heidi campbell assoc prof, texas a&m university heidic@tamu.edu

Heidi CampbellAssoc Prof, Texas A&M University

heidic@tamu.edu

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?