Content uploaded by Pauline Hope Cheong
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Pauline Hope Cheong on Mar 02, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
d
d
1. Introduction: Religion 2.0? Relational
and Hybridizing Pathways in Religion,
Social Media, and Culture
Pauline HoPe CHeong and CHarles ess
Religion 2.0?
“Religion 2.0” can be aptly introduced by the example of Confession: A Roman
Catholic App for the iPhone and iPad (Little i Apps, 2011). For the relatively
modest price of $1.99, Confession invites users to confess, and keep track of,
their sins. As we will discuss in this chapter, it is enormously significant that
Confession is not marketed as a complete and virtual replacement for a central
rite in the Roman Catholic tradition. Rather, as the Confession description on
iTunes carefully points out:
The text of this app was developed in collaboration with Rev. Thomas G. Wein-
andy, OFM, Executive Director of the Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral
Practices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Rev. Dan
Scheidt, pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Mishawaka, IN. The
app received an imprimatur from Bishop Kevin C. Rhodes of the Diocese of
Fort Wayne—South Bend. It is the first known imprimatur to be given for an
iPhone/iPad app. (ibid.)
In this way, Confession is careful to make explicit how far it is integrally
interwoven with both the traditions and relevant authoritative hierarchy of
the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover, Confession users are reminded that in
order to receive absolution for their sins, they will still need to take the matter
up with a real priest in a real church. Confession is hence clearly still rooted
within the ancient practices and structures of the Roman Catholic Church,
and, if anything, seeks to reinforce and enhance those structures and practices
rather than call them into question, much less seek to overturn them.
Cheong et al_Book.indb 1 14/12/11 7:14 PM
2digital religion, soCial media and Culture
Confession represents and exemplifies larger trends that emerge across the
course of this volume on digital religion, new media, and culture. Here, we
and our contributors examine how far “religion”—meaning, minimally, the
individual and institutionalized practices, values, and beliefs that make up
specific religious traditions—interacts with the multiple affordances and pos-
sibilities of computer-mediated communication, most especially those affili-
ated with Web 2.0. We understand these to include social media especially,
such as social networking sites (Facebook), blogs and micro-blogs (Twitter),
sites featuring user-generated content (YouTube and Wikipedia), and virtual
worlds and online games (Second Life and World of Warcraft ). Most broadly,
contrary to 1990s’ theory and rhetoric that emphasized radical distinctions
between the (online) virtual and the (offline) real—so that, for example, some
might argue that a virtual church or a virtual practice such as Confession could
fully replace their offline, real-world counterparts and connection points—
Religion 2.0 by and large represents an amalgamation and assemblage of real-
and virtual-world practices. To be sure—and in keeping with much of the
hype surrounding Web 2.0 as ostensibly ushering in a new age of radical indi-
vidualism and thereby greater freedom, equality, and democracy— the affor-
dances and practices of Web 2.0 media in many ways profoundly challenge
more traditional structures, norms, and practices. At the same time, however,
these challenges—with few but notable exceptions—issue less in radical revo-
lution, and more in transformation and reconfiguration of existing practices,
beliefs, and infrastructures. These findings, moreover, are consistent with
similar patterns noted in the broader fields of new media and intercultural
communication (Cheong, Martin, & Macfadyen, 2012) and Internet Stud-
ies (Ess & Consalvo, 2011). So it is, then, that Confession seeks to comple-
ment and amplify, but ultimately reinforce—not replace—an ancient religious
practice.
To see how this is so, we begin with a brief note on the origins of this
volume, as an entrée into the larger conceptual matters and issues that con-
stitute the frameworks of the volume. We will then briefly introduce the
chapters themselves, as organized into three sections: “Theorizing Digi-
tal Religion,” “Empirical Investigations,” and “Historical and Theological
Examinations.” Following this, we will explicate three major themes that cut
across the organizational boundaries of the sections, namely, identity, com-
munity, and authority. Specifically, we articulate a dialectical perspective in
digital religion and culture, by identifying central tensions and highlighting
multiple interdependent links that are characteristic of what Schement and
Stephenson (1996) noted as “unavoidable frictions” and “endemic tensions”
in mediated religious practice. We will explore how specific chapters contrib-
ute to these relational and hybridizing dynamics with the three major themes,
as part of our developing a broader understanding of Religion 2.0.
Cheong et al_Book.indb 2 14/12/11 7:14 PM
3
Introduction
Origins
Our volume has its beginnings at the Church and Mission in a Multireligious
Third Millennium conference, held at Aarhus University, Denmark (Janu-
ary 27–29, 2010). The co-editors of this book collaborated on the organi-
zation and presentation of a paper session and a panel, entitled Church in
Cyberspace and Church and Social Media, respectively, in which we empha-
sized attention—theoretical, theological, and empirical—to social media
and religion in particular. Inspired by both Knut Lundby’s keynote for the
conference— included here in revised form—as well as by our initial find-
ings as collected in the panel presentations, we thought it might be time for
an anthology focusing on what we now call Religion 2.0, i.e., the manifold
interactions between, on the one hand, diverse expressions and institutions
affiliated with religious traditions and practices around the globe, and, on the
other, the equally diverse and rapidly changing affordances and possibilities
of Web 2.0. Our thoughts on the timeliness of such an anthology were rein-
forced by the fact that it has now been over seven years since the appearance of
a major volume dedicated to religion and CMC (Computer Mediated Com-
munication). Happily, Mary Savigar and Steve Jones at Peter Lang agreed that
a collection on Religion 2.0 would be worth pursuing as part of their Digital
Formations series. And so, in addition to encouraging panel contributors to
develop their presentations into suitable chapters, we issued an open call for
papers and also invited key figures in the field of religion and CMC to partici-
pate. Very happily, the result is what we like to think of as a symbiosis between
younger and more seasoned scholars and researchers.
The first section, “Theorizing Digital Religion,” begins with a revised ver-
sion of Knut Lundby’s keynote speech, Dreams of Church in Cyberspace. Lundby
took up a media sociological perspective, one that focused more closely on the
content of messages rather than their medium. Lundby was thereby able to cri-
tique more enthusiastic claims for cyberspace, virtual communities, etc., in ways
that are directly relevant to the Church’s interest in mission.
Bernie Hogan and Barry Wellman echo and reinforce Lundby’s critiques
by way of a larger historical overview of Internet Studies. As the title suggests,
“The Immanent Internet Redux” argues against 1990s’ claims of a radical
divorce between the real and the virtual, the offline and the online—a divorce
that would otherwise issue a “transcendent Internet.” While instances of such
a divorce can be found, the prevailing trends are in the opposite direction—
again, as our opening example of Confession suggests—towards complemen-
tary relationships and resonance between offline and online.
Pushing beyond familiar notions of Web 2.0, Bala A. Musa and Ibrahim
M. Ahmadu seek to build a more complex and holistic model of contemporary
communication. Their “New Media, Wikifaith and Church Brandversation”
Cheong et al_Book.indb 3 14/12/11 7:14 PM
digital religion, soCial media and Culture
4
focuses specifically on “Wikifaith” as “people-centered, people-cultivated,”
vis-à-vis specific processes of “brandversation,” i.e., the diverse processes
that shape specific churches and their sense of identity, as they perceive
the need to establish themselves as brands in a market-oriented, pluralistic
society. One of their central questions is how far the church can learn to
sell itself in this new environment—but without selling out entirely and
becoming simply another commodity shaped entirely by the casual needs
and interests of “prosumers” (p. 75). It is worth noting here that Peter
Fischer-Nielsen and Stefan Gelfgren highlight precisely this theme of ever-
growing commercialization as a major point of concern and research in
their concluding chapter.
In her “How Religious Communities Negotiate New Media Religiously,”
Heidi Campbell raises these and related core issues concerning how religious
institutions—and individuals—can retain something of their traditions and
identities in contemporary (and, as Musa and Ahmadu remind us, increas-
ingly commercialized and commercializing) communication environments.
Rather than addressing these questions head on, Campbell instead gives us an
account of her “religious-social shaping of technology” theory, a framework
developed to illuminate the complex interactions between religious com-
munities and new communication technologies. These foundations thereby
reinforce—now at a theoretical level—our broader theme of how far online
religion is shaped by its offline points of origin and return.
Jørgen Straarup takes up some of the most intriguing possibilities of new
media and Web 2.0—what he calls “avatar religion.” His analysis in “When
Pinocchio Goes to Church: Exploring an Avatar Religion” suggests that
despite the revolutionary potential of new media, even avatars seek com-
munity—community that appears to require precisely the (sometimes very)
traditional, real-world communities and practices that serve as the origins and
destinations of their virtual counterparts.
As its title “Empirical Investigations,” suggests, chapters in the second sec-
tion intend to balance and complement our theoretical beginnings with what
can be known empirically about contemporary practices and patterns. So, we
begin with Peter Fischer-Nielsen, whose “Pastors on the Internet: Online
Responses to Secularization” summarizes his extensive analysis of how Dan-
ish pastors respond to the communicative possibilities of Web 2.0. Fischer-
Nielsen’s research highlights three possible strategies for responding to the
challenges new media and Web 2.0 bring in their wake—most bluntly, in terms
of a threat of secularization (a threat already felt strongly in highly secular Den-
mark, where only ca. 4% of the population attend a church on a regular basis).
Contra the tendencies, even today, to hype new media as new and thereby
revolutionary, Lorenzo Cantoni and his colleagues approach the appropria-
tion of new media by the Roman Catholic Church as a “normal stage” in the
Cheong et al_Book.indb 4 14/12/11 7:14 PM
5
Introduction
development of the Church’s activities. Their study, utilizing an international
survey, is distinctive, as they interrogate precisely the primary representatives
of the church hierarchy—namely, priests and bishops—regarding their under-
standings of, and responses to, new media. Their quantitative analysis thereby
nicely complements the more external analysis of Catholic media usage pro-
vided by Campbell.
In “Voting ‘Present’: Religious Organization Groups on Facebook,”
Mark D. Johns examines how individuals interact with Facebook groups
initiated by diverse religious organizations. Contrary to the hopes of
some—i.e., that the more interactive media of Web 2.0 might “empower”
individuals to shape, and participate more extensively in, the lives of insti-
tutions, including congregations—Johns finds instead that those who join
such groups usually just stop there. That is, their action amounts to little
more than hitting the “join” or “like” button in Facebook; no further
engagement follows. While these actions are of symbolic significance, as
they mark and index individuals’ religious identity, Johns’ findings also
serve as a reality check for those institutions that hope that if they make
themselves apparent online via such groups, more engagement with their
real-world communities will follow.
In their case study, Stine Lomborg and Charles Ess reinforce and com-
plement Johns’ findings. The title of their chapter, “‘Keeping the Line Open
and Warm’: An Activist Danish Church and Its Presence on Facebook,”
quotes a young pastor who deftly uses the social networking site to main-
tain and refresh extant relationships with congregants. But, as we will discuss
more fully below, church leaders and congregants have responded to the vari-
ous ways that such media may challenge traditional authority and hierarchies
with a renegotiation process that takes on board some of the affordances of
the new media, but only insofar as these complement and reinforce the real-
world community.
Pauline Hope Cheong’s “Twitter of Faith: Understanding Social Media
Networking and Microblogging Rituals as Religious Practices” focuses on
how believers seek to appropriate and exploit micro-blogs such as Twitter
for a variety of community-building purposes, including evangelism, media-
tion, and prayer. Echoing the thematic of “church as brand,” Cheong finds
that blogging practices contribute to the construction of “faith brands,” as
such practices encourage both loyalty to church leadership as well as church
growth through evangelism. The chapter also discusses some of the potential
advantages of microblogging as a religious practice, as well as its more shady
side, and suggests multiple areas for future research.
The last chapter in this section, by Tim Hutchings, represents one of
the most extensive investigations into online churches through participant-
observation methodology that we know of. His “Creating Church Online:
Cheong et al_Book.indb 5 14/12/11 7:14 PM
digital religion, soCial media and Culture
6
Networks and Collectives in Contemporary Christianity” begins with a
solid historical overview of research in these domains, and then turns to
close inquiry into five of the best-known examples of online church. Echo-
ing many of the chapters in this volume, as well as, as we have begun to
see, larger trends in Internet Studies over the past decade or so, Hutchings
finds that “These online groups may be viewed as communities, but also as
components in wider collectives of digital and local religious activity, and
as connections in the self-constructed religious networks of their visitors”
(p. 221).
Our third and last section, “Historical and Theological Examinations,”
broadens our attention out to the longer histories of media and religion,
and to careful efforts to examine both historical and contemporary interac-
tions between religion and media in theological terms. We open with Stefan
Gelfgren’s “ ‘Let There Be Digital Networks and God Will Provide Growth?’
Comparing Aims and Hopes of 19th-Century and Post-Millennial Christi-
anity.” Gelfgren’s comparison between expectations, hopes—and fears—
surrounding the introduction of new media in the 19th century (e.g., printed
tracts) and those familiar from more recent times, as inspired by the emer-
gence of social media, is a salutary counter to early claims about the latter as,
for example, perhaps the most revolutionary event since the invention of fire
(John Perry Barlow, 1996). Gelfgren further expands on the attention we’ve
seen paid to how churches are goaded to negotiate new media use within a
highly commercialized, consumer-driven marketplace that demands branding
and competition (Musa & Ibrahim; Cheong).
Peter Horsfield’s “‘A Moderate Diversity of Books?’ The Challenge of
New Media to the Practice of Christian Theology” turns us directly towards
theology. Horsfield uses the now well-known framework of communica-
tion theory that we have drawn on from the outset—as developed by the
likes of McLuhan, Innis, and Eisenstein, and especially Walter Ong—so as
to approach human cultural history in terms of four primary communication
technologies, namely orality, literacy, and print, and then the secondary oral-
ity of electric media (cf. Ess, 2010). Horsfield draws a picture of how Chris-
tian theology is transformed in foundational ways as theology itself begins
in the oral culture of the earliest Christian message, and then makes its way
through the succeeding shifts. Connecting his account focusing on theology,
and the broader account we develop here, would indeed be a most useful and
interesting exercise for the reader.
Sam Han helpfully takes up a different media theory—that of Friedrich
Kittler—vis-à-vis the specific Christian notion of human beings as imago Dei,
the image of God. Focusing specifically on the computer as the site for devel-
oping and extending artificial intelligence, Han argues that the upshot will be
an “immanentization” of the imago Dei.
Cheong et al_Book.indb 6 14/12/11 7:14 PM
7
Introduction
Lynne Baab concludes this section with theological attention to the
three specific topoi identified in her title, “Toward a Theology of the Inter-
net: Place, Relationship, and Sin.” In particular, her observation that the
individualism otherwise hyped as an unalloyed good in the rhetoric sur-
rounding Web 2.0 (as well as Web 1.0) intersects with traditional theological
concerns about sin—e.g., addictive, and other, destructive behaviors poten-
tially facilitated through the affordances of Web 2.0 as the medium of the
networked individual—is a sobering counterpoint that helps deflate such
hype with a more critical view. At the same time, Baab’s discussion provides
us with yet one more instance of how new media fosters at least certain kinds
of individualism that directly challenge more traditional claims of religious
institutions.
The concluding chapter by Peter Fischer-Nielsen and Stefan Gelf-
gren takes up the work collected in this volume as both grounds and
springboard for six trajectories of future research. Among these is the the-
matic concern with how the increasingly commercialized environments of
Web 2.0 interact with our expectations and uses of new media. Such con-
cerns, we can note, are not limited to frameworks, values, and practices
shaped solely by religious institutions and traditions. Rather, several noted
researchers in the broader fields of Internet Studies have raised similar
concerns in recent years—most notably, perhaps, as Sonja Livingstone
puts it, with regard to how our increasing engagements in proprietary
SNSs and other new media environments leads not simply to our giv-
ing away our data for the sake of commercial interests, but, more fun-
damentally, to our collaborating in processes of commodifying ourselves
and our identities according to the prevailing market categories and tastes
that “sell” (Livingstone, 2011, p. 354; cf. Baym, 2011, pp. 399f.; van
Dijck, 2010). Such commodification would seem to warrant the attention
and concern of both the secular and religious alike. In addition, Fischer-
Nielsen and Gelfgren highlight several other developments that inspire
further research, such as the rise of ever more mobile and personalized
digital media, which provide more sophisticated and interactive infrastruc-
tures, and the globalization of digital religion.
Religion in the Age of Web 2.0—An Initial Survey
As an initial effort to develop a larger understanding of what the work col-
lected here may suggest more broadly regarding Religion 2.0, we begin with
a provisional understanding of Web 2.0. We take this rubric as intending
to denote a qualitative jump (from Web 1.0, ca. 1992–2005) to new levels
of interactivity and individual expression, and the emergence of the hybrid
producer-consumer or “produser” (Bruns, 2008) as facilitated by a range of
Cheong et al_Book.indb 7 14/12/11 7:14 PM
digital religion, soCial media and Culture
8
technological advances (such as ever-increasing and ever more widely available
bandwidth and mobility of computational devices, most notably Internet-
enabled mobile phones and tablets), ongoing developments in new/digital
media (including the convergence of digital photo- and video-cameras in said
mobile phones), and in computer-mediated communication itself. The latter
typically include sites that feature, and ostensibly foster, user-generated con-
tent in diverse forms, such as YouTube; social networking sites (SNS); blogs
and micro-blogs, such as Twitter, that invite ongoing, potentially instanta-
neous interaction between posters; new arrays of virtual worlds such as Second
Life and Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) such as World of
Warcraft; and a bewildering and ever-growing array of variations on these,
ranging from “citizen journalism” as interwoven with more traditional news
formats (and their still well-known corporations), to the use of social media
in so-called “soft revolutions” (and some not so soft revolutions, as are cur-
rently being battled in the Middle East), and everything in between (e.g., sites
and interactive venues dedicated to specific interests and hobbies, ranging
from knitting to music to child pornography to racist hate groups). Along the
way, our smartphones use GPS technology not only to connect efficiently to
our mobile networks for the sake of an SMS or even a phone call, but also—
whether voluntarily (as in Foursquare, or Google’s Latitude) or involuntarily
(as in Apple’s recently unveiled practice of collecting our locations in a hidden
file, ostensibly for the purposes of greater efficiency)—to constantly update
our physical location.
All of this is made even more complicated by the rapid growth and
diffusion of the internet and the web world-wide. At the time of writing,
nearly two billion people or ca. 29% of the world’s population now enjoy
some form of internet access (Internet World Stats, 2011). In the face of the
harsh realities of our contemporary world—often brought to us with uned-
ited immediacy and clarity precisely by mobile phones recording history in
the making—the 1990s’ utopian language of “an electronic global village”
is heard less frequently. Rather, the global diffusion of these new media has
made cross-cultural encounters all but inevitable—and, as the Mohammed
Cartoon Crisis of 2006 demonstrates (Ess, 2009), not all of these encounters
are peaceful and salutary.
In sum, in the age of Web 2.0 we are “always on” (Baron, 2008) and
interconnected globally and cross-culturally. And in the midst of all of this—
again, as the 2006 Cartoon Crises exemplifies—“religion” (another difficult
and contested term) is often deeply at work and in play. In particular, spe-
cific characteristics of Web 2.0 technologies are lifted up as affordances that
will surely challenge traditional institutions—including religious institutions.
Most centrally: to begin with, the interactivity of Web 2.0 applications—
the capacity of ordinary users to respond to, and indeed create, new media
Cheong et al_Book.indb 8 14/12/11 7:14 PM
9
Introduction
expressions on their own—is often claimed to lead us in the direction of
greater freedom of expression and equality, and thereby greater democracy.
This means, in particular, that tensions emerge as these affordances, insofar
as they are realized, challenge traditional forms of authority as top-down and
hierarchical.
These claims in turn lead to central thematic questions in the latest phase
of research on religion online, such as, as the use of CMC becomes increas-
ingly de rigueur, and an expected, if not major, component of how religious
institutions communicate with congregants—most especially young people—
will not the various forms of identity, community, and authority necessarily
be called into radical question? The 15 chapters in our book formulate such
questions from a variety of theoretical, historical, and theological contexts,
and provide empirical investigations in a variety of specific ways. Collectively,
these chapters contribute stimulating insights into the dialectics of digital
religion as they intertwine with emergent tensions in the contested areas of
individual and relational identity, community networks, and authority perfor-
mances and paradoxes.
Identity: Individual, Ephemeral and Relational Selves
It is often claimed that functionalities highlighted under Web 2.0 apparently
foster greater interactivity, equality, and democracy. But it is worth recon-
sidering how these functionalities in turn rest upon—and perhaps influence
foundational transformations in—our sense of self, or identity.
To be sure, these claims for Web 2.0 are familiar to those of us who
remember the rhetoric and debate of the 1990s (Ess, 2011; Wellman, 2011,
pp. 17–20). And so, with the beginnings of what Wellman identified as the
“third age” of Internet Studies (ibid., 21f.), we find the initial suggestions
of how our interactions with CMC technologies were issuing in new con-
ceptions of self and identity. Captured in notions of “networked individual-
ism”—findings from Castells (2001) and Wellman (2001), as highlighted by
Knut Lundby in his opening chapter here—and in what Wellman and Hay-
thornthwaite identified as “the networked individual” (2002), these notions
represent something of an amalgam between modernist notions of the indi-
vidual self (especially as affiliated with literacy and print as media technolo-
gies), and postmodern notions of multiple, fluid, but also ephemeral selves,
with the latter, especially, documented in the work of Sherry Turkle (1984,
1995, 2010) and often argued to be fostered by CMC venues, beginning
with the MUDs and MOOs whose denizens Turkle closely studied.
As Lundby points out, such individualism, however moderated and/
or amplified by ever increasing networked interactivity, facilitates direct
challenges to traditional religious institutions—certainly, within the
Cheong et al_Book.indb 9 14/12/11 7:14 PM
digital religion, soCial media and Culture
10
Christian traditions, those of the Roman Catholic Church. Even Protestant
churches—historically, those built on giving the individual “greater voice,”
as Lundby puts it—“are definitely being challenged.” The upshot, as Lun-
dby points out succinctly, is that “Churches as institutions are in trouble”
(this volume, p. 36).
At the same time, however, several studies in this volume also highlight
both individual and institutional resistance in various forms to these chal-
lenges—as we will see below, when we turn to the theme of authority. Here,
however, we can point out, to begin with, that in their study of a progressive
Danish Lutheran church, Lomborg and Ess document both a strong indi-
vidual and institutional commitment to the traditional Protestant values of
equality and individualism. In part, it was this commitment that encouraged
the church’s ministers and some enthusiastic laity to pursue the development
of a Facebook page. Yet both ministers and at least one informant made clear
that they also wanted to preserve a good deal of the traditional hierarchy and
boundary between the ministers, as professionals and authorities representing
the institutions and roles of the traditional church, and congregants. In light
of the question of identity in Religion 2.0, this would suggest that whatever
the affordances of Web 2.0, at least some of its users wish to maintain some-
thing of the traditional boundaries and structures of the church—boundaries
that appear to delimit the authority of the individual as a member of a reli-
gious community and institution.
On the one hand, these findings are in keeping with other research and
analyses that suggest that the shifts we appear to be witnessing towards more
relational or networked selves—shifts that are fostered precisely by networked
technologies, and most especially several of the venues characteristic of Web
2.0, such as SNSs, micro-blogs, and virtual worlds (Cheong & Gray, 2011;
Ess, 2010; Gergen, 2011)—are nonetheless neither inexorable nor unlimited.
That is, such shifts towards more networked or relational selves do not auto-
matically mean (as they did for some 1990s pundits) the end of the modernist
conception of the individual (Rodogno, 2011). Rather, what may be emerg-
ing is some sort of hybrid notion of identity, one that conjoins a modernist
understanding that emphasizes individual rationality and autonomy with a
“post-post-modernist” understanding that emphasizes relationality, multi-
plicity, affect, and ephemerality. And, as we have indicated from the outset,
such a hybrid self would be in keeping with the larger patterns discerned
over the past decade (and more) in Internet Studies. That is, as Klaus Bruhn
Jensen concisely notes, “Old media rarely die, and humans remain the ref-
erence point and prototype for technologically mediated communication”
(2011, p. 44). And thereby, insofar as our use of diverse media technologies
can be correlated with distinctive notions of selves—i.e., a modernist notion
of the rational individual as affiliated with the technologies of literacy and
Cheong et al_Book.indb 10 14/12/11 7:14 PM
11
Introduction
print, vis-à-vis a post(post)modernist notion of the self as fluid, multiple, and
ephemeral, as affiliated with what Walter Ong characterized as the “second-
ary orality” of “electric media” (meaning: radio, movies, TV, and, at least to
some degree, CMC)—our learning to conjoin literacy and print with second-
ary orality would correlate with just such a hybrid self (Ess, 2010).
On the other hand, as Baab’s analysis suggests, one of the key questions to
emerge here is what kind of individualism is fostered in Web 2.0? At the risk
of oversimplification—but reflecting central dialectical tensions in the emer-
gence of the modern self (cf. Taylor, 1989, pp. 495–521)—we can distinguish
between two emphases of individualism, namely, a more rationally oriented
autonomy vis-à-vis a more emotive (and, perhaps, more relational) individual-
ism. The more rationally oriented, autonomous individual is highlighted in
modernity, both in affiliation with modern conceptions of democratic-liberal
regimes, and in Protestant and Catholic traditions that have been deeply influ-
enced by the critical rationalism of modern Enlightenment. Such individuals,
finally, seem to depend upon the technologies of literacy and print—includ-
ing writing, which was described by the late Foucault as a “technology of the
self” (Bakardjieva & Gaden, in press). By contrast, as the secondary orality of
electric media and CMC brings about a return of a more complete human
sensorium—including sight and sound—it is thereby able to powerfully appeal
to our emotions in ways that are more difficult for texts (Turkle, 2010).
Indeed, Cheong (2010) discusses how microblogging rituals may cre-
ate a new textual and visual sensorium by restructuring wired believers’ con-
sciousness, and generating a heightened awareness of relationship between
the I, You, and the Thou, which opens up possibilities for revitalised religi-
osity to counteract claims of secularisation in technologically advanced and
developed countries. In this light, it may not be accidental that those Prot-
estant traditions that emphasize emotive experiences—e.g., of being “born
again”—are characteristically among the early adopters and adapters of elec-
tric media and CMC technologies, in contrast with the comparatively conser-
vative approaches to these media in the more rationally oriented Protestant
and Catholic traditions (cf. Bernice Martin, 1998, 2001, cited in Straarup,
this volume, p. 106). Insofar as these correlations hold, then, a key question
for religious communities is, what kind of individuals and individualism do
we wish (or need) to foster, and how do we use both traditional and new
media to do so?
More broadly, however, the internet and the web have been with us for
less than 20 years. It is by no means clear whether resistances such as those
we see documented here indicate long-term trends, or simply suggest genera-
tional differences that will pass as the older generations take their leave of this
good Earth—and with them, older, more modernist notions of the individual
may also pass away.
Cheong et al_Book.indb 11 14/12/11 7:14 PM
digital religion, soCial media and Culture
12
Community: Networked Individualism, Sociality and Collectivism
Of course, as the (re)emergence of the networked and relational self in con-
junction with the emergence of networked media emphasizes, our notions of
self and identity are inextricably interwoven with our basic understandings
and assumptions regarding how such selves may and/or must relate to larger
communities. These interrelationships begin with human communities, rang-
ing from the family, through national communities, to humanity at large. At
the same time, religious traditions and frameworks stress how such communi-
ties and relationships further include, one way or another, the natural order
and the sacred (whether as transcendent, as is stressed in most versions of the
Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, or immanent, as is
thematic of many Confucian, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions, for example).
Very clearly, digital media facilitate and mediate social relations, including
peoples’ notions of relationship, patterns of belonging, and community—and
in doing so, digital media thus immediately intersect with, and significantly
impact, central religious concerns with (re)establishing right relationship or
harmony in these various communities. Hence, several contributions within
this book analyze the culture, connection, and activity emerging within par-
ticular online groups, as well as their role within wider religious networks and
fields of activity.
So, to begin with, online churches have been historically studied as clas-
sic examples of “virtual communities,” constituted as such by stable patterns
of social meanings and personal relationships and largely self-contained as
bounded groups with distinctive cultures. Equally historically, however, much
of the rhetoric (if not simply hype) surrounding such virtual communities in
the 1990s, celebrating how such communities would replace their real-world
counterparts, has now been toned down. Empirical findings towards the end
of the 1990s to the present have documented how far such virtual religious
communities were intertwined with their offline communities (Cheong,
Poon, Huang, & Casas, 2009; Ess, 2011). As part of these developments, the
emergence of conceptions of the networked individual thereby highlighted
both online and offline connections with larger communities.
In particular, Jørgen Straarup points out in this volume that even avatars
seem to prefer community as rooted in real-world locations and practices. At
the same time, as Knut Lundby suggests, our drive for community connec-
tions rests in part on a (somewhat Romantic) conception of Gemeinschaft, as
defined by Tönnies ([1957] 1988; Lundby, this volume, p. 30). In this sense,
another central tension thus emerges between the networked individual
who—as Hogan and Wellman point out here—emerges as the portal seek-
ing to control information flows and connections, and the communities of
diverse relationships (often initially analyzed in terms of the contrast between
Cheong et al_Book.indb 12 14/12/11 7:14 PM
13
Introduction
weak-tie and strong-tie relationships) that such individuals thereby intercon-
nect with. Hogan and Wellman’s analysis of survey data over the past decade
prompts the question: what are the implications of networked individualism
for the definition and enactment of religious communities?
Tim Hutchings provides some initial insight as he documents several
examples which indicate “the presence of a fluid, loosely networked sphere
of Christian activity in Second Life, within which individuals circulate freely
to find the people, places, and activities that appeal to them” (this volume,
p. 218). Hutchings compares these circulation patterns with those described by
Nancy Baym (2007) in terms of a “networked collectivism” in music fandom. As
Baym (2007) put it, a form of digital sociality emerges here that lies “between
the site-based online group and the egocentric network, distributing them-
selves throughout a variety of sites in a quasi-coherent networked fashion . . .
members move amongst a complex ecosystem of sites, building connections
amongst themselves and their sites as they do.” For Hutchings, this pattern
“applies easily to the Christian population of Second Life,” as “a kind of ‘net-
worked religious collective’ that incorporates a wide array of often short-lived
locations” (this volume, p. 218).
The ephemerality of such online relationships, as apparently discon-
nected from offline, real-world communities (religious or otherwise),
resonates with a second phenomenon described by Mark D. Johns in his
wide-ranging exploration of religious groups on Facebook—or more spe-
cifically, global groups on Facebook registered in the category of “religious
organizations.” Members were observed to join such groups as a way of
voting affirmation for the group, its goals, and/or its creator, but almost
no interaction took place within the groups. The research suggests that
joining a Facebook group is a symbolic act for the purpose of declaring a
religious identity for the user to those outside the group. Implications for
faith groups include a warning that use of social networks also needs to
focus on building relationships, not merely on building large lists of fans
or followers. Yet the observation here about little interaction also raises
a larger question about the nature of online religious collectives: in what
ways and from what vantage points do we characterize the evolving nature
of religious community, from the locus of Facebook group pages and/or
individual Facebook pages?
A third insight offered here is found in Cheong’s (2010) examination of
the relatively recent phenomenon of religious microblogging. Cheong exam-
ines the ways in which Twitter is appropriated by faith users to develop inno-
vative and interactive forms of evangelization, prayer, and meditation, and
discusses the implications of these new sociotechnical practices, termed here
as “microblogging rituals,” for religious community building. Specifically,
Cheong argues that the creation and circulation of microblogging rituals,
Cheong et al_Book.indb 13 14/12/11 7:14 PM
digital religion, soCial media and Culture
14
including “faith memes,” functions to constitute and fuel the stream of lived
sacred experiences, thereby ideologically connecting Twitter believers. More-
over, microblogging rituals facilitate the promotion of organized religion, as
churches construct distinctive “faith brands” to publicize their mission and
encourage loyalty to church leadership, and church growth.
In this way, Cheong’s (2010) findings reinforce our opening examina-
tion of Confession as an example of contemporary media that is rooted in,
and seeks to reinforce, real-world traditions and practices, not to replace
them. These examples in turn stand in tension with the countervailing pat-
terns highlighted by Hutchings and Johns that emphasize the ephemerality
of online collectives and groups that are not otherwise rooted in real-world,
offline communities. As with our initial findings concerning self and identity,
the only thing we can say with assurance, as based on these investigations and
insights, is that our notions of self, identity, and thereby interactions are not
settled. Rather, we seem to see patterns of online interaction and media use
that fit both a more (postmodern) sense of self, and thereby community, as
multiple, fluid, ephemeral, and emotive, as well as a hybrid sense of self and
community that encompasses both more modernist and traditional concep-
tions in (more or less) comfortable alliance with more postmodernist and
contemporary conceptions and behaviors. In other words, the central dialec-
tic between the freedom of the networked individual to engage in multiple
but short-lived engagements online, vis-à-vis our clear interest to thereby
connect with others in community, including in more stable, geographically
located, and defined offline communities, is a tension still fully open, allow-
ing and requiring further exploration.
We see this same tension, finally, in terms of our third and last theme.
Authority: Communicative Performances and Paradoxes
Religious authority can be understood and studied as a quality of communi-
cation, which in an electronic era, may be media-derived, discursively con-
structed, and dynamically constituted across digital media (Cheong, Huang,
& Poon, 2011). A review by Cheong (in press) on studies exploring the
relationships between the Internet and religious authority highlights that early
studies in religion online conceptualized the Internet as a distinct and conviv-
ial space for spiritual interaction, and, as such, new flows of religious informa-
tion and knowledge posed corrosive effects on the influence and jurisdiction
of traditional religious authorities. The dominant logic associates offline reli-
gious authority with more static models of legitimation, and views the internet
as promoting informational diversity and social fractures that are disruptive to
the status quo. In lieu of traditional authorities, and within virtual communi-
ties, newer forms of web-based religious authorities such as web masters and
Cheong et al_Book.indb 14 14/12/11 7:14 PM
15
Introduction
forum moderators were proposed. Yet a more recent and alternative perspec-
tive is stimulated by the growing recognition of situating religious author-
ity among older media and faith infrastructures. The internet may have, to
some extent, facilitated changes in the personal and organizational basis by
which religious leaders operate, but strategic practices by some clergy, includ-
ing their engagement with digital and other forms of media, enable them to
regain the legitimacy and trust necessary to operate in the religious ken.
Several of our chapters contribute to these contemporary themes and
threads of authority research specifically, as they document how religious
leaders are actively harnessing and appropriating new and social media for
their individual cultivation and organizational practices. At the same time, in
part just as new and social media challenge—as promised—traditional hier-
archies and patterns of authority, religious leaders are caught up in an often
complex and dynamic process of re-negotiating the authority they now seek
to exercise in online, as well as offline, spheres, including possibly new insti-
tutional structures.
Here, some findings are in fact consistent with claims regarding Web
2.0, i.e., more of its interactive, ostensibly democratizing, features are made
use of by comparatively less-hierarchical traditions, while more hierarchi-
cal traditions are better at resisting those democratizing features precisely
in an effort to preserve traditional institutional structures of authority. As
an example in this volume, Heidi Campbell documents here (building on
her earlier work, including her analysis of “the Kosher cellphone” as devel-
oped for use within Ultra-orthodox Jewish communities: 2010, pp. 179–
193) how more conservative religious traditions—specifically, the Roman
Catholic Church—while embracing new media up to a certain point, at the
same time seek to set clear boundaries on such media use so as to preserve
foundational values, practices, and beliefs that would otherwise potentially
be brought into question. So Campbell describes how the Catholic Church
has shaped its uses of web-based communication technologies in line with
the Church’s formal hierarchy and clerical caste led by the Pope. On the
one hand, yes, the Vatican website will generate automated email responses
on the Pope’s behalf. On the other hand, Vatican officials either disabled
or removed such hallmark Web 2.0 features as the ranking function and
comment mode on the Vatican YouTube channel, in order to preserve the
Vatican’s image and control of new media. More broadly, the Vatican site
has historically functioned mostly as a massive text archive, one that thereby
follows a “top-down,” one-to-many broadcasting model. This usage high-
lights, perhaps not accidentally, the capacity of the web to serve as a text
archive for the important documents of the Church, and thereby how far
CMC remains close to the modernist conjunction of literacy and print. Such
usage contrasts with the more fluid, if ephemeral (and emotive), “secondary
Cheong et al_Book.indb 15 14/12/11 7:14 PM
digital religion, soCial media and Culture
16
orality” highlighted by Ong as characteristic of electric media and, up to a
point at least, the more interactive dimensions of Web 2.0 as we have seen
exemplified in changing, perhaps hybridizing, notions of self, identity, and
community.
Indeed, as Campbell further points out, these more conservative uses of
the Internet and the Web contrast with what we might characterize as more
aggressive uses among, especially, Evangelical communities,1 including SNSs,
micro-blogs such as Twitter, etc., as these make greater use of interactive
features. And betwixt and between these diverse institutional and denomina-
tional trends and patterns, more recent scholarship has proposed redefinitions
of the constitutions and practices of religious authority to account for fresh
ways in which it is flourishing in increasingly integrated new and social media
platforms.
In our volume, Peter Horsfield documents one of the major direc-
tions or trends of Web 2.0, namely, that the “distributed and decentral-
ized patterns of new media communication have increased the potential
for a diversity of voices rather than an authorized few to project themselves
and their opinions into the marketplace.” Consequently, “the previously
recognized criteria of religious authority, such as formal qualifications or
institutional position, are changing to more fluid characteristics applied by
audiences, such as a person’s charisma, accessibility, and perceived cultural
competence” (this volume, p. 225). In this sense, there appear to be tem-
poral changes in the modes of authority production as some religious lead-
ers expand the scope of their calling and restructure their roles to use social
media such as Twitter to extend their outreach and influence (Cheong,
2011). Other contributors here likewise highlight how religious institu-
tions and authority figures manage to both take up new communication
possibilities while simultaneously retaining much of their earlier authority
and status.
As a first example, Peter Fischer-Nielsen shows how far Google, Face-
book, and YouTube have been integrated into the working lives of pastors.
In an analysis of results from a survey completed by 1040 pastors of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, he found that 95% of the pas-
tors are online daily, and a significant proportion (94% of the pastors aged
between 25 and 39 years) regard the Internet as having a positive influence
on their work. But this is in part, it would seem, insofar as these new media
work to complement and reinforce traditional practices, rather than chal-
lenge or overturn them. So: two-thirds of the respondents reported that the
Internet had “caused more frequent contact with parishioners,” and most
endorsed “flesh and blood” “real church practice” in lieu of cyberchurch
rituals and Web-based services (this volume, p. 127). The creators of Confes-
sion would be pleased.
Cheong et al_Book.indb 16 14/12/11 7:14 PM
17
Introduction
Indeed, Cheong, Huang, and Poon (2011) have documented some of
the complex processes that follow on churches taking up Web 2.0 media
that initially facilitate challenges to traditional hierarchies and conceptions
of authority. Significantly, their investigations highlight dialectical tensions
in authority related to the countervailing tendencies in digital media nego-
tiations. While online knowledge sources can provide laity with alternative
resources that may encourage them to question their ministers’ claims, beliefs,
etc., these same sources also serve as a source of education that enhances a
priest’s epistemic authority, as the latter is able to move beyond dictating, to
mediating between texts, i.e., Scripture as interpreted by the priest or min-
ister, and alternative interpretations gleaned from Internet sources. In other
words, “a paradox of epistemic authority is that it may be more effective when
followers possess some level of knowledge that enables them to evaluate the
legitimacy of clergy’s knowledge” (2011, p. 1163). In still broader terms,
these findings can be seen to suggest a hybridization of literacy-print, on the
one hand, and secondary orality of electric media on the other hand. That is,
in these re-negotiations of authority, a minister’s knowledge of the Bible—
the premier artifact of the printing revolution and, as increasingly available
through print in standardized form to ever more readers, a main driver of the
Protestant Reformation—at least on occasion still serves as a “stopper” vis-à-
vis competing claims or views drawn from electronic (and thus more multiple
but also more fluid) epistemic sources.
A last chapter from our volume also makes this point, in the Danish
context. Stine Lomborg and Charles Ess note in their case study of an activ-
ist Danish church how the presence of the church on Facebook was praised
in terms of its “brand value,” signaling that the church is “progressive” (and
thereby instantiates the “brandversation” described here by Musa and Ibrahim).
But even as Facebook friendships may be relationally rewarding for lead-
ers seeking to build closer relationships with their members, these leaders
also highlighted tensions in the negotiation of authority; it is “a delicate
balance to strike as this strategic presentation of the pastor as an ordinary
person also possibly entails a risk of jeopardizing the professional respect
and authority so important for a pastor in his work and leadership within the
community” (this volume, p. 178). And so it is that the church leaders have
come to recognize how far they can go in terms of blurring the boundary
between clergy and laity via Facebook and other forms of electronic com-
munication—and how far they must reinforce traditional roles and relation-
ships, e.g., in part through continued use of traditional, print-based media
in worship, beginning precisely with standard Bible readings and hymns as
sung from traditional psalm books.
In these ways, we note in closing, these dialectics in the renegotiations
of authority appear to correlate with parallel emergences of hybrid senses
Cheong et al_Book.indb 17 14/12/11 7:14 PM
digital religion, soCial media and Culture
18
of self and identity, as we have examined above. That is, there clearly are
many “hyperindividuals” who, as facilitated by networked communication
media, prefer to spend much of their life online (often for very good rea-
sons), exploring, developing, and then abandoning networked relationships
that thus befit more postmodernist senses of selfhood as multiple, fluid, and
ephemeral—and largely as disconnected with, and to the exclusion of, real-
world relationships and identities. At the same time, however, just as religious
institutions are learning to renegotiate traditional authority and structures
of hierarchy in the face of the multiple ways Web 2.0 technologies facilitate
challenges to these, so many congregants are apparently learning how to be
both traditional selves (i.e., as marked by more singular, enduring, rational,
selfhood and autonomy, as affiliated with literacy-print) and contemporary
selves (as more multiple, fluid, ephemeral—and, perhaps, more emotive— as
affiliated with new and digital media technologies).
In Vivo Religion 2.0 and Beyond
In closing, we note that the placement of a question mark behind the nomen-
clature of digital religion evinces our reconsideration of the wholesale embrace
of Web 2.0 on the one hand, and the critical examination of emerging and
hybridizing patterns of change with regard to mediated faith practices on
the other hand. The question mark is also, to use a customary expression, a
journey, in which the ongoing enterprise begins here to make sense of how
new and emerging practices of religion emend our comprehension of Religion
2.0 and beyond; as a process that encompasses the dynamic nature of cultural
processes. And this is a significant journey that we undertake, together with
our contributors, fueled by new technological vistas and the fertile landscape
of prior scholarship. As Stewart Hoover and Knut Lundby (1997) presciently
observed, we require more thoughtful attention toward a triadic understand-
ing of media, religion, and culture, as these areas are “interpenetrated by one
another” (p. 6). This volume thereby represents a cross-disciplinary venture
to refine our understanding of the burgeoning social web of digital religion,
with insights into the varied meanings of technology, in different cultural
grounds. Humbly, the view here is that the road of learning and discovery
goes on—the only certainty is that everything is in flux. But through these
contributions, as now illuminated in terms of larger patterns and findings
in contemporary Internet Studies, we hope our readers come away with at
least a reasonably grounded theoretical and empirical (if not also theologically
informed) understanding of how Religion 2.0 appears to work and function
in the contemporary world.
Finally, we wish to express our deep thanks to our colleagues and fami-
lies. It has been a mount of hard work, and a joy to work as an international
Cheong et al_Book.indb 18 14/12/11 7:14 PM
19
Introduction
editorial team. Of course, no single researcher or editor can hope to develop
anything even approximating a clear and comprehensive picture of the vast
and constantly changing landscape of digital religion, especially as a globally
distributed phenomenon. But we are heartened by the results of this transna-
tional and cross-cultural collaboration. That is not to say that we believe the
results of our collaboration achieve completeness: it is to say that we believe
our collective work results in a much broader view, one shaped by a much
greater diversity of perspectives and experiences, than any of us could have
achieved on our own. Such collaboration, of course—across diverse cultures,
time zones, and disciplines—brings its own set of challenges as well. We wish
to acknowledge with gratitude how enjoyable—and, at times, downright fun
—this collaboration has been, thanks to the patience, perseverance, and good
humor of each of our co-editors. It is our privilege to introduce this inspiring
multidisciplinary volume to you.
Note
1. Readers should remember here that “Evangelical” in the U.S. context usually refers
to those traditions— often also characterized as charismatic or Pentecostal—that
highlight not simply mission (evangelism) but also emotive experiences of “being
saved” as primary signs of religious authenticity, etc. By contrast, “Evangelical” in the
European context usually refers to churches in Protestant, often specifically Lutheran,
traditions. In the northern European context in particular, these churches rather
stress modernist conceptions of rationality as critical elements in religious identity
and reflection—again, as such rationality (and individual autonomy) correlates with
the emphasis on literacy and print in modernity. (This is not to say that Evangeli-
calism—whether in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere—is thoroughly modernist: on
the contrary, Evangelicalism began in part in reaction against various expressions of
modernity, including a pitting of personal-felt experience of the Divine (and fideism,
more broadly) against critical-rational approaches (including, e.g., historical-critical
approaches to interpreting Scripture).
References
Bakardjieva, M., & Gaden, G. (in press). Web 2.0 technologies of the self [Special issue].
Philosophy & Technology, 24, doi: 10.1007/s13347-011-0032-9
Barlow, J. P. (1996). A declaration of the independence of cyberspace. Retrieved from
https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html
Baron, N. (2008). Always on: Language in an online and mobile world. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press.
Baym, N. (2007). The new shape of online community: The example of Swedish indepen-
dent music fandom. First Monday 12(8). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/
htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1978/1853
Cheong et al_Book.indb 19 14/12/11 7:14 PM
digital religion, soCial media and Culture
20
Baym, N. (2011). Social Networks 2.0. In M. Consalvo & C. Ess (Eds.), The handbook of
Internet Studies (pp. 384–405). Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell.
Bruns, A. (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond: From production to produsage.
New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Campbell, H. (2010). When religion meets new media. London, England: Routledge.
Castells, M. (2001). The internet galaxy: Reflections on the internet, business, and society.
Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Cheong, P. H. (2010). Faith tweets: Ambient religious communication and microblog-
ging rituals. M/C Journal: A Journal of Media and Culture, 24(2). Retrieved from
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/223
Cheong, P. H. (2011). Religious leaders, mediated authority and social change. Journal of
Applied Communication Research, 39(4), 452–454.
Cheong, P.H. (in press) Authority. In H. Campbell (Ed.). Digital religion: Understand-
ing religious practice in new media worlds. New York, NY: Routledge
Cheong, P. H., & Gray, K. (2011). Mediated intercultural dialectics: Identity perceptions
and performances in virtual worlds. Journal of International and Intercultural Com-
munication. 4(4), 265–271.
Cheong, P. H., Huang, S., & Poon, J. P. H. (2011). Religious communication and epis-
temic authority of leaders in wired faith organizations. Journal of Communication,
61, 938–958.
Cheong, P.H., Huang, S.H., & Poon, J.P.H. (2011). Cultivating online and offline path-
ways to enlightenment: Religious authority in wired Buddhist organizations. Infor-
mation, Communication & Society, 14 (8), 1160–1180.
Cheong, P. H., Martin, J. N., & Macfadyen, L. (2012). Mediated intercultural commu-
nication matters: Understanding new media, dialectics and social change. In P. H.
Cheong, J. N. Martin, & L. Macfadyen (Eds.), New media and intercultural commu-
nication: Identity, community and politics (pp. 1–20). New York: Peter Lang.
Cheong, P. H., Poon, J. P. H., Huang, S. H., & Casas, I. (2009). The Internet highway
and religious communities: Mapping and contesting spaces in religion-online. The
Information Society, 25(5), 291–302.
Ess, C. (2009). Digital media ethics. Oxford, England: Polity Press.
Ess, C. (2010). The embodied self in a digital age: Possibilities, risks, and prospects for a
pluralistic (democratic/liberal) future? [Special issue]. Nordicom Review. Retrieved
from http://www.nordicom.gu.se/common/publ_pdf/320_10%20ess.pdf
Ess, C. (2011). Self, community, and ethics in digital mediatized worlds. In C. Ess &
M. Thorseth (Eds.), Trust and virtual worlds: Contemporary perspectives (pp. 3–30).
Oxford, England: Peter Lang.
Ess, C., & Consalvo, M. (2011). Introduction: What is “Internet Studies”? In M.
Consalvo & C. Ess (Eds.), The handbook of Internet Studies (pp. 11–16). Oxford,
England: Blackwell.
Gergen, K. (2011). Relational being: Beyond self and community. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press.
Cheong et al_Book.indb 20 14/12/11 7:14 PM
21
Introduction
Hoover, S. M., & Lundby, K. (1997). Introduction: Setting the agenda. In S. M. Hoover
& K. Lundby (Eds.), Rethinking media, religion and culture (pp. 3–14). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Internet World Stats. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.
htm
Little i Apps. (2011). Confession: A Roman Catholic app [iPhone app]. Retrieved
from http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/confession-a-roman-catholic/
id416019676?mt=8#
Livingstone, S. (2011). Internet, children, and youth. In M. Consalvo & C. Ess (Eds.),
The handbook of Internet Studies (pp. 348–368). Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell.
Martin, B. (1998). From pre- to postmodernity in Latin America: The case of Pentecos-
talism. In P. Heelas (Ed.), Religion, modernity and postmodernity (pp. 102–146).
Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Martin, B. (2001). The Pentecostal gender paradox: A cautionary tale for the sociology of
religion. In R. K. Fenn (Ed.), The Blackwell companion to sociology of religion (Black-
well companions to religion) (pp. 52–66). Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Rodogno, R. ( 2011). Personal identity online [Special issue]. Philosophy & Technology, 24,
doi: 10.1007/s13347-011-0020-0
Schement, J. R, & Stephenson, H. C. (1996). Religion and the information society. In
D. A. Stout & J. M. Buddenbaum (Eds.), Religion and mass media: Audiences and
Adaptations (pp. 261–289), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Turkle, S. (1984). The second self: Computers and the human spirit. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. New York, NY:
Touchstone.
Turkle, S. (2010). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each
other. New York, NY: Basic Books.
van Dijck, J. (2010). Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content. Media,
Culture & Society, 31(1), 14–58.
Wellman, B. (2001). Physical place and cyberplace: The rise of personalized networking.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25(2), 227–252.
Wellman, B. (2011). Studying the Internet through the ages. In M. Consalvo & C. Ess
(Eds.), The handbook of Internet Studies (pp. 17–23). Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Wellman, B., & Haythornthwaite, C. (Eds.). (2002). The Internet in everyday life. Mal-
den, MA: Blackwell.
Cheong et al_Book.indb 21 14/12/11 7:14 PM
