (University of Zagreb, Croatia)

Misseo Dei and the Digital Age Symposium, 23-24 April 2019
CODEC Research Centre for Digital Theology
St John’s College, Durham University, England


Pilgrimage is a global phenomenon and dramatically on the rise in the networked environment of cyberspace (Helland, 2013: 32). Pilgrimage is ‘booming’ relative to the continuing decline in church attendance (Bartholomew & Llewelyn, 2004: xii).

Theological inquiry on pilgrimage is ‘rare’ (Bartholomew & Llewelyn, 2004: xiii-xiv) with churches and theologians having established a ‘long tradition of pilgrimage criticism’ (Post and van der Beek, 2016: 2).

Add to this mix missio Dei and the tensions of the concept: firstly, the church framing mission as part of ecclesiology (reference ?); secondly, church structures premised on extending mission through members (Hirsch, 2006: 82); thirdly, the potential of these structures to prevent the people as active agents spreading the Gospel thereby obstructing missio Dei (World Council of Churches, 1967: 19). Missio Dei potentially disrupts the doctrinal order of the church through the people it equips in mission.

My Pilgrims Way represents a response in being a people’s pilgrimage practice of missio Dei in online space and physical place.

Pilgrims Way is a collaborative online mapping and video storytelling project using geospatial mapping including vimeos of locations and uplifting local mission in community stories from subscriber contributions. Pilgrims Way platform is to include podcasts with presentations on pilgrimage and spiritually inspired experiences in daily life.

Pilgrims Way is a response to cybernetics the domain of human computer interface (Pangaro.com, 2018), a misseo Dei practice with pilgrims as active agents, ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal 2:20).

Different and divergent facets of human existence are increasingly becoming embodied within a digital domain. The phenomenon relating to the popularity and impact of social media, as an important expression of this new digital world, is already widely known and well-documented. Various existing and newly developed research methodologies can be used by the practical theologian in order to conduct an exploration on how the digital world can assist in the creation of new empirical realities, hermeneutic outcomes and strategic involvement. More specifically, the highly popular social media platform, Twitter, provides for a relevant and important praxis terrain illustrating the revealing dynamics of the digital world, social media and  popular culture. In an endeavour of tracking these dynamics, a practical theological tracing of Christian expressions of faith on Twitter, provided for new content and meaning which are mapped out in a variety of categories. Through the use of specific examples from specific Australian and South African Twitter accounts, deriving from the recent past, the development and meaning of new theological accents and articulations are explored and described. In the tracing and mapping of these religious reporters’ expressions of faith, accents of a possible lived spirituality are sounded out and verbalised. The research is therefore making a contribution in terms of new and relevant articulations of the language of faith. On the basis of these descriptions various possibilities unfold for new practical theological orientations and engagement in amongst other, theological education, both for the present and the future.

Online churches are internet-based Christian communities, pursuing worship, discussion, friendship, support, proselytization, and other key religious goals through computer-mediated communication. Hundreds of thousands of people are now involved with online congregations, generating new kinds of ritual, leadership, and community and new networks of global influence.

Creating Church Online constructs a rich ethnographic account of the diverse cultures of online churches, from virtual worlds to video streams. This book also outlines the history of online churchgoing, from its origins in the 1980s to the present day, and traces the major themes of academic and Christian debate around this topic. Applying some of the leading current theories in the study of religion, media and culture to this data, Tim Hutchings proposes a new model of religious design in contexts of mediatization, and draws attention to digital networks, transformative third spaces and terrains of existential vulnerability. Creating Church Online advances our understanding of the significance and impact of digital media in the religious and social lives of its users, in search of new theoretical frameworks for digital religion.　

Online Christian communities have been describing themselves as "churches" since the 1980s. [...] This chapter will explore the role of the body in online churches, mapping ways in which online worship relies on, incorporates and distances itself from the physical world. These arguments are based on my own extensive ethnographic and archival investigation of five online churches since 2005.

İletişim teknolojisinin ulaştığı düzey ve ortaya çıkardığı sonuçlar göz önüne alındığında dijitalleşmenin, muhafazakarlığın kaynağı ve koruyucusu olarak görülen dini dahi dönüştürdüğü müşahede edilmektedir. Dijitalleşme, geleneksel din tasarımında radikal değişimlere yol açmış, dinden dijital dine geçiş durumunun ortaya çıkmasına sebep olmuştur. Dijital din olgusu, yaklaşık çeyrek asırlık kısa bir geçmişe sahiptir ve bu yüzden araştırmacılar için ortak bir dijital din teorisi henüz oluşturulabilmiş değildir. Bu metinde dijital din olgusu, dijital beşeri bilimlerin yeni bir disiplini olarak tanımlanmaktadır. Mevcut çalışmalar; dinin medyadaki görünümü, dinî içerikli mobil uygulamalar, sosyal medya ve din ilişkisi gibi konular üzerine odaklanmış, dinin dijital gö- rünümlerini parça parça ele alıp tasvir eden tekil çalışmalardır. Henüz üzerinde uzlaşılmamış, terim ve sorunları tespit edilmemiş, araştırma paradigması geliştirilmemiş emekleme aşamasındaki bir entelektüel alandır. Analitik yaklaşıma dayalı bu araştırmada dijital din, dijital beşeri bilimlere ait sosyo-teknik-dijital olgu olarak tanımlanmakta; dijital din terminolojisi, sorunları, dijital beşeri bilim paradigması ve araştırma teknikleri tasvir edilmektedir. Böylece “dijital din” araştırmaları için teorik bir çerçeve sunulmaktadır.

In many contemporary and popular forms of religious practice, digital technology and the spiritual are inseparable. Ranging from streaming broadcasts of spiritual possessions to screenings of mass prayer conferences in stadiums, spirits and divinities now have new forms in which they can materialise. By offering the notion of ‘digital spirits’, this book critically attends to the intersections of digital media and spiritual beings. It also puts forward a new performative perspective on how they interact.

Taking cues from the work of Stewart Hoover and Heidi Campbell, among others, the book begins with an outline of the current debates around religion, performance and digital media. It then moves on to examine how mediality and religion, where embodied practices are carried out alongside virtual practices, work together in contemporary Asia. These case studies focus on lived religious practices in　combination with various forms of media, and so help demonstrate that digital technology in particular reveals the layered processes of spirituality in practice.

Gods and divinities have always relied on media to manifest, and this book is a fascinating exploration of how digital media has continued that tradition and taken it in new directions. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of religious studies, digital media and performance studies.

Le pratiche religiose nelle città postsecolari possono abitare i luoghi più inaspettati e con la progressiva digitalizzazione delle nostre vite quotidiane internet è diventato uno di questi. Ma può uno spazio sacro esistere su internet? Può una comunità religiosa costituirsi soltanto online? Che valore hanno le preghiere in chat? Partendo da questi interrogativi, il presente volume intende offrire la prima sistematizzazione in lingua italiana delle ricerche che, dagli anni Ottanta ad oggi, si sono interessate di come le tecnologie influenzino la pratica religiosa degli individui e delle comunità di fede. È uno studio sulle religioni digitali e le teorie sul reincantamento della tecnologia, due campi di studio che in Italia, in assenza di un chiaro inquadramento disciplinare, restano ancora vagamente esplorati, ma che, invece, molto hanno da dire all’osservatore attento che vuole rintracciare come e dove il fenomeno religioso si sposti nelle società contemporanee.

This course introduces students to the study of digital religion from a lived religions perspective. It begins with an examination of the history, concepts and methods of the field, and continues with thematic explorations of digital religion scholarship across varied religious traditions. Students develop an understanding of how scholars study religion and spiritual identities, beliefs, and practices online, and how the religious and digital arenas influence and shape one another.

As a phenomenon that has had overwhelming social, cultural and political influence, the internet has become so embedded in our lives that it is difficult to imagine how we communicated or accessed information before its invention. It is not surprising, then, that the web is also a very active religious environment with religious and spiritual groups using it extensively to proclaim their beliefs and to be in contact with their followers. In a macro sense, web-based religion is any online activity, from the simple dissemination of information about a religious group or church to full web-based religious practice. It can be understood as occurring along a spectrum from religion online at one end to online religion at the other.  First developed by Christopher Helland and further refined by Lorne Dawson, religion online means the use of the internet as a means of providing essential information about, or by, religious groups, movements, and traditions. At the other end of the spectrum, online religion sees the internet as a space that permits the practice of religion or ritual, or worship. In other words, rather than use their web browsers to simply search for information, religious followers use the web as an integral part of their religious lives (Helland, 2000; Dawson, 2005).
However, a new term has entered the academic vocabulary and is being applied to online/offline religious praxis and that is digital religion. This latest definition brings a broader meaning to online/offline religion because it accepts the reality that current religious practice co-exists in an online and an offline world simultaneously and the rapid growth of digital technology has included religious or spiritual movements.
This project focuses on three spiritual groups in Canada (English Canada only): the Universal Oneness Spiritual Center  in Toronto, Ontario, the Centre for Spiritual Living in Calgary, Alberta and Unity Vancouver in Vancouver B.C., and reviews how these three groups use the internet in their everyday activities such as ritual, prayer and meditation and compares and contrasts the pros and cons of online and offline New Age spirituality, paying particular attention to issues of social, cultural and geographical differentiation in the light of digital religion.

This article provides an overview of contemporary research within the interdisciplinary arc of scholarship known as digital religion studies, in which scholars explore the intersection between emerging digital technologies, lived and material religious practices in contemporary culture, and the impact the structures of the network society have on understandings of spirituality and religiosity. Digital religion studies specifically investigates how online and offline religious spaces and practices have become bridged, blended, and blurred as religious groups and practitioners seek to integrate their religious lives with technology use within different aspects of digital culture.

Çalışmanın amacı; dinin dijitalleşme sürecinin mobil uyguhı malar boyutunu ortaya koymak, dijital din kavramı çerçevesinde dİ nî mobil uygulamalar hakkında bilgi sunmaktır.

Çalışma; dinî mobil uygulamaların kişilerin pratik hayatına ıır kattığı, uygulamaların din mensupları tarafından nasıl karşılandıflı, söz konusu uygulamaları ortaya koyanların neyi hedeflediklerini tespit edebilmeye yönelikbir deneme mahiyetindedir.

From the Introduction:
"Part III starts out with a chapter by Tim Hutchings on the contemporary interplay between traditional sacred texts and digital technologies. Hutchings explores how the YouVersion Bible App is transforming the relationships among Bible readers, their pastors and the Christian publishing industry, with important implications for religious agency and traditional modes of religious authority and hierarchy structures. The chapter explores the changing environments and modes of traditional religious practice that have emerged following the development and proliferation of digital media technologies and their penetration into traditional religious settings."

Death and bereavement are particularly interesting areas of study during times of cultural change, life events during which we may expect to see new practices and ideas embraced or resisted. This chapter focuses on the significance of digital media in contemporary bereavement practices, activities that traditionally have involved much attention to the management and expression of emotion. I will examine a range of practices - including funerals in online communities, news-sharing, cybermemorials and the use of social network sites - to investigate some of the ways in which "emotional repertoires" are being preserved and transformed as digital media take on increasingly central roles in our daily lives.

It is significant that we are witnessing the growth of a distinct subfield focusing on new media and religion as the relationship between the two is not just important, it is vital. I discuss in this article how this vitality is both figurative and literal in multiple dimensions. Mediated communication brings forth and constitutes the (re)production of spiritual realities and collectivities, as well as co-enacts religious authority. In this way, new mediations serve as the lifeblood for religious organizing and activism. Further research in religious communication will illuminate a richer understanding of digital religion, especially as a globally distributed phenomenon.

Following a Global Mediatic audience linked to the scandal of the supposed First Human Cloned baby in 2002, the Raelian Movement, an ufologist and charismatic organization founded in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon a.k.a Rael, based all of its communication on the Internet. At the same time, trough what he calls the “Online Planetary Meditation", the Raelian staff is trying to establish a kind of ritual which can be related to Christopher Helland’s definition of “Online Religion”. The OPM presents can be described as a meditation session organized weekly on the Internet from a chatroom where individuals, represented by avatars, meet and follow a meditation session whose gestures and postures are supposed to reproduce the physical world. This article reports on an ethnographic survey on the Internet and face to face, at the faithful's home, and questions the relationship between the off line and the online spaces in this practice. The article characterizes the ritual dimension of MPL by showing that it is an online cult, and highlights the dynamics of ritual transfer between MPL and "sensual meditation", a basic practice of movement. However, if we analyze it in terms of symbolic effectiveness, several elements could help us to understand the breathlessness of a practice which presents itself more as a "religious communication artifact".

The Babylon Bee, a Christian parody and satire website launched in March 2016, has quickly gained attention and a large following amongst Evangelical Christians and communities online. This paper argues that the site promotes a specific strain of Evangelicalism that may be understood through the concept of countersymbols developed by Jonathan J. Edwards. Using Edwards's notions of countersymbols as an organizing concept to analyze the use of parodic and satirical rhetoric, this article argues that The Babylon Bee portrays a vision of the church in contemporary society that may be described as exemplifying the countersymbol of "Sincerity."

Among Indonesia's traditionalist Muslims, anecdotes of saintly marvels (karāma) relating occurrences that contradict reason or human understanding of nature are lodged in everyday conversations. While scholars have noted how recounting and listening to karāma anecdotes is believed by Muslims to transmit the blessing (baraka) of the saints and facilitate their intercession, this article explores such anecdotes' capacity to engender conversations about God and other issues pertaining to religious belief. It does so by observing the circulation of karāma anecdotes among Indonesia's traditionalist Muslims on Facebook and their role in provoking a variety of God-talk. The circulation of such anecdotes affords their publics with the ability to assent to, engage with, debate, and question theological propositions. Facebook creates the material preconditions for the production and circulation of accessible and shareable karāma anecdotes that enable Muslims beyond the scholastic elites to participate in theological discussion and reflection while facilitating digital practices that can be construed as theologically meaningful. It also facilitates various disputations, including those that are theological, between Muslims adhering to different Islamic currents. Far from simply being a channel of communication or a mode of dissemination, Facebook may indeed come to function as a digital infrastructure of theology.

This article – framed within digital religion studies – analyzes the online religiousactivities  of  a  non-denominational  Christian  multisite  church,  LifePoint  Church(LPC). A multisite church is a church with a central location that serves as a hub orproduction  center  for  the  church’s  activities  and  service  contents,  which  aredistributed to multiple sites in different locations through video or webcasts. LPCis an international multisite church: it has five campuses: three in the United States,one in Bangkok, and another one in Brussels. The LPC Brussels campus serves as acase study to observe how communication technologies, in particular the Internet,are  adopted  by  both  pastors  and  members  to  recreate  the  same  ‘sacramentalenvironment’ across the five churches. Through online observation, interviews, andquestionnaires, this research reveals two different usages of the Internet made byLPC. One usage is public, official, informative and formal, and is promoted by theChurch’s  leadership;  the  other  is  unofficial  and  is  characterized  by  private  andintimate communication among the Church’s members. The article will analyze indepth how the congregants create this informal communication,  which intensifiesgroup solidarity, members’ virtual religious practice, and group identity.

When Buddhism fails to live up to the projected promise of its doctrine or past forms, it is often the human nature of its adherents (‘Bad Buddhists’), rather than the content of its teachings (‘Bad Buddhism’), that is blamed. But what if such human failings - greed, corruption, violence, even mortality - could be transcended? In the quest for a ‘good Buddhism,’ high-tech designs that utilise robotics, artificial intelligence, algorithmic agency, and other advancements are increasingly pursued as solutions by innovators inside and outside Buddhist communities. In this paper, we interrogate two recent cases of what we call ‘Buddhist techno-salvationism’. Firstly, Pepper, the semi-humanoid robot who performs funeral sutras to a rapidly secularising and aging population of parishioners in Japan. Secondly, the Lotos Network, a US start-up proposing to use blockchain technology to combat financial corruption within global sanghas. We argue that such robotic and digital experiments are the logical outcome of techno-salvationist discourses that identify human failings as the principal barrier to perfect Buddhist praxis. If not always practical solutions, these interventions are powerful nonetheless as contested projections of Buddhist futures.

The digital space is understood not as a parallel and antithetical component of one’s lived existentiality but a significant and substantial component of human existence that if ethically considered can be a platform for realizing religious identity, mission, and vocation. In this paper, social media platforms are argued as the new digital agoras that reflect the dynamics of the ancient Greek agoras. The nexus of interaction between the social media as the new agora and the Christian vocation and mission of evangelization and apostleship is the point of realized commitment among Christians to take part in the formation of a culture of synodality through an empowered and engaged presence in social media. Divided into two parts, the paper tackles social media platforms as the new agoras of the contemporary world and delves into a theological exploration of the digital apostleship in the new agoras with particular stress on the universality of the vocation and its potential contribution toward realizing the vision of a synodal Church.

Today, it is challenging to separate online and offline spaces and activities, and this is also true of digital religion as online and offline religious spaces become blended or blurred. With this background, the article explores the need for new typologies of what is religious on the Internet and proposes a conceptual framework for mapping digital religion. Four types of that which is religious on the Internet are presented based on influential classification by Helland. He introduced (1) religion online (sites that provide information without interactivity) and (2) online religion (interactivity and participation). Helland’s concept is developed by, among others, adding two types: (3) innovative religion (new religious movements, cults, etc.) and (4) traditional religion (e.g., Christianity or Islam). Each type is illustrated by selected examples and these are a result of a larger project. The examples are grouped into three areas: (1) religious influencers, (2) online rituals and (3) cyber-religions (parody religions). Additionally, the visual frame for mapping digital religion is presented including the examples mentioned. The presented framework attempts to improve Helland’s classification by considering a more dynamic nature of digital religion. The model is just one possible way for mapping digital religion and thus should be developed further. These and other future research threads are characterized.

This article analyses two ‘digital Bibles’, products that allow the user
to engage with the Bible through the screen and speakers of his/her
mobile phone, tablet or computer. Both products, ‘YouVersion’ and
‘GloBible’, have been created by Evangelical Christian companies. I
argue that both are designed to train the user in traditional Evangelical
Christian understandings of the work of reading. Digital media offer
new opportunities to guide and influence the user, and this article
applies the concepts of ‘persuasive technologies’ and ‘procedural
rhetoric’ to analyse the design intentions of the two digital Bibles.
This approach helps us to appreciate the significance of the material
form of a sacred text as a vehicle for religious socialisation and
raises important questions about the potential for digital media to
re-shape traditional relationships of power in Evangelical Christian
communities.

This chapter argues that a deeper understanding of the connection between video games and religion can be made possible by adopting an experiential understanding of both phenomena. My primary interest lies not in discussing institutional religion or religiosity as a sociological concept, but in addressing religion as an "aesthetic sensibility" underlying our daily experiences – often without us noticing. Building on Karhulahti's idea of double hermeneutics of games as a fusion of the "aesthetic-textual  and the "ludo-performative," I suggest using a phenomenological hermeneutic approach to examine the ludo-narrative interplay in games and connect it to the phenomenological dimension of religion. In the second part of the chapter, I adopt the method to link the Japanese genre of the visual novel to Japan's religio-aesthetic concept of ma.

The proliferation of social media in China has provided traditional religious authorities with multifarious digital features to revitalise and reinforce their practices and beliefs. However, under the authoritative political system different religions pick up the new media to varying degrees, thereby showing different characteristic and style in their social media use. This paper examines the public discourse about Buddhism and Christianity (two of the great official religions in China) on China's largest microblogging platform-Sina Weibo, and seeks to reveal a distinct landscape of religious online public in China. Through a close look at the social media posts aided by a text analytics software, Leximancer, this paper comparatively investigates several issues related to the Buddhism and Christianity online publics, such as religious networks, interactions between involved actors, the economics and politics of religion, and the role of religious charitable organizations. The result supports Campbell's proposition on digital religion that religious groups typically do not reject new technologies, but rather undergo a sophisticated negotiation process in accord with their communal norms and beliefs. It also reveals that in China a secular Buddhism directly contributes to a

This edited volume deploys digital ethnography in varied contexts to explore the cultural roles of mobile apps that focus on religious practice and communities, as well as those used for religious purposes (whether or not they were originally developed for that purpose). Combining analyses of local contexts with insights and methods from the global subfield of digital anthropology, the contributors here recognize the complex ways that in-app and on-ground worlds interact in a wide range of communities and traditions. While some of the case studies emphasize the cultural significance of use in local contexts and relationships to pre-existing knowledge networks and/or non-digital relationships of power, others explore the globalizing and democratizing influences of mobile apps as communication technologies. From Catholic confession apps to Jewish Kaddish assistance apps and Muslim halal food apps, readers will see how religious-themed mobile apps create complex sites for potential new forms of religious expression, worship, discussion, and practices.

To purchase the book online see: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030263751

Öz Günümüz iletişim teknolojilerinin toplumsal yaşama egemen olduğu çağ, dijital çağ olarak tanımlanmaktadır. Bilgisayar, akıllı telefon, tablet, internet ve benzeri dijital iletişim teknolojilerinin kullanımı ve gittikçe artan işlevleri toplumsal hayatın; iktisadi, kültürel ve dini boyutlarını da içerisine alan bir dijitalleşme sürecini beraberinde getirmiştir. Bu durum, toplumsal düzlemde yeni bir sosyal sistem inşa etmiş, geleneksel toplumsal yapı ile kurumlarda yaşanan değişim ve dönüşümü hızlandırmıştır. Bu süreçte önemli bir toplumsal kurum olan dinin ve dindarlık anlayışlarının içerik ve şekil açısından bir değişime uğradığı gözlemlenmektedir. Bu bağlamda dijital çağdaki birey/toplum ile din arasında kendine özgü bir ilişki ortaya çıkmış; dini anlayış, pratik ve örgütlenme biçimleri yeni bir form kazanmaya başlamıştır. Dijitalleşme sürecinin en önemli ayağı olan yeni medya ve mobil iletişim teknolojileri ise, dinin; inanç, ahlak, ibadet, cemaat ve benzeri unsurları üzerindeki yerleşik dini kabul ve dindarlık anlayışlarının değişimine yol açmıştır. Dijitalleşme sürecini bu bağlamda ele alan çalışma, toplum hayatına eklemlenen dijital iletişim teknolojilerinin özellikle de dijital medyanın toplumdaki dini anlayış ve dindarlığı nasıl dönüştürdüğünü nitel yaklaşımla analiz etmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Abstract Today can be described as a digital age in which communication technologies prevail the social life. Use of computers, smart phones, tablets, internet and similar communication technologies and the increasing function of these brings along a digitalization process which embraces the economic, cultural and religious dimensions of social life. This has constructed a new social system on the societal level, bringing change and transformation in the social structure and institutions. Within this period, religion, being an important social institution and religiosity are observed to change substantially in terms of form and content. In this sense, a sui generis relation between religion and individual/society of the digital era, patterns of religiosity, practice and organization have started to turn into a new form. Internet and mobile communication technology, one of the most important agents of the digitalization era, has led the intrinsic acceptances of religious elements such as faith, worship, and community to change. This study, which approaches digitalization process in this context, aims to carry out a qualitative analysis on how digital technology, especially digital media that has become a constituent of social life, has transformed the perception of religion and piety in the society. ATIF: Haberli, M. (2019). Dijital çağda din ve dindarlığın dönüşümü. Medya ve Din Araştırmaları Dergisi (MEDİAD), 2(2), s. 307-315.

"Believing in Bits is a guide to why media technologies are magical: they create beliefs, manipulate thoughts, make us see things. After reading this wonderful collection of essays, you realize why the most natural thing about media is that they are supernatural. This book is full of media archaeological joys and insightful contemporary readings." - Jussi Parikka, Professor of Technological Culture & Aesthetics, University of Southampton

"Human beings and their technological creations, including and especially their modern digital technologies, reflect, express, and intensify their fundamental strangeness. Scholars have long known that the history of religions is intimately related to the history of technology, from the ancient practices of agriculture, writing, the domestication of the horse, and the forging of iron, to the more recent invention of the printing press and the telegraph and telephone. This book takes that key insight into the present and near future, to the cell phone in your pocket, the computer game on your screen, and the VR system strapped around your skull. This book takes that key insight into the human-techno cyborg that is you." - Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions

Believing in Bits advances the idea that religious beliefs and practices have become inextricably linked to the functioning of digital media. How did we come to associate things such as mindreading and spirit communications with the functioning of digital technologies? How does the internets capacity to facilitate the proliferation of beliefs blur the boundaries between what is considered fiction and fact? Addressing these and similar questions, the volume challenges and redefines established understandings of digital media and culture by employing the notions of belief, religion, and the supernatural.

Within Religious Education in the Irish post primary sector, there is little evidence of smartphone use for supporting mobile learning. This research aims to address this shortcoming by exploring our experience of smartphone microblogging supporting mobile learning. A participatory action research (PAR) methodology was employed. Research participants involved one teacher-researcher and a hundred and five first year post primary students of Religious Education from an Educational Training Board (ETB) school. A mixed method design was employed using both quantitative and qualitative data from pre and post online surveys, pre and post-research questionnaires, focus groups, online posts from Edmodo and the teacher-researcher’s own reflective journal. The research question was ‘What were our experiences of smartphone microblogging supporting mobile learning on ‘Images of God?’ ‘Images of God’ is a module from the Junior Certificate Religious Education syllabus. Mobile learning was defined as consisting of three aspects: the device, learner and social aspect as theorised in Koole’s (2009) Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education (FRAME) model. First, the device aspect of mobile learning examined Edmodo’s technical challenges and conveniences as well as measuring research participants’ perceptions through the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) research instrument (Davis 1989). Second, the learner aspect of mobile learning explored students’ use of Edmodo for supporting cognitive learning, collaborative learning and deeper learning within post primary Religious Education. Third, the social aspect of mobile learning investigated Edmodo as a virtual learning community and a safe space for the students to disclose and discuss their personal images of God that included agnostic and atheist worldviews. The social aspect also provided an insight into suitable pedagogy stemming from relevant mobile learning theories for supporting smartphone microblogging. This research concluded with recommendations for practising smartphone microblogging for supporting mobile learning within post primary Religious Education.

Yadlin-Segal, A. (2015). Communicating Identity through Religious Internet Memes in the "Tweeting Orthodoxies" Facebook Page. In: H. Campbell (Ed.), Digital Judaism: Jewish Negotiations with Digital Media and Culture (pp. 110-124). Routledge.