Digital religion

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Digital religion is the practice of religion in the digital world, and the academic study of such religious practice.

History

Digital Religion is the practice of religion in the digital world, and the academic study of such religious practice. Now digital religion is a modern field sub-category stemming out of digital culture. In the mid-1990s, "cyber-religion" was a term that arose to describe the interface between religion and virtual reality technologies. Most scholars started documenting how religious groups moved worship online and how religious rituals were performed. [1] By the first decade of the 21st century, the term "digital religion" became more dominant, and has often been studied in terms of religion's developments in the Web 2.0 world. [2] It has tended to also make a distinction between "religion online" (religious practice facilitated by the digital) and "online religion" (religious practice transforms and offers new forms of religiosity in the digital). [3] As Heidi Campbell's work emphasizes about Digital Religion in the Digital Creatives and the Rethinking of Religious Authority it is imperative to re-frame one's spirituality in conjunction with navigating in an online community. Different religions and cultures may incorporate the use of digital mediums and religion using various reasons and practices to accomplish goals. One common theme in digital religion that they typically all have virtual religious spaces.


Virtual Christianity

The practice of engaging others in the Christian religion using virtual methods such as streaming services, mobile phone apps, social media platforms. Cyber- Christian spaces engage with people in their congregations, organizations and nonpracticers of the faith. Some use technology to hold bible studies, worship services and even as a Christian dating tool. Virtual Christianity is commonly referred to as Virtual Church instead of a direct reference to religious affiliation.

Virtual Buddhism

The practice of engaging others in the Buddhism religion using virtual methods such as streaming services, mobile phone apps, social media platforms. Connelly, suggests that it is important to identify the positioning of Buddhists in society and in the virtual world as well. Buddhism approaches a virtual reality through an interdisciplinary approach.

Virtual Judaism

The practice of engaging others in the Judaism religion using virtual methods such as streaming services, mobile phone apps, social media platforms. In particular the Chabad, a Jewish ultra-Orthodox movement, sheds light on a fundamentalist society interacting with new media, by negotiating between modernity and religious piety. [4]

Virtual Hikari no Wa

The practice of engaging others in the Hikari no Wa religion using virtual methods such as streaming services, mobile phone apps, social media platforms. Japanese New Religions Online: Hikari no Wa and Net Religion [5] use different forms of technology and as a result of different forms. For instance they use tech for training members and leaders, communication, broadening the reach of their messages, and hopefully to connect with new converts.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital media</span> Any media that are encoded in machine-readable formats

Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. Digital defines as any data represented by a series of digits, and media refers to methods of broadcasting or communicating this information. Together, digital media refers to mediums of digitized information broadcast through a screen and/or a speaker. This also includes text, audio, video, and graphics that are transmitted over the internet for viewing or listening to on the internet.

Technological convergence is the tendency for technologies that were originally unrelated to become more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For example, watches, telephones, television, computers, and social media platforms began as separate and mostly unrelated technologies, but have converged in many ways into an interrelated telecommunication, media, and technology industry.

Proselytism is the policy of attempting to convert people's religious or political beliefs. Carrying out attempts to instill beliefs can be called proselytization.

Beliefnet is a Christian lifestyle website featuring editorial content related to the topics of inspiration, spirituality, health, wellness, love and family, news, and entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grameenphone</span> Telecom Operator in Bangladesh

Grameenphone, widely abbreviated as (d/b/a) GP, is the leading telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh, with 83.02 million subscribers. It is a joint venture between Telenor and Grameen Telecom Corporation. Telenor, a telecommunication company from Norway, owns a 55.8% share of Grameenphone, Grameen Telecom owns 34.2% and the remaining 10% is publicly held.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital rhetoric</span>

Digital rhetoric can be generally defined as communication that exists in the digital sphere. As such, digital rhetoric can be expressed in many different forms —including but not limited to text, images, videos, and software. Due to the increasingly mediated nature of our contemporary society, there are no longer clear distinctions between digital and non-digital environments. This has led to an expansion of the scope of digital rhetoric to account for the increased fluidity with which humans interact with technology.

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel online marketing technique focused at reaching a specific audience on their smartphones, feature phones, tablets, or any other related devices through websites, e-mail, SMS and MMS, social media, or mobile applications. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services, appointment reminders and ideas. In a more theoretical manner, academic Andreas Kaplan defines mobile marketing as "any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile social network</span> Social networking on mobile devices

Mobile social networking is social networking where individuals with similar interests converse and connect with one another through their mobile phone and/or tablet. Much like web-based social networking, mobile social networking occurs in virtual communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital marketing</span> Marketing of products or services using digital technologies or digital tools

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development during the 1990s and 2000s changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly use digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e–books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones, callback, and on-hold mobile ring tones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing.

Internet church, online church, cyberchurch, or digital church refer to a wide variety of ways that Christian religious groups can use the internet to facilitate their religious activities, particularly prayer, discussion, preaching and worship services. The Internet has become a site for religious experience which has raised questions related to ecclesiology, because some Christian traditions insist that an online gathering cannot be considered a church. For example, the Roman Catholic Pontifical Council for Social Communications declared in 2002 that "the virtual reality of cyberspace cannot substitute for real interpersonal community, the incarnational reality of the sacraments and the liturgy, or the immediate and direct proclamation of the gospel", while acknowledging that the internet can still "enrich the religious lives of users".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media marketing</span> Use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers. Most social media platforms have built-in data analytics tools, enabling companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. On a strategic level, social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone."

An over-the-top (OTT) media service is a media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms: the types of companies that have traditionally acted as controllers or distributors of such content. It has also been used to describe no-carrier cellphones, for which all communications are charged as data, avoiding monopolistic competition, or apps for phones that transmit data in this manner, including both those that replace other call methods and those that update software.

Heidi A. Campbell is a professor of communications at Texas A&M University. She is known for her work in digital religion, and studies related to religion and new media.

The commercialization of the Internet encompasses the creation and management of online services principally for financial gain. It typically involves the increasing monetization of network services and consumer products mediated through the varied use of Internet technologies. Common forms of Internet commercialization include e-commerce, electronic money, and advanced marketing techniques including personalized and targeted advertising. The effects of the commercialization of the Internet are controversial, with benefits that simplify daily life and repercussions that challenge personal freedoms, including surveillance capitalism and data tracking. This began with the National Science Foundation funding supercomputing center and then universities being able to develop supercomputer sites for research and academic purposes.

The study of religion and video games is a subfield of digital religion, which the American scholar of communication, Heidi Campbell, defines as "Religion that is constituted in new ways through digital media and cultures.". Video games once struggled for legitimacy as a cultural product, today, however, they are both business and art. Video games increasingly turn to religion not just as ornament but as core elements of their video game design and play. Games involve moral decision, rely on invented religions, and allow users to create and experience virtual religious spaces. As one of the newest forms of entertainment, however, there is often controversy and moral panic when video games engage religion, for instance, in Insomniac Games' use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man. Concepts and elements of contemporary and ancient religions appear in video games in various ways: places of worship are a part of the gameplay of real-time strategy games like Age of Empires; narratively, games sometimes borrow themes from religious traditions like in Mass Effect 2.

An online dating application is an online dating service presented through a mobile phone application (app), often taking advantage of a smartphone's GPS location capabilities, always on-hand presence, easy access to digital photo galleries and mobile wallets to enhance the traditional nature of online dating. These apps aim to simplify and speed up the process of sifting through potential dating partners, chatting, flirting, and potentially meeting or becoming romantically involved over traditional online dating services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital theology</span>

Digital theology or cybertheology is the study of the relationship between theology and the digital technology.

Pray.com is a Christian social networking service and mobile app that serves as a social media platform for religious communities. The Pray platform includes social media, daily prayers, sermons, biblical content, and podcasts. Pray.com was founded in 2016 by Steve Gatena, Michael Lynn, Ryan Beck and Matthew Potter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory Price Grieve</span> American historian

Gregory Price Grieve is an American historian of religions, academic and researcher. He is a Professor and Head of the Religious Studies Department at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

References

  1. Tsuria, Ruth; Yadlin-Segal, Aya; Vitullo, Alessandra; Campbell, Heidi A. (2017-04-03). "Approaches to digital methods in studies of digital religion". The Communication Review. 20 (2): 73–97. doi:10.1080/10714421.2017.1304137. hdl: 10281/274936 . ISSN   1071-4421. S2CID   149048002.
  2. Campbell, Heidi (2012). "The Rise of the Study of Digital Religion". In Campbell, Heidi (ed.). Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds. Routledge. pp. 1–22. ISBN   978-0-415-67610-6.
  3. Helland, Christopher (2001). "Online Religion/Religion Online and Virtual Communitas". In Cowan, Douglas E.; Hadden, Jeffrey K. (eds.). Religion on the Internet: Research Prospects and Promises. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. pp. 205–224. ISBN   978-0-7623-0535-3.
  4. Golan, Oren; Stadler, Nurit (2016-01-01). "Building the sacred community online: the dual use of the Internet by Chabad". Media, Culture & Society. 38 (1): 71–88. doi:10.1177/0163443715615415. ISSN   0163-4437. S2CID   146964212.
  5. Baffelli, Erica (2016). Media and New Religions in Japan. Taylor & Francis. ISBN   978-0-415-65912-3.