Sara Batts A766573First year report, November 2008.

Shop windows for seekers: Do English churches use their web presence wisely?

Table of Contents1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................52 Research questions.............................................................................................................73 Objectives...........................................................................................................................74 Proposed methodology........................................................................................................8

4.1 Objective 3.1: To establish the number of physical churches with a purpose built website...............................................................................................................................9

4.1.1 Further sampling..................................................................................................94.1.2 Objective 3.1.2: Audiences.................................................................................104.1.3 Objective 3.1.3: Investigating content management and origination.................11

4.2 Objective 3.2: Denominational differences ...............................................................114.2.1 Objective 3.2.2: Content analysis.......................................................................12

4.3 Objective 3.3: Existing online communities .............................................................134.3.1 Objective 3.3.2: St Pixels/ Church of Fools..........................................................13

4.4 Objective 3.4: Identify sample of church leaders ......................................................134.4.1 Objective 3.4.4: Definition of questions..............................................................14

5 Progress to date (2 November 2008).................................................................................155.1 Literature search........................................................................................................155.2 Development of project aims.....................................................................................165.3 Preliminary findings for content analysis...................................................................165.4 Statistics ...................................................................................................................18

5.4.1 Office of National Statistics ................................................................................185.4.2 Church of England..............................................................................................185.4.3 Evangelical Alliance............................................................................................18

5.5 Website monitoring ...................................................................................................196 Courses attended .............................................................................................................20

6.1 At Loughborough University.......................................................................................206.2 Work-based at Reed Smith.........................................................................................206.3 Other activities..........................................................................................................20

7 Plan for 2008/09 ...............................................................................................................218 Scope................................................................................................................................239 Literature review...............................................................................................................2410 References......................................................................................................................2511 Appendix 1: Development of content analysis coding and survey questions..................27

11.1 Content analysis .....................................................................................................2711.2 Clergy survey data...................................................................................................2811.3 Online community survey data................................................................................28

1

Glossary: Development of working definitions

There is a technical/ accepted vocabulary within the church and it is therefore necessary to define what these terms mean, and how more generic terms would be used within the project.

Church

For the greater part of this study, 'a church' refers to a community of people under the leadership of an ordained priest, based in and around a physical building. The one exception is the 'Church of Fools' or 'St Pixels' referred to which has a purely online presence.

The Church

This is shorthand for 'the established church' and refers to the whole population of individuals, leaders, physical buildings and other assets that make up the organisation, for example the Church of England or the Methodist church

Denominations

Denominations are different groups within the overall British Christian tradition. They vary on elements such as the importance of sacraments, the status of women priests, or whether infant baptism is acceptable.

The three main denominations referred to are Church of England, Methodist and Baptist.

Evangelical

The technical definition is of a Protestant Christian church that emphasizes the authority of the Bible and salvation through the personal acceptance of Jesus Christ. In practice this means evangelical churches tend to stress outreach, and will never assume they are preaching to the converted.

Priest/ Vicar/ Rector/ incumbent

The (usually) full-time, salaried, ordained leader of a particular church or small group of churches.

Congregation

Those who attend services regularly at a specific physical church. For the purpose of the research, it is assumed that members of a congregation are people with an identified Christian faith. A congregant is a member of a congregation.

Wider/ general public

Those who are 'unchurched' (have never been a member of a congregation) or 'de-churched' (used to be a member of a congregation but have left); those who would not identify themselves as having a specific Christian faith that was of personal significance. People may declare themselves 'Christian' or 'Church of England' on a census form out of habit but not actually attend church regularly.

Information provison

The timely and accurate publication of relevant data to specific populations or audiences.

Three types of information are:

Community information

Information about the functions a particular church provide between Monday and Saturday? For example, there may be a playgroup, homeless shelter, elderly club, mental health drop in, after school club or volunteer bureau. It also encompasses information about the local community - healthcare; schools; organisations such as rape crisis or debt counsellors. It would also include information about the rite-of-passage services like marriage or funerals for those whose for whom this is the only point of contact with the church.

Theological information

This refers to information describing what Christianity is about, where teachings originate, the Bible, what it means to be a believer and how one may come to a position of faith.

Practical information

Information about the church's religious activities such as: service times; contact details; style of worship; home-based groups; study opportunities. This is the kind of detail that a church would traditionally put in its weekly paper notice sheet.

Internet/ world wide web

The internet is used as an umbrella term. Accepted definitions suggest that the internet is used to encompass a range of online activities, plus the associated hardware needed for connectivity, whereas the 'world wide web' refers specifically to those sites that use hypertext linkage. For the purposes of this project, the two will be taken as interchangeable and specific reference to individual services (eg VOIP) will be made when they are necessary.

To understand how British Christian churches and related organisations are using their internet presence to communicate theological, community and practical information to, and

within, their congregations and the wider public.

1 Introduction

Christianity in Britain appears to be in decline. Research published in 2008 points to a 15% drop in church attendance between 1998 and 2005, with regular churchgoers, just 6.3% of the population, forming a definite minority (Evangelical Alliance, 2008). The voice of secularism challenges the legitimacy of references to any kind of religion in the public sphere (Butt 2008).

British society, however, remains rooted in the essential validity of pluralism. Tolerance and respect for varied religious and moral standpoints is understood to form the basis of a civilised society. The internet provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and information for all users, from the Vatican1 to Satanists2. Internet use has become widespread, almost ubiquitous, for many British people. (ONS, (2008), Haythornwaite & Wellman, (2002)). Notwithstanding media debates around extremism on the internet, web-based communication can be an effective method of religious communication and connection for many organisations.

Secular organisations have successfully exploited the internet for marketing purposes for a number of years. An internet presence is an established media channel, alongside traditional formats such as print or television. Viral marketing, whereby video clips or websites are popularised by word-of-mouth recommendations, has gained in popularity as social networking sites have attracted more members. Effective campaigns have also been launched using distributed, social, computing over legal and banking issues (Collinson 2008).

It would therefore follow that an organisation under threat could be expected to exploit the internet as part of its efforts to counter falling membership numbers. Parish churches may have a dominant physical presence in a community but it does not necessarily follow that their internet presence is of an equivalent standing. Within the community, local churches need to exploit the power of the internet and local search to establish themselves firmly in

1 www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm (accessed 2 November 2008)2 www.churchofsatan.com (accessed 2 November 2008)

the online equivalent of their parish. It would appear, however, that this is not happening, and that good practice in website design, publishing and search engine optimisation is isolated to a few major urban churches (Blackmore, 2001). Sites continue with design mistakes that were eradicated from mainstream e-commerce sites at least five or six years ago. Commonly noted poor websites include elements such as:

Broken links Comic sans font Uninspiring pictures of church buildings Jargon Out of date information Badly rendered photographs Reams of text Poor choice of colour 3

This approach, summarised by two attitudes 'If we build it, they will come' and 'God will bless whatever we do' (David 2007) is increasingly naïve. In a world where Google is frequently a first port of call for information, churches need to capitalise on an online presence and not rely on telephone or personal contact to encourage new members or arrest the attrition of existing congregations.

The selection of content is also fundamentally important. Currently, the Church of England is attracting more media coverage for its divisions than for its unity, probably strongly reinforcing lay people's perceptions that Christianity is divisive, irrelevant and conservative (McIntyre 2008). At a local level, a church website that is open, accessible, up-to-date and welcoming could go a long way to encourage engagement from the wider community.

This discussion begs several questions. Who are the people writing content for church sites? Are they aware of the wider context in which their work is situated? Are they writing for church members or non-members? What assumptions are being made about the people that would be visiting the church site, and how is that affecting the ethos of the site? Is a church website an integral part of the organisation's strategy, or is it marginalised?

These questions led to the development of this project. The research aims to systematically evaluate how British Christian churches use the internet. Specifically, the overarching aim is:

3 For other examples, see:http://www.church123.com/church_website_design_mistakes.htmhttp://ied.gospelcom.net/church-site-tips.php

To understand how British Christian churches and related organisations are using their internet presence to communicate theological, community and practical information to, and within, their congregations and the wider public.

To this end, then, the research questions and objectives below have been developed.

2 Research questions

2.1 To what extent are individual churches using websites to publish information for their local communities as well as their congregations? (Objectives 3.1 & 3.2)

2.2 In what ways do the existence, content and currency of church websites vary by denomination? (Objective 3.2)

2.3 Do individual churches embrace the use of email, websites and other online collaborative tools to explicitly invite multi-way communication: within their congregations; between church leaders and congregations; and to the wider public? (Objectives 3.1.3.3, 3.2.2.3 & 3.4)

2.4 To what extent are English churchgoers using networks or groups created on the internet as a substitute for, or complementary activity to, attendance at a specific physical church? (Objective 3.3)

2.5 What are the decision making processes, and who are the people making decisions, on what and how to publish information via websites or the level of interactivity permitted? To what extent is the willingness of these decision makers to use internet based communication influenced by theological arguments? (Objective 3.4)

3 Objectives

3.1 To establish if English churches are using websites and collaborative (Web 2.0) tools to publish information for their congregation and the wider community.

3.1.1 To establish the number of physical churches with a purpose built website (as opposed to a third party directory listing).

3.1.2 To identify the emphasis laid on community and congregation as different audiences for church websites

3.1.3 Of those churches with purpose built sites, to investigate whether: 3.1.3.1 content is originated on a church-by-church basis or produced

centrally by a third party and syndicated 3.1.3.2 churches rely on volunteers or use professional staff to design,

manage and edit content for their sites. 3.1.3.3 churches are using interactive tools and allowing user-generated

content 3.1.3.4 there restrictions on who has authority to publish information

3.2 To investigate whether inter- and intra-denominational differences are present in approaches to publishing church information on a website

3.2.1 Establish the likely theological and philosophical differences that may exist between denominations websites

3.2.2 Investigate, by means of content analysis, a sample of church websites to establish:

3.2.2.1 prevalence of various kinds of information across denominations 3.2.2.2 currency of information 3.2.2.3 opportunities for interaction that are available

3.3 To develop an understanding of whether English churchgoers are using the internet to replace face to face communication; as a spin off from established physical churches or in entirely online communities.

3.3.1 Identify existing communities: purely online or based around a physical building or specific event

3.3.2 Evaluate existing research into St Pixels/ Church of Fools to establish a benchmark for the levels of participation and acceptance of online church in England

3.3.3 Investigate methods of data capture and permission to access St Pixels 3.3.3.1 Define alternative methods to gain understanding if direct

access denied

3.4 To gain an insight into church leaders' understanding of websites as a medium of communication; and what influence the personal views of the leadership may have on a church's web presence.

4 Proposed methodology

A fuller justification of the methods chosen, with reference to relevant literature will form part of the full methods chapter in the next report.

4.1 Objective 3.1: To establish the number of physical churches with a purpose built website

The Church of England, the Methodist Church of Britain and the Baptist Union maintain lists of parishes (or parish equivalent) with websites. A sample will be taken from these lists at the end of 2008/ start of 2009. The presence of a website will be noted and compared with the overall number of parishes to establish the proportion of churches that have an independent online presence. 'Independent online presence' refers to having a website created and maintained locally as opposed to merely having a presence on a listings site provided by a third party. This exercise will be repeated regularly during the research project, thereby providing a longitudinal insight into the extent to which the internet is being used by individual churches, and if the proportion of churches adopting websites changes.

Sampling will be random, with the constraint that 65% of parishes will be rural, based on the Church of England Diocesan statistics. Approximately 65% of parishes are defined as rural although a definitive and current classification is still being sought. (The figure of 65% is from an ongoing research project database – Life and Faith in Rural Communities)4 It is likely that Chelmsford will be selected as one area, as it encompasses rural parishes in North Essex as well as Barking and Newham in East London.5 T

Selecting parishes within the Chelmsford area also affords the possibility of arranging face-to-face interviews with church leaders or lay people with responsibilities for the websites. However, if opportunities for sufficient interviews cannot be established a survey will be considered as an alternative.

4.1.1 Further samplingA sample for further, more detailed investigation for the other aspects of the study will be drawn from the Diocesan grouping used at this stage. The exact method of determining the sample of this group has not yet been determined but will take into account the following:

There are over 3,000 sites listed with the Church of England In their studies, Baab (2008), Carr (2004) and Sturgill (2004) used 60, 84 and 251

websites respectively If comparisons between different denominations are undertaken, then sample size

needs to be calculated with power and the risk of making statistical errors in mind It is anticipated that rural and urban church websites will differ in their content and

4 http://www.arcresources.org.uk/publications_and_resources/ life_and_faith_in_rural_communities/ (accessed 12 October 2008)

5 See http://www.chelmsford.anglican.org/areas.html for the map of Diocese

so the sample needs to take into account the location of the churches studied Websites can be transient and so a sample selected in 2008/9 needs to be large

enough to allow for sites to close or change dramatically over the life of the research project

Realistic time and resource constraints that operate for this research project

A stratified random sample will be identified, taking into account the relative proportions of urban and rural churches. Sites would be chosen from the three lists via random numbers, examined to see if they from parishes designated as rural or urban, and either accepted or rejected until the quota of 65% rural and 35% urban is filled. It is anticipated that the sample will be predominantly Church of England as this again reflects the proportion of denominations in the UK. Accurate statistics to allow for the calculation of the overall ratio between C of E/ Methodist/ Baptist are still being identified. Table 1 below illustrates the number of churches in each category to be determined as part of the overall sample.

Denomination/ Location Urban RuralChurch of England 22% 12%Methodist 22% 12%Baptist 22% 12%

Table 1: Six categories of website to be identified

Random number lists will be generated using the tool at www.randomizer.org (accessed 12 October 2008). Websites selected will be archived during the course of the project using Zotero, an opensource extension for Firefox, (www.zotero.org).

4.1.2 Objective 3.1.2: Audiences

The extent to which recommendations for church websites suggest content for congregation and community will be ascertained from examination of literature regarding church websites. This is not necessarily the academic literature, but more the guides for those commissioning or producing sites. Such guides would, it is anticipated, include discussions of the various audience segments that may have an interest in a church's website. This will form the basis of questions for the survey participants, who will be asked how they factor in the various audiences when making decisions on what to publish.

Target audiences will be identifiable from the links contained within sites. Labels for the links – for example, 'Visitors,' 'Getting Married,' 'Children' – will all allow analysis of the way content has been segmented for these different audiences.

4.1.3 Objective 3.1.3: Investigating content management and origination

The objectives in this section will be met primarily by reference to the content of the sites identified.

Objective 3.1.3.1: It is anticipated that syndicated content will be acknowledged within the website and therefore these acknowledgements can be scored in the analysis. It is also anticipated that there may, over the course of the content analysis, appear to be unattributed but common content or other elements that are recognised after a number of sites have been visited. If this is the case, then this will also be considered as syndicated content.

Objective 3.1.3.2: Whether a site has been designed professionally can be ascertained from copyright or other attributions as part of the site. This aspect of the site design and maintenance will also be addressed as part of the interview/ survey section of the study. Therefore, if there are insufficient sites with attributions to allow a conclusion to be drawn there is an alternative source of information on this point.

Objective 3.1.3.3: This will be measured by noting the presence or absence of a blog, blog comment box; discussion list, email forum, wiki or other web 2.0 tools.

Objective 3.1.3.4: This will be partly ascertained by the presence or absence of user-defined content in the scoring for objective 3.1.3.3; this information will be reinforced by the survey data.

4.2 Objective 3.2: Denominational differences

Objective 3.2.1: The following sources will be employed to establish whether there are differences in content between the three denominations:(a) Church of England, Baptist and Methodist organisation sites: do they recommend different content, target audiences, layout or other elements to their congregations?

(b) Existing literature: Five studies identified - Carr (2004); Sturgill (2004);Kim (2007);Baab (2008) ;Hoover et al, 2004) - suggest that churches from different traditions will place different emphases on their content; for example; the balance between content or links for non-churchgoers and for the church community may differ with churches that define

themselves as 'evangelical.' Interactivity may be present or absent in other denominations and there may be areas of variation in content between urban and rural churches.

4.2.1 Objective 3.2.2: Content analysis

The methodology for identifying the sample of websites is outlined above in 5.1.The information to be coded for will be developed from two key areas. First, the existing literature provides examples of the kind of content that has previously been examined. The full table laying out the studies which attempts to organise the categories identified into similar topics is Table 2 below.

The broad categories identified as the starting point are listed below for ease of reference. Statement of faith Information for visitors Contact details Located within community Philosophy Liturgy Downloads Internal audience Use of graphics

This outline list will be expanded and definitions refined to allow scoring for presence/ absence of information and to adapt these broad areas for the purposes of this study. For example, information for visitors could include service times, contact details, location map, church mission statement, pictures of the church and staff members or details on newcomers' events.

Second, guidance on building church websites will be examined for suggested categories of information and its presentation. This would be compared with the list generated from the literature to further refine the definitions and to establish working examples and paraments for each kind of information.

Objective 3.2.2.2: Currency of information will be identified from 'last updated' statements and also the dates of events advertised; if these are timely.

Objective 3.2.2.3: Opportunities for interaction include the Web 2.0 content which is

specified in 1.3.3 but the scope will extend at this point to look at how visitors to the website can contact the physical church – email, face to face, telephone.

4.3 Objective 3.3: Existing online communities

Identification of online communities will be done via a conventional web search using Google, Yahoo, and two Christian-specific search sites www.kingdomseek.co.uk and www.christiansites.org.uk. These have been chosen from a number of available sites as being UK-based. Sites identified in the literature still extant will also be investigated. Communities will be evaluated against criteria to establish the level of involvement of members. These are to be finalised, but will develop those from Joeffson's 2005 investigation into health online communities. In this study, the number of postings per week, and number of active members were used in work which examined the role of online support in patient communities.

4.3.1 Objective 3.3.2: St Pixels/ Church of Fools

Church of Fools, a specific experiment in online church, has been evaluated in a number of articles: Jenkins (2008); Kluver & Chen (2008) and Howe (2007). The current project from the same team, St Pixels, is an active community. Permission is to be sought to research this community, following guidelines provided by the management team.6 Assuming permission is granted, the research will take the form of a survey of members. This will be an opportunity sample of those members willing to participate.

4.4 Objective 3.4: Identify sample of church leaders

Interviews with those whose websites have already been included in the study would permit effective triangulation of the data from the content analysis and longitudinal study. To this end, a further random-number generated sample of churches will be identified, and church leaders for whom contact details are available will be approached and invited to participate in the study. It is possible that, given the time constraints on clergy, insufficient numbers will be willing to participate in a face-to-face interview. In this scenario, methodology will be reviewed and the substitution of a questionnaire considered.

4.4.1 Objective 3.4.4: Definition of questions

6 http://www.stpixels.com/view_page.cgi?page=discover-management-research-guidelines

The exact questions to be asked by the interview/ survey cannot accurately be determined ahead of the scoping and content analysis work. Further recourse to the literature will also be necessary at this stage of the project.

However, the topics can be broadly identified at this stage as follows: Areas of responsibility for content/ maintenance of websites Philosophy behind the establishment of the site Extent to which different audiences are actively encouraged by content

differentiation Support available from central church authorities (training, content, guidance)

5 Progress to date (2 November 2008)

5.1 Literature search

Church websites are not a mainstream information science subject, and so the greatest time this year has been spent in identifying relevant literature around the topic. Whilst a dearth of directly related research around the topic benefits the project in that there is a degree of originality, it has been more difficult to choose and locate a context in which to place the study.

This has led down several blind alleys in terms of what has been read and rejected as being interesting but not relevant – in particular, a large body of late 1990s/ early 2000s work on online community and online religion was gathered and read, but ultimately many items were rejected as being simply out of date compared with the current use of the internet or too far outside the scope of the project.

Arguably, health websites could provide an equivalent context in which to place the project, but this in itself is a vast literature to be evaluated for rejection or inclusion in the review. Likewise the literature on e-commerce and trust has been briefly considered.

Whilst there have been interesting and relevant articles published, these have tended to be in less mainstream journals. Journals of interest that have been identified so far are:

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Journal of Computer Mediated Commiunication Journal of Media and Religion Journal of Religion Journal of Religious and Theological Information New Media & Society Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet Religion Religious Education Review of Religious Research Studies in World Christianity

These are all being monitored on an ongoing basis via RSS feeds, database alerts or manual

searches, depending on the access for each journal.

In addition, a series of booklets from Grove Publishing that are widely used by clergy have been used. These are not academic publications but have given a useful insight into the current thinking by church practitioners around the internet and marketing (Blackmore 2001; Clough 2002; David 2007).

5.2 Development of project aims

The development of aims and objectives has been an iterative process reflecting the thinking around the project and the need to have a clear plan for action. As this project has been created from scratch, rather than being a pre-defined part of a large research effort, this process has taken some months.

5.3 Preliminary findings for content analysis

Four published and one unpublished research studies have been identified from the literature review which have either used content analysis or less systematically considered church website content. It is possible to identify from these some similarities in expected content, which have formed the starting point for the development of my own methodology.The table below gives the content coded for in each of these five studies of church websites.

AuthorCategory

Carr (2004) Sturgill (2004) Kim (2007) Baab (2008)

Pew (Hoover et al, 2004)

Statement of faith

Beliefs convert/ evangelise the reader

Prominent imagery

Links to denominational/ faith / scripture sources

Information for visitors

Service times Style of worship

Present the church as an organisation

Pictures of senior pastorChurch news

Ways of welcoming

Choice of photographs

Encourage visitors to attendPhotographs of events

Contact details E mail address Interact with church or others

Chat roomsSMS

Invites prayer requests

Located within community

Church as allied with a larger community

Use of words community/ connect/ relationship

Community information / soliciting volunteers

Philosophy Organisational vs ideological emphasis

Use of 'justice'

Liturgy Occasional offices

Downloads Sermon broadcasts and texts

Sermon texts/ webcasts

Internal audience Internal administration

Use of graphics Slideshows/graphics

Table 2: Content categories identified in previous analyses

5.4 Statistics

One aspect of work has been to gather baseline statistics on internet use and church attendance in the UK. This has been undertaken via three sources.

5.4.1 Office of National Statistics

(a) First Release: Internet Access 2007 and 2008

Provides information on household internet access and trends profile of those with internet access frequency and location of use activities undertaken technology used to connect to the internet

This gives a reliable background to the level of internet use within the UK. Data is collected as part of the ONS regular Omnibus survey.

(b) Focus on Religion

Based on the 2001 census this report gives detail on the religious affiliations of the UK population.

5.4.2 Church of England

A 2007 Omnibus survey gives a very detailed breakdown of church attendance. Results are available but the survey questions and summary answers have not yet been obtained. (Emails to the research director for the Church of England have are as yet unanswered).

5.4.3 Evangelical Alliance

2005 church attendance survey provides a breakdown by denomination as well as headline figures. It also quotes a figure for the total number of churches in England (37,501 – so the Church of England indexes websites for around 11% of this total).

5.5 Website monitoring

On a regular basis I have visited a number of church directories and been building a collection of relevant websites that will be of use in the future stages of the project. This includes:

Church of England Methodist Church of England Baptist Union of England findachurch.co.uk Evangelical Alliance Rejesus.co.uk

Some of this work needed to be repeated after a computer failed and a number of bookmarks and documents were lost.

Finally, a blog has been created to record progress on the project at http://phdinprogress.wordpress.com/. This has led to infrequent email contact with two other PhD researchers working in related areas.

6 Courses attended

6.1 At Loughborough University

Postgraduate induction (1 day)What is a literature review? (0.5 day)Creative thinking (forthcoming) (0.5 day)Meeting the skills requirement -online (0.5 day)

6.2 Work-based at Reed Smith

Planning & prioritising (0.5 day)Building better working relationships (0.5 day)Training the trainer (0.5 day)

6.3 Other activities

Librarians' Christian Fellowship Conference The spring conference contained a useful session on the use of mainstream media, including the development of rejesus.co.uk and discussion of use of church websites.

British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) Conference (0.5 day) reporting back to team; writing summary report for BIALL; writing report for internal

colleagues. (2hr) networking (1hr)

The total time spent towards the postgraduate training requirement to date is 4.5 days.

7 Plan for 2008/09

Please see Gantt chart (appendix 3) for a more detailed breakdown by objectives..

2008Q4 September – November

Complete write-up of literature review to dateComplete PGR training record for 2008 Identify training opportunities for 2009

Ongoing monitoring of new developments in relevant literature

2009

Q1 January – March

Investigate content analysis as research techniqueIdentify population of possible church websites and select sampling methodology. Develop coding structures

Ongoing monitoring of new developments in relevant literature

Identify PGR opportunities and complete records

Q2 April – June

Content analysis

Ongoing monitoring of new developments in relevant literatureIdentify PGR opportunities and complete records

Q3 July – Sept

Content analysis

Ongoing monitoring of new developments in relevant literature

Identify PGR opportunities and complete records

Drafting 2nd year report

Q4 Oct – Dec

Finalising 2nd year report

Investigate methods of identifying sample clergy/ webmasters for interview

Ongoing monitoring of new developments in relevant literatureIdentify PGR opportunities and complete records

8 ScopeThis project is concerned with British church websites. It is anticipated that this will in effect be English churches only, because of different governance arrangements for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Three main denominations will be examined in parallel and in contrast – Methodist, Baptist and Church of England. Within these denominations, there will be consideration of whether or not a church describes itself as 'evangelical' as this will have a bearing on the kind of content that could be expected on the church site.

This project does not have as its primary concern the development of online church; that is, the replication of physical place or ritual in a mediated environment. However, there are overlaps and the work relating to online church may have useful pointers for that concerned with more traditional website building. The contrast is between those sites built primarily for interaction and those build primarily for information.

9 Literature review – strategy.Please see appendix 2 for content of draft literature review.

Databases searched:

CSA IlluminaLibrary and Information Science AbstractsBritish Humanities IndexASSIAComputer & information systems abstractsCommunicaton Abstracts

EbscoLibrary Information Science and technical abstracts

Web of KnowledgeScience Citation Index Expanded Social Sciences Citation Index Arts & Humanities Citation Index

OVIDInternational Bibliography of the Social Sciences ISI PROCEEDINGSScience & Technology (1990-present)

Email alerts set up for ongoing monitoring from: Web of Knowledge CSA Illumina Science Direct

Specific journal alerts Journal of Information Science Library Trends International Journal of information Management Journal of Computer Mediated Communication

10 References

BAAB, L., 2008. The Future Church: Identity and Persuasion on Congregational Websites. Thesis edn. Unpublished: .

BLACKMORE, V., 2001. Using your Church Web Site for Evangelism. 1st edn. Cambridge: Grove Books Limited.

BUTT, R., Arriving soon: atheist bus campaign gets off to a flying start, Guardian, 22 October 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/oct/22/religion-atheist-dawkins-god (Retrieved 2 November 2008).

CARR, M., 2004. The use of online information sources as a tool for mission by Parish Churches. Journal of Religious and Theological Information, 6(2), pp. 51-85.

COLLINSON, P., Unfair bank charges, withdrawal of graduate facilities and poor consumer service. Guardian, 15 January 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/jan/15/consumeraffairs.bankcharges, (Retrieved 2 November 2008).

CLOUGH, D., 2002. Unweaving the Web: Beginning to think Theologically about the Internet. 1st edn. Cambridge: Grove Books Limited.

DAVID, N., 2007. Publicity and the Local Church. Cambridge: Grove Books Limited.

EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, 13 March 2008, 2005-last update, facts and figures: 2005 english church census [Homepage of Evangelical Alliance], http://www.eauk.org/resources/info/statistics/2005englishchurchcensus.cfm (Retrieved 18 September 2008).

HAYTHORNTHWAITE, C. and WELLMAN, B., 2002. The Internet in Everyday Life: an introduction. In: B. WELLMAN and C. HAYTHORNTHWAITE, eds, The Internet in Everyday Life. 1st edn. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 4.

HOWE, M., 2007. Online Church? First steps towards virtual incarnation. 1ST edn. Cambridge: Grove Books Ltd.

JENKINS, S., 2008. Rituals and Pixels. Experiments in Online Church.. Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet, 3(1)

KIM, K., 2007. Ethereal Christianity: Reading Korean Mega-Church websites. Studies in World Christianity, 13(3), pp. 208.

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11 Appendix 1: Development of content analysis coding and survey questions

11.1 Content analysis

Objective Measure1.2 Target audiences; identifiable from link descriptions/ website sections (e.g.

welcome for visitors/ children/ occasional offices)1.3.1 Volunteers or professionally staffed

From copyright or attribution statement1.3.2 original or syndicated

From copyright/ attribution statement From presence/ absence of elements common to other sites

1.3.3. Score for presence or absence of BlogBlog comments WikiEmail forum (link to other, separately hosted interactive space)?

2.2.1 Basic list for content analysis:Statement of faithInformation for visitorsContact detailsLocated within communityPhilosophyLiturgyDownloadsInternal audienceUse of graphics

2.2.3 Is there a 'last updated' date given?Are service times current?

2.2.4 Opportunities for interaction: 1.3.3 plusDirect or named emailOffice hours and directions for face to face communicationTelephone numbers

11.2 Clergy survey data

Objective Question/ question topic1.2 Does the church have a clear policy about the target/ intended audiences

for its site?1.3.1 Created/ maintained by professional or amateur staff1.3.4 Restrictions on who can add copy to site 4.4 Areas of responsibility for content/ maintenance of websites

Philosophy behind the establishment of the siteExtent to which different audiences are actively encouraged by content differentiationSupport available from central church authorities (training, content, guidance)

11.3 Online community survey data

Objective3.2 Participation in online church vs real church3.2 Participation in online community vs face to face community 3.2 Reasons for preferences3.2 Perceived opportunities or limitations