Editorial

Editorial note of Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis vol. 25, Digital Religion, based on papers read at the conference arranged by the Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History, Åbo Akademi University, Åbo/Turku, Finland, on 13–15 June 2012

The Digital Religion Yearbook 2021

Yearbook, Review of Digital Religion ResearchThe Digital Religion Yearbook is a new publication compiled and published by the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies. It aims is to spotlight important recently published articles, emerging scholars, and outstanding contributions made within the growing area of Digital Religion Studies. This first edition introduces and describes the core sections and their themes to be presented within each following edition of the yearbook. Overall, The Digital Religion Yearbook seeks to provide a curated review of current notable works within the study of digital religion, to help scholars and students stay up-to-date on new publications and forthcoming research.Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studie

Digital literacy in religious studies

This article considers the relevance of the concept of ‘digital literacy’ within the context of the discipline of religious studies in higher education and reflects on its potential impact on notions of ‘graduateness’. It contemplates how digital technology can be integrated most effectively in learning design and reflects on the skills students need to be equipped with to recognise the challenges and opportunities of digital technology and understand its impact and role within the study of religions

Digital religion: How digital immigrants access religious content during pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed human interactions including how they carry out religious practices and this situation has made them change everything that the activities now through media. Digital immigrants aged from 38 years old and above categorized as generation born before digital era that requires them more to adopt the technology. This paper aims at how digital immigrants in Jakarta search for religious content during pandemic Covid-19. Media dependency theory is used in this research for analysing the research results. Media dependency theory has evolved with the changing communication environment and expanded its theoretical framework to communication infrastructure theory to cover new relationships between individuals and media. The research method used is qualitative descriptive of ten informants categorized as digital immigrants and data were collected through interview. The results found that the informants depended on digital media in searching for religious contents and participated on some religious circles in some digital (social) media platforms.***Pandemi Covid-19 telah mengubah interaksi manusia termasuk bagaimana mereka menjalankan praktik keagamaan dan situasi ini telah membuat mereka mengubah segala sesuatu yang aktivitasnya sekarang melalui media. Imigran digital berusia 38 tahun ke atas dikategorikan sebagai generasi yang lahir sebelum era digital yang menuntut mereka untuk lebih mengadopsi teknologi. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk melihat bagaimana para imigran digital di Jakarta mencari konten religi di masa pandemi Covid-19. Teori ketergantungan media digunakan dalam penelitian ini untuk menganalisis hasil penelitian. Teori ketergantungan media telah berkembang dengan lingkungan komunikasi yang berubah dan memperluas kerangka teoretisnya ke teori infrastruktur komunikasi untuk mencakup hubungan baru antara individu dan media. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah deskriptif kualitatif terhadap sepuluh informan yang dikategorikan sebagai imigran digital dan data dikumpulkan melalui wawancara. Hasil kajian menemukan bahwa informan bergantung pada media digital dalam mencari konten keagamaan dan berpartisipasi pada beberapa kalangan keagamaan di beberapa platform media (sosial) digital

Digital religion: How digital immigrants access religious content during pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed human interactions including how they carry out religious practices and this situation has made them change everything that the activities now through media. Digital immigrants aged from 38 years old and above categorized as generation born before digital era that requires them more to adopt the technology. This paper aims at how digital immigrants in Jakarta search for religious content during pandemic Covid-19. Media dependency theory is used in this research for analysing the research results. Media dependency theory has evolved with the changing communication environment and expanded its theoretical framework to communication infrastructure theory to cover new relationships between individuals and media. The research method used is qualitative descriptive of ten informants categorized as digital immigrants and data were collected through interview. The results found that the informants depended on digital media in searching for religious contents and participated on some religious circles in some digital (social) media platforms.***Pandemi Covid-19 telah mengubah interaksi manusia termasuk bagaimana mereka menjalankan praktik keagamaan dan situasi ini telah membuat mereka mengubah segala sesuatu yang aktivitasnya sekarang melalui media. Imigran digital berusia 38 tahun ke atas dikategorikan sebagai generasi yang lahir sebelum era digital yang menuntut mereka untuk lebih mengadopsi teknologi. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk melihat bagaimana para imigran digital di Jakarta mencari konten religi di masa pandemi Covid-19. Teori ketergantungan media digunakan dalam penelitian ini untuk menganalisis hasil penelitian. Teori ketergantungan media telah berkembang dengan lingkungan komunikasi yang berubah dan memperluas kerangka teoretisnya ke teori infrastruktur komunikasi untuk mencakup hubungan baru antara individu dan media. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah deskriptif kualitatif terhadap sepuluh informan yang dikategorikan sebagai imigran digital dan data dikumpulkan melalui wawancara. Hasil kajian menemukan bahwa informan bergantung pada media digital dalam mencari konten keagamaan dan berpartisipasi pada beberapa kalangan keagamaan di beberapa platform media (sosial) digital

Teaching from the Tent: Muslim Women\u27s Leadership in Digital Religion

Muslim women’s accounts of their own religious leadership have been consistently absent from historical documents and present-day reporting. The absence of narrations does not necessarily indicate the absence of women, however, and today more and more women are leading and becoming public figures using new platforms provided by the Internet. In order to understand the essence of their leadership, this study sought to discover and describe the religious leadership lives of Muslim women, to disentangle the relationship between feminism and feminist work per Muslim women religious leaders, and to understand how digital religion influences their leadership. This qualitative study is a feminist phenomenology of seven Muslim women who are public figures and religious leaders. Using long interviews, document analysis of their publications, public teaching observations, and netnographies. I gathered data about the essence of their leadership. I further triangulated the data with a six-week study of a WhatsApp chat that happened between 75 Muslim women religious leaders who remain anonymous in this study. The feminist theories of bell hooks (2000), Nell Noddings (1985), and feminist theologians, along with Aristotle’s theory of knowledge as expressed by al Farābi, and Chaos theory as applied to social systems as described by Fritjof Capra (2002) came together to form the theoretical underpinnings of this study. Careful analysis of the data resulted in a model of Muslim women’s religious leadership that can be used to both appreciate the unique aspects of their leadership and improve education and training for Muslim women who wish to enter into the field

Digital Religion Among U.S. and Canadian Millennial Adults

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Review of Religious Research. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-021-00463-0Background Although there is a growing body of research on the nature and content of digital religion, we still know little about the prevalence of digital religious and spiritual practices among different populations in North America. To what extent do digital technologies play a complementary role to in-person religious and spiritual activities only, or do they also reach out to and provide important spaces for new segments of the population removed from more conventional forms of organized religion? Purpose The goal is to answer this research question and to explore the prevalence of different types of digital religion practices specifically among young adult Millennials in both the U.S. and Canada. Three contrasting hypotheses are tested: that digital religion practices are prevalent among large segments of the Millennial population and are part of a wider turn towards individual spiritualization (H1); that digital religion practices are another set of religiosity indicators showing signs of a secular transition among Millennials (H2); or that both trends are occurring in tandem, in that some Millennials are practising digital religion, mostly but not exclusively tied to in-person religious activities and socialization (H3). Methods To test these hypotheses, we generate a series of descriptive and logit regression statistical analyses using novel and high-quality 2019 Millennial Trends Survey data from both Canada and the U.S. Results We find that 1) digital religion as measured in this study is a phenomenon present among many Millennials, although it is also not present among all or a vast majority of this demographic; 2) this is especially the case for more passive forms of digital religion, notably digital content consumption, compared with more active forms such as social media posting; 3) social environment does play an important role, with digital religion practices much more prevalent in the generally more religious U.S. context, compared with the generally more secular Canadian context; and 4) digital religion practices are often, but not always, tied to other in-person religious and spiritual activities among Millennials. Conclusions and Implications We find support especially for our third hypothesis (H3) with these results. Consequently, we argue that we should understand the individual spiritualization and secular transition frameworks as complementary, rather than in complete opposition, regarding the prevalence of digital religion among Millennials.SSHRC Insight Development Grant. Surveying Millennials’ Non-Religious Homophily and Social Distance

Theological Insight of Digital Religion

This research aims to analyse the emergence of digital religion from its historical root, to formulate its definition, and finally build the theological construction on how religion and digital media are closely related and mutually influence the contemporary community. Using the integrated critical thinking approach in the literature review, the conclusion can be drawn that the theological perspective of digital religion is crucial. The traditional construction of how to behave according to the religion being followed has to broaden its horizon and cover the explanation of divinity in media digitalization. It is necessary to be done so that the religious congregation and even the academicians accept it as part of the divine work in the 21st century and still maintain it in the path to keep the Christianity faith. This research investigates and contributes to the thinking collaboration of theology and computer sciences in digital theology

Episode 4: Social Media, Religion, and Feminism with Dr. Ruth Tsuria

If you are interested in the varied aspects that comprise Digital Scholarship from a Communications, Religious, Feminist, and Social Sciences perspective, this podcast will provide an overview of the latest scholarship in this field. Join the University Libraries as we welcome the insights provided by Dr. Ruth Tsuria who co-edited a work with Dr. Heidi Campbell (Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University) entitled: Digital Religion, Understanding Religious Practice in Digital Media, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2021)