"This study modelled the factors that influence fake news spreading behaviour among social media users. To gather our data, we used an online survey to sample 385 social media users in Nigeria, using a chain referral approach. Smart PLS structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data (SEM
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). We discovered that lack of mindfulness, religiosity, instant news sharing, self-expression all predicted fake news sharing behaviour of social media users. The impacts of lack of mindfulness and religiosity were found to have a greater effect on fake news sharing behaviour. Exploration was found to have a negative effect on fake news sharing. We concluded this study with some theoretical and practical implications." (Abstract)
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"The use of the internet and digital technology has permeated most facets of life from educational to business organizations both secular and religious. The digital revolution and use of the internet will have a prevailing and lasting impact; therefore, it is prudent for leaders to develop strategie
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s to integrate such innovations into their normal operations. In light of this revolution, Christian leaders and organizations are compelled to consider the capabilities that digital technology and the internet have to offer for ministry practices. Such a revolution challenges the traditional norms and practices of Christian churches and causes them to consider the biblical and theological implications of relatively new means for carrying out ministry. There are biblical, theological, theoretical, and leadership implications to embracing digital church as a biblical community. Christian leaders should examine the biblical and theological implications of digital church as a biblical community and be utilized to augment local church ministry." (Abstract)
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"Digital Religion refers to the contemporary practice and understanding that religion takes place in both online and offline contexts, and how these contexts intersect with each other. Scholars in this growing field of Digital Religion studies recognize that religion has been influenced by its engag
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ement with computer-mediated digital spaces, including not only the Internet, but other emerging technologies, such as mobile phones, digital wearables, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. The Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion provides a comprehensive overview of religion as seen and performed through various platforms and cultural spaces created by digital technology. The text covers religious interaction with a wide range of digital media forms (including social media, websites, gaming environments, virtual and augmented realities, and artificial intelligence) and highlights examples of technological engagement and negotiation within the major world religions (i.e., Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism). Additional sections cover the global manifestations of religious community, identity, ethics, and authority, with a final group of chapters addressing emerging technologies and the future of the field." (Publisher description)
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"This book departs from the universalising and rescue narratives of poor children and technologies. It offers complex stories on how children's social identities (gender, caste, and religion), cultural norms, and personal aspirations influence their digital experiences. How do children challenge, ci
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rcumvent, or reinforce the dominant sociocultural norms in their engagements with digital technologies? What can we learn about digital technologies and poor children's jugaad and aspirations in the urban sprawls of India? This book explores these questions ethnographically by focusing on how children in three urban slums in India access technologies, inhabit online spaces, and personalise their digital experiences, networks, and identity articulations based on their values and aspirations. It utilises insights from studies on jugaad, expression, and sociality to argue that poor children's material realities, community relations, and aspirations for leisure, class mobility, and belongingness profoundly shape their engagements with digital technologies." (Publisher description)
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"Digital Religion: The Basics explores how digital media and internet platforms are transforming religious practice in a digital age and the impact this has had on religious culture in contemporary society. Through exploring six defining characteristics of how religion is acted out online, including
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multisite reality, convergence practice, networked community, storied identity, shifting authority, and experiential authenticity, the book considers how digital religion both shapes, and is influenced by, religion offline. Questions asked include: How is religion being performed and reimagined through digital media and cultures? In what ways do the practices of religion online merge or correspond with shifts in perspective taking place in offline religious practice? How do the key findings of religion online reflect broader social, cultural, and structural practices observed within mobile, networked society?" (Publisher description)
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"Divided into five parts, the Handbook opens with a state-of-the-art overview of the subject’s intellectual landscape, introducing the historical background, theoretical foundations, and major academic approaches to communication, media, and religion. Subsequent sections focus on institutional and
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functional perspectives, theological and cultural approaches, and new approaches in digital technologies. The essays provide insight into a wide range of topics, including religious use of media, religious identity, audience gratification, religious broadcasting, religious content in entertainment, films and religion, news reporting about religion, race and gender, the sex-religion matrix, religious crisis communication, public relations and advertising, televangelism, pastoral ministry, death and the media, online religion, future directions in religious communication, and more." (Publisher description)
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"Sacred Cyberspaces reveals how long-standing conflicts over power, influence, and legitimacy within religious organizations are being waged in the digital realm. Oren Golan and Michele Martini describe the tensions that arise as religious groups seek to reach the faithful in online spaces where tra
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ditional clerical authorities have less expertise and control. Focusing on the Catholic world, they examine the rise of devotional digital entrepreneurship and the roles of lay religious webmasters: the video makers, app developers, and web designers who devote their lives to evangelization and who literally run the show. The book also explores the nature of religious experience as it pivots to online platforms: cyberculture, prayer, ceremonies, pilgrimage, proselytization, and the relation to the transcendental. From live-streaming at world-famous sites in the Holy Land to the Instagram feed of Pope Francis, Sacred Cyberspaces evaluates the contemporary media strategies of the Catholic Church and sheds light on the future of religion online." (Publisher description)
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"This volume contains a collection of 12 chapters discussing the theme of the book, which focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications that this crisis holds for the church in the future. The main matter being examined in this book is the ecclesiological challenges and opportunities present
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ed by digital technology in relation to its widespread use in the life of the church during the health crisis. The book is divided into three sections. “The first part re-examines traditional vocabulary and understandings of digital church. The second section explores specific examples of ecclesiological shifts during the pandemic. The final section looks to the future of the Church in the digital age, offering insight and recommendations for a way forward.” One of the highlights of this book is that it gathered the wisdom and insights from scholars from a variety of disciplines and theological traditions as well as geographical and cultural backgrounds. Thus, the theology of the Church in the digital age being considered and deepened in this volume is not of a particular denomination, but of Christianity taken as a whole." (https://www.asianresearchcenter.org)
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"This book offers a critical and systematic survey of the study of religion and digital media. It covers religious engagement with a wide range of digital media forms and highlights examples of new media engagement in all five of the major world religions. From mobile apps and video games to virtual
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reality and social media, the book provides a detailed review of major topics including ritual, identity, community, authority, and embodiment, includes a series of engaging case studies to illustrate and elucidate the thematic explorations, considers the theoretical, ethical, and theological issues raised [...] Thoroughly updated throughout with new case studies and in-depth analysis of recent scholarship and developments, this new edition provides a comprehensive overview of this fast-paced, constantly developing, and fascinating field." (Publisher description)
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"Divided into two sections, the chapters included in the first section of the book present case studies from five major religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism and their engagement with digitalization. The second section of the volume explores the moral, ideological but also o
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ntological implications of our increasingly digital lives." (Publisher description)
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"Mit Covid-19 hat sich eine todbringende Pandemie erstmals global verbreitet, mit weitreichenden Folgen auf allen Ebenen, auch für Mobilität und Kommunikation in Kirche, Mission und weltweiter Ökumene. Partnerschaftsreisen oder Auslandsjahre für junge Freiwillige sind ausgefallen, stattdessen si
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nd Zoom-Meetings und neue digitale Formate auf den Plan getreten: „Online durch die Pandemie“, die Krise als Lern- und Experimentierfeld für die Zukunft. Davon erzählen die gut 20 Autor*innen des Jahrbuchs 2021, aus Tansania und Nambia, aus Indien und Deutschland. Die Pandemie hat großes Leid verursacht, aber sie hat auch neue kreative Kräfte und Erfahrungen ermöglicht. Etwa dass Christ*innen anderswo gelassener sind und Anteil nehmen: „Wir kennen uns aus mit Seuchen, für euch ist das neu“, sagt eine Kongolesin, „darum beten wir jetzt für euch in Europa." (Buchrücken)
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"The book Digital Creatives and the Rethinking of Religious Authority makes a valuable contribution to the study of how religious authority is evolving in the digital age. The author synthesizes previous research and introduces a new framework for categorizing types of religious authority in digital
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spaces. Building upon Anderson’s earlier typology, Campbell significantly advances this framework through her original empirical research, which is based on a series of qualitative interviews with Christian religious digital creatives (RDCs). Campbell identifies nine distinct manifestations of RDCs, demonstrating how each type, through their actions, enacts media-making narratives and engages in technological apologetics. Her approach offers a systematic and more nuanced classification and conceptual understanding of diversifying religious authority, reflecting the current plastic religious landscape and setting her work apart from previous studies." (Review by Helena Lipková in CyberOrient, Vol. 18, Iss. 1, 2024, pp. 73-77)
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"[This publication] is a senior project in Religious Studies that explores the conditions, both historical and clinical, which led to the popularity of the guided meditation app Headspace, and the cultural attitudes that surround mindfulness meditation in America." (Publisher description)
"This book [...] examines the shift from a propositional to a therapeutic approach to faith from a sociological standpoint. The book covers two research projects in particular: the Twitter Gospels and Online Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It explores the data as it relates to Abby Day's concept of pe
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rformative belief, picking up on Mia Lövheim's challenge to see how this concept works out in digital culture and social media. It also compares the data to various construals of contemporary approaches to faith performative faith including Christian Smith's concept of 'Moralistic Therapeutic Deism'. Other research is also compared to the findings of these projects, including a micro-project on Celebrities and the Bible, to give a wider perspective on these issues in both the UK and the US." (Publisher description)
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"Utilising results of an unprecedented global study, this volume explores the ways in which young adults in seven different countries engage with digital and social media in religiously significant ways. Presenting and analysing the findings of the international research project Young Adults and Rel
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igion in a Global Perspective (YARG), an international panel of contributors shed new light on the impact of digital media and its associated technologies on young people's religiosities, worldviews, and values. Case studies from China, Finland, Ghana, Israel, Peru, Poland, and Turkey are used to demonstrate how these developments are progressing, not just in the West, but across the world." (Publisher description)
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