Module 1: Topic 1.5 and Topic 1.6

Topic 1.5 - Faith and Spirituality Online

Dawson & Cowan - Religion Online: Finding faith on the Internet

p. 2

The shift from the offline world to the online indicates two important social consequences on the Internet - a crisis of authority and a crisis of authenticity

• there is no mechanism by which information posted to or claims made on the Internet may be vetted beforehand --> the phenomenon of "instant experts"
• in the online world a religious group can be created by anyone regardless of experience, can include any amount of people and can exist as discussion lists instead of serious religious working groups

p. 3

With enough exposure to the Internet, religious people may come to doubt the absolute claims of sacredness and permanence that a religious site can make in the "real world" in light of the ephemerality and heightened access to religion online

The coexistence of so many different and openly heterodox views online exposes the Net user to a more fluid doctrinal environment --> encouraging individual religious and spiritual experimentation

p. 4

Adam - distant healing

• miraculous healings are common to religious traditions
• the use of the Internet allows it to happen more easily, free from the scrutiny of churches, the state, the medical professions and other people; it allows him to protect his identity

p. 5

There is a growing asymmetry in Internet users

• In 2001, less than 1% of Africa's population had access to the Internet
• --> digital divide where the lack of access means there is no meaningful participation by global users
• Internet content reflects deeply embedded social and cultural divisions and further contributes to them

p.7

Religion online - describes the provision of information about and/or services related to various religious groups and traditions

Online religion - invites Internet visitors to participate in religious practices e.g. online prayer, spiritual counselling, online Tarot readings

p. 9

"The habitat in which we live is always changed by our inventions ... Communications technologies mold the messages we deliver in unanticipated ways as well, crucially influencing our self-conceptions, notions of human relations and community, and the nature of reality itself"

p. 10

• the Internet is an interactive and not simply a broadcast medium
• the Internet is truly multimedial
• the Internet employs hypertextuality
• anyone can launch himself onto the WWW with relative ease and little expense
• the Internet is global in its reach

Fukui - Worship 2.0

Elizabeth Drescher

• Web 3.0 - about new technologies that allow our devices to understand what we're interested in
• Applications that look at your daily activity and use that information to direct you to communities you may be interested in
• "So there's a whole different movement now that's starting to connect people in their daily lives more thoroughly with one another, using technology"

Heidi Campbell

• "...their apps, their resources through their mobile phone, help them kind of augment their spirituality in a 24/7 way"
• "It allows the extension of our spiritual lives as well as the accentuation of certain practices ... it's almost privatising a public space" - conducting a religious practice on your phone can be private, while open prayer in a public place is not

Elizabeth Drescher

• "religion is being shaped by new media" - it would have been very difficult for a lay person to decide that they were going to organise a community around a certain way of communicating about scripture and to then have 10 million people be drawn to it

Heidi Campbell

• What is a community when it comes to social media
• loosely bound networks of varying social relationships
• networked society allows us to select those relationships
• Religious community
• no longer is there a singular authority figure (religious, political) at the centre of the community, it's the individual
• Shifting authority
• religious authorities are being challenged by the Internet and these new social structures
• they also have opportunities to be empowered
• Blogging
• blogging may critique or challenge traditional doctrines or religious leaders, undermining religious authorities
• religious leaders could become bloggers to affirm their authority and to use the Internet to monitor their members' practices

Masako Fukui

• "...most religious organisations portray themselves online pretty much as they are offline, so their religious structures, ideologies, or theologies are not continually being challenged"
• "...one of the most empowering aspects of social media is that it allows people to author their own religious narratives. And this challenges the role of religious leaders in new and interesting ways"

Paul Jacaobson

• "...the process is to try to help it expand from being a linear learning process with a fixed beginning and a fixed end and to allow this to expand in any variety of directions ... we never read the same text in the same way twice"

Elizabeth Drescher

• Truth and Authority
• before European reformations of the Christian church, truth meant fidelity, reliability and there was malleability
• when printing took over and words were locked onto a page, there was less flexibility to find in the truth
• now we are understanding truth as something that is socially mediated
• "We're seeing a return to that kind of expansive version of truth and a socially authorised sense of authority"

Lisa Colton

• Reasons for resistance
• Fear over how much time it is going to take to respond to everyone participating
• Fear of hate comments appearing in your online spaces
• The question about religious authority is a challenge
• I.e. accessibility to that authority and how that person can be a leader of a community
• "...in the social media space we're now talking about 'return on engagement' rather than 'return on investment"
• "...it's about relationships and it's about individuals' identity ... their ... identity as an individual and the way that they relate to the broader community"

Alex Pang

• Contemplative about technologies
• "...being able to observe ourselves using them, to be able to observe why it is that we feel the need to check our email every five minutes, or why it is that we like getting the little burst of affirmation that comes when someone 'likes' something that we've said on Facebook"
• Contemplative with technologies
• "...the idea with contemplative computing was to ask whether it's possible to design information technologies, and to design interactions with technologies, that help people focus, help them be more mindful, help them be more creative"