Religion is Becoming Virtualised. Introduction the the Special Issue on Religion in Virtual Worlds.

Introduction the the Special Issue on Religion in Virtual Worlds

Virtual Religion. An Approach to a Religious and Ritual Topography of Second Life.

Kerstin Radde-Antweiler gives an overview or a cross section about the religious and ritualistic settings within “Second Life” and explores the question why studies in and around Virtual Worlds represent an important issue in the Study of Religions. In her article about “Virtual Religion. An Approach to a Religious and Ritual Topography of Second Life” she introduces the theoretical concept of an “actor-related religious historiography” which tries to take into account the religiousness of the individual actor

"Ritual is becoming digitalised". Introduction to the Special Issue on Rituals on the Internet.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Rituals on the Internet

Rituals Online : Transferring and Designing Rituals

Kerstin Radde-Antweiler stresses the aspect of ritual construction by the individual believers in her paper Rituals Online. Transferring and Designing Rituals. In addition to the potential of the Internet to offer interaction and new processes of communication in the context of rituals – the so called "Online-Rituals" –, this medium also offers much information about rituals and instructions how to perform a ritual, in and outside the Internet. This varies from the publication of – at first glance - fixed ritual prescripts to texts on how to design a ritual by him- or herself. These fixed texts are often identified as old traditional scripts, whereas critical analyses show explicit or implicit transfers and receptions of various religious traditions. In the paper, different ritual prescripts presented on Wicca- and Solitaire Homepages, which are often seen as continuation of pre-Christian, matriarchal, Celtic and Germanic cults and mythologies, are analysed and their transfer processes are exemplified. Instances that show the processes of ritual transfer are the choice of the owner-names, the mixture of deities of different religions, the integration of different feasts and festivals etc. The assertion of perpetual continuity from the insider perspective seems contradict those texts which encourage the believers to develop their own individual ritual. Therefore, the elements of newness and invention as well as the phenomenon of Ritual Design in their processes of gaining legitimacy and authority has to be examined

Ritual-Design im rezenten Hexendiskurs : Transferprozesse und Konstruktionsformen von Ritualen auf Persönlichen Homepages

Aufgabe und Zielsetzung der Arbeit ist die Analyse von Zuschreibungs- und Aushandlungsprozessen unter dem Fokus individueller Religiosität auf der Ebene religiöser Akteure am Beispiel von Homepage-Besitzern des rezenten Hexendiskurses. Im Rahmen einer Akteursperspektivischen Religionsgeschichtsschreibung, die im Gegensatz zur bislang auf den Gelehrtendiskurs fokussierten Perspektive und damit auf einer idealtypischen Beschreibung von Orthodoxie und Orthopraxie Aussagen auf der religiösen Akteursebene untersucht, wurde als exemplarischer Teilbereich die Konstruktion von Ritualen anhand ausgewählter Ritualpräskripte untersucht. Im Gegensatz zu systemisch und damit zugleich statisch verstandenen Ritualen, die als fest definierbar und abgrenzbar gelten, werden Rituale nicht mehr als in sich geschlossene Systeme angesehen, die unabänderlich in Zeit und Raum bestehen, sondern als von den jeweiligen Akteuren konstruiertes Symbolsystem, welches per se fluiden Charakter aufweist und im Laufe der Geschichte an neue Wissensbestände, Ereignisse, Lebenssituationen angepasst und konstruiert wird. Für die Untersuchung von clusterförmigen Religionsdiskursen wird postuliert, dass Zuschreibungs- und Konstruktionsprozesse mehrdimensional, d. h. für die einzelnen Teildiskurse – die sogenannten Aggregationen – untersucht werden müssen. Als Beispiel einer solchen Aggregation wird der Ritualdiskurs in den Fokus genommen und auf diese Prozesse befragt und analysiert. Leitende Fragestellungen waren dabei: Wie werden Rituale im Medienverbund Internet designed? Welche Konstruktionsprozesse lassen sich im Rahmen von Ritualdesign beobachten und lassen sich dahinter stehende Strukturen eruieren

Cyber-Rituals in Virtual Worlds - Wedding-Online in Second Life

In the context of Internet Research, Virtual Worlds offer a new environment to meet, communicate and perform rituals - the so called Online-Rituals - in a virtual reality, irrespective of geographical and real-life body conditions. The most prominent example for such worlds that have existed since 1998 is the privately-owned, subscription-based 3D application Second Life. An increasing number of residents use this World not only as a kind of virtual playground but as an enlargement of their real-life possibilities that has to be taken seriously: The users are both socially and religiously very active and consequently transfer real-life activities and therefore also rituals into virtual space. With the shift of technical boundaries former seemingly fixed religious and ritual frameworks will be modified and transformed. Different wedding rituals designed and performed in Second Life, for example, show the possibility to identify processes of ritual transfer and of ritual patchworking

Interview With Ryan Sumo, Lead Artist/Business Developer At Squeaky Wheel Studio

Interview with Ryan Sumo, Lead Artist/Business Developer at Squeaky Wheel Studio7076Bremen

Video Gaming, Let's Plays, and Religion: The Relevance of Researching gamevironments.

Many games "play" with religious symbols or construct symbolic universes to be understood as "religioscapes". It is not surprising that a lot of research from the narrative perspective focuses on game design and how religious symbols are transferred as well as transformed within the game. The crucial question, however, is this: are these symbols relevant to the gamers or do they just serve as decorative framing? The article discusses gamevironments as an analytical concept based on the actor-centered approach, which integrates the analysis of the game narratives with a view to combining the narrative and the ludic approaches. Thus, "games/gaming" - "environments" - in short gamevironments - comprises two levels: the technical environment of video games and gamersas well as the cultural environments of video games and gaming.The article deals with a specific example of what is one part of gamevironments. One new "environment" of games are the so-called "Let's Plays" - increasingly and widely popular self-recorded gaming videos in which the respective gamers, the "Let's Players", comment on their journey through the game as well as on various aspects of it.Bremen

Establishment of a new AAR-Seminar "Video Gaming and Religion"

Report on the establishment of a new AAR seminar "Video Gaming and Religion".153155Bremen

Methods for Analyzing Let's Plays: Context Analysis for Gaming Videos on YouTube

Let's Plays, gaming videos distributed on video platforms such as YouTube, became immensely popular during the last years. As a new research field they offer a huge new pool of research data for the study of video games/gaming and religion. But how to adequately analyze these data? We here propose a matrix for the initial section of analyzing Let's Plays, namely context analysis which then of course needs to be followed by content analysis. Based on the six wh-questions as applied especially also in the classical historical-critical method, we here propose a structured, step by step procedure analyzing specified and clearly defined components. Each step in this context analysis takes up one specific component of the Let's Play and provides context information for it. As such, we present and discuss a sequence of steps which is applicable not only in the study of Let's Plays and religion, but in research on Let's Plays in general.100139Bremen