Heidi CampbellAssoc Prof, Texas A&M University
Networked Religion: Considering Religion in Online and Offline Cultures
http://digitalreligion.tamu.edu
Presentation Based onCampbell, 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.
“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.
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
Convergent PracticeInternet 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
Convergent PracticeInternet 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 traditionsCHALLENGE: Sticky-ness & User Attention
Multi-Site RealityRecognizing 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
Multi-Site RealityRecognizing 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
Storied IdentityIdentity 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
Storied IdentityIdentity 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
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?