Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture

Pauline Hope Cheong (PhD, University of Southern California) is Associate Professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University. She has published widely on the social implications of communication technologies, including religious authority and community, and is the lead editor of New Media and Intercultural Communication.Peter Fischer-Nielsen (PhD, Aarhus University, Denmark) is Head of Communications at the Danish IT company KirkeWeb. He has published articles on new media in relation to religion, Christianity and church especially in the Nordic context and has been an editorial staff member at the influential website www.religion.dk.Stefan Gelfgren (PhD, Umeå University, Sweden: MPhil, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom) is Associate Professor at HUMlab & Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Umeå University. He has published mainly on the relation between social and religious changes from the sixteenth century until today.Charles Ess (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is Professor MSO in the Information and Media Studies Department, Aarhus University. He has published extensively in the areas of computer-mediated communication, Internet research ethics and information ethics with an emphasis on cross-cultural perspectives throughout.

«This book is a very important waypoint on the quest for a better understanding of the digital change and its influence on religion. Based on a thorough scholarly analysis of how religious communities and pastors negotiate the new media, the authors develop new perspectives for the global future. Readers come away with a grounded theoretical and empirical understanding of this new and exciting landscape of digital religion and digital spirituality.» (Viggo Mortensen, Professor in Global Christianity at Aarhus University, Denmark)«Falling clearly in the realm of the ‘third wave of research’ exploring the relationship between religion and the Internet, this work is multidisciplinary and mature in its undertaking. Bringing together top scholars from the field, this volume develops new theories and insights based upon solid ethnographic research, case studies and an examination of the historical relationships between new media and religion. This book accomplishes what it set out to do – help us make sense of this new form of religious activity in our increasingly wired world.» (Christopher Helland, Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion, Dalhousie University, Canada)

• Contents: Pauline Hope Cheong/Charles Ess: Introduction: Religion 2.0? Relational and Hybridizing Pathways in Religion, Social Media, and Culture – Knut Lundby: Dreams of Church in Cyberspace – Bernie Hogan/Barry Wellman: The Immanent Internet Redux – Bala A. Musa/Ibrahim M. Ahmadu: New Media, Wikifaith and Church Brandversation: A Media Ecology Perspective – Heidi Campbell: How Religious Communities Negotiate New Media Religiously – Jørgen Straarup: When Pinocchio Goes to Church: Exploring an Avatar Religion – Peter Fischer-Nielsen: Pastors on the Internet: Online Responses to Secularization – Lorenzo Cantoni/Emanuele Rapetti/Stefano Tardini/Sara Vannini/Daniel Arasa: PICTURE: The Adoption of ICT by Catholic Priests – Mark D. Johns: Voting «Present»: Religious Organizational Groups on Facebook – Stine Lomborg/Charles Ess: «Keeping the Line Open and Warm»: An Activist Danish Church and Its Presence on Facebook – Pauline Hope Cheong: Twitter of Faith: Understanding Social Media Networking and Microblogging Rituals as Religious Practices – Tim Hutchings: Creating Church Online: Networks and Collectives in Contemporary Christianity – Stefan Gelfgren: «Let There Be Digital Networks and God Will Provide Growth?» Comparing Aims and Hopes of 19th-Century and Post-Millennial Christianity – Peter Horsfield: «A Moderate Diversity of Books?» The Challenge of New Media to the Practice of Christian Theology – Sam Han: Clocks and Computers: The Doctrine of Imago Dei, Technologies, and Humanism – Lynne M. Baab: Toward a Theology of the Internet: Place, Relationship, and Sin – Peter Fischer-Nielsen/Stefan Gelfgren: Conclusion: Religion in a Digital Age: Future Developments and Research Directions.