Monday, 15 April 2013

Readings Week 7 - "God Mobs: Virtually Religious Community"

by Laura Green




I found Wagner’s research into online communities and how they interact with religion quite interesting. As a 21 year old in 2013 I use all the forms of technology discussed by Wagner, never without my phone, always on facebook. However, I have not been a part of an online community, the only people I converse with online are the friends I already have, and so I used to find the idea that someone could become so attached to a person or a group that they had never met, quite strange. As Wagner points out this is the view many scholars take, seeing online relationships and communities as not really connecting us with anyone and pretty much value-less (128).

However, recently I have been watching a show on MTV called “catfish”, a documentary series that profiles young Americans who have met people online and formed romantic relationships with them, without meeting. This has opened my eyes to how intense such online communication can be.

I have not really thought about online religion before, but I can see from research that it is a huge trend. The amount of online religious communities that are based on traditional religions was interesting to me. Many religious authorities are against the growth of such communities for various reasons, particularly that they believe online religion requires less effort than face-to-face religion and that virtual contact shouldn’t be able to replace human contact. However, there are others who see that online religious communities are valuable to those in places where they perhaps cannot attend services or read scripture themselves. I tend to agree with this sentiment. Diane Winston, from the University of Southern California, also states that research indicates people who participate in online religion are often also involved in real-world places of worship and use the online world to further develop their faith (Gina Ryder, 2011). The many different uses of online religion make me think that it can be a very beneficial thing.


References:
Gina Ryder, “Will Online Communities Replace Church”, The Christian Post 12/09/2011.
http://global.christianpost.com/news/will-online-communities-replace-church-55457/. 

Rachel Wagner, "God Mobs: Virtually Religious community" in Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011). 

No comments:

Post a Comment