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Heidi Campbell Assoc Prof, Texas A&M University heidic@tamu.edu

Networked Religion: Considering Religion in Online and Offline Cultures. Heidi Campbell Assoc Prof, Texas A&M University heidic@tamu.edu. http://digitalreligion.tamu.edu. Presentation Based on.

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Heidi Campbell Assoc Prof, Texas A&M University heidic@tamu.edu

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  1. Networked Religion: Considering Religion in Online and Offline Cultures Heidi Campbell Assoc Prof, Texas A&M University heidic@tamu.edu

  2. http://digitalreligion.tamu.edu

  3. Presentation Based on Campbell, H. (2012). Understanding the relationship between religious practice online and offline in a networked society. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Identifying trends of how religion is practiced online highlights shifts in how people live religion offline.

  4. “Networked Religion” • Fluidity a condition of Network Society • Social relations increasingly decentralized & interconnected through a social-technical infrastructure (Castells 1996) • Networked Religion represents a loosening or re-presentation of traditional boundaries of religious communities to reflect more dynamic and fluid forms of affiliation and practice.

  5. Characteristics of Networked Religion * Convergent Practice - personalized blending of information & rituals * Multi-site Reality - embedded online-offline connections * Networked Community - loosely-bounded social networks * Storied Identity -fluid & dynamic identity construction * Shifting Authority - Simultaneous empowerment & challenge of authority

  6. Convergent Practice Internet serves as a spiritual hub allowing people to assemble and personalize religious behavior and belief. *Tendency towards “pic-n-mix” approach to religious information and rituals online * Online environments can encourages individualized practice & reinterpretation

  7. Convergent Practice Internet serves as a spiritual hub allowing people to assemble and personalize religious behavior and belief. Tension: Offering guidance and instruction to people who draw spiritual wisdom and practices from multiple sources and traditions CHALLENGE: Sticky-ness & User Attention

  8. Multi-Site Reality Recognizing the interconnectedness or embeddedness of online and offline contexts • Religious spaces online are consciously and unconsciously imprinted by users’ offline (community) values • Religious users and innovators seek to integrate spaces and create ideological as well as practical overlaps

  9. Multi-Site Reality Recognizing the interconnectedness or embeddedness of online and offline contexts Tension: Offline contexts may no longer serve as primary source for spiritual connections and knowledge. CHALLENGE: Integration & Blending Realities

  10. Storied Identity Identity is constructed & performed online, encouraging malleable self-presentations * Identity enacted through personal process of self-identification & negotiation online * New possibilities for assembling a religious identities for those lacking such opportunities offline

  11. Storied Identity Identity is constructed & performed online, encouraging malleable self-presentations Tension: Religious Identity becomes flexible and highly personalized, impacting wider understandings of what it means to be Christian. CHALLENGE: Remix and Mashup Meaning Making

  12. Impact of Networked Religion on Mobile Ministry • Need to consider extent to which mobile/online ministry is blended, bridging or supplanting offline ministry and church (?) • How does mobile ministry address trends towards “network Individualism” and diminishing of traditional forms of affiliation/membership?

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