Skip to main content

The Practice of Digital Religion

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Handbuch Soziale Praktiken und Digitale Alltagswelten

Abstract

The study of digital religion examines the influence religion and new media have upon one another. In recent decades, scholars of media and religion have paid increasing attention to the religious uses of new media. As the Internet has become embedded in our everyday lives, digital media increasingly informs the practice of religion, the things adherents do to enact their beliefs and express religious identity, the things adherents do to demonstrate their affiliation with a religion or religious community. This chapter examines the ways religious practice occurs within digital environments through the lens of religious ritual online. By considering the particular meanings and ways rituals are enacted through media, we identify how religious ritual highlights some of the common forms of religious practice found online.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 64.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 64.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The puja is an offering to one or multiple deities performed in daily rituals which is a central component to Hindu devotional worship in domestic spaces (Jacobs 2007).

  2. 2.

    godlife.com/jesus2020/. Accessed: September 9, 2016

  3. 3.

    lds.org. Accessed: August 21, 2016.

References

  • Bell, Mark, and Taylor C. Boas, 2003. Falun Gong and the Internet: Evangelism, community, and struggle for survival. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 6(2): 277–293.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, Heidi. 2005. Spiritualising the Internet: Uncovering discourses and narratives of religious Internet usage. Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 01:1. http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archiv/5824. Accessed 21.08.2016.

  • Campbell, Heidi. 2013. Introduction: The rise of the study of digital religion. In Digital religion, ed. Heidi Campbell, 1–22. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheong, Pauline Hope, and Charles Ess. 2012. Twitter of faith: Understanding social media networking and microblogging rituals as religious practices. In Digital religion, social media and culture: Perspectives, practices, futures, ed. Pauline Hope Cheong, Peter Fischer-Nielsen, Stephan Gelfgren, and Charles Ess, 191–206. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Decker, Adrienne. 2014. Dashomancy, or curating the magical experience: Remediations of pagan spirituality and sacred space. Master’s project. Eugene: Randall V. Mills Archives of Northwest Folklore, University of Oregon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Durkheim, Emile. 1995. The elementary forms of religious life. New York: Free Press Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grieve, Gregory. 2010. Virtually embodying the field: Silent online meditation, immersion, and the Cardean ethnographic method. Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 4(1). http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archiv/11296. Accessed 21.08.2016.

  • Grieve, Gregory, and Kevin Heston. 2011. Finding liquid salvation: Using the Cardean ethnographic method to document Second Life residents and religious cloud communities. In Virtual worlds, second life, and metaverse platforms: New communication and identity paradigms, ed. Nelson Zagalo, Leonel Morgado and Ana Boa-Ventura. Hershey: IGI Global.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregory Price Grieve, and Daniel Veidlinger (eds.). 2015. Buddhism, the Internet, and digital media: The pixel in the lotus. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimes, Ronald. 2002. Ritual and the media. In Practicing religion in the age of the media: Explorations in media, religion and culture, ed. Stewart Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark, 219–234. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helland, Christopher. 2013. Ritual. In Digital religion, ed. Heidi Campbell, 25–41. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Homans, George. 1941. Anxiety and ritual: The theories of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown. American Anthropologist 43: 164–172.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hutchings, Tim. 2013. Considering religious community through online churches. In Digital religion, ed. Heidi Campbell, 164–172. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs, Stephen. 2007. Virtually sacred: The performance of asynchronous cyber‐rituals in online spaces. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 12(3): 1103–1121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lövheim, Mia. 2004. Young people, religious identity and the Internet. In Religion online: finding faith on the Internet, ed. Lorne Dawson and Douglas Cowan, 59–73. New York: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacWilliams, Marc. 2004. Virtual pilgrimage to Ireland’s Croagh Patrick. In Religion online: Finding faith on the Internet, ed. Lorne Dawson and Douglas Cowan, 223–238. New York: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Leary, Stephen. 1996. Cyberspace as sacred space: Communicating religion on computer networks. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64: 781–808.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smart, Ninian. 1996. Dimensions of the sacred: An anatomy of the world’s beliefs. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stamper, Amber. 2013. Witnessing the web: The rhetoric of American e-vangelism and persuasion online Theses and Dissertations, English. Lexington: University of Kentucky.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Victor. 1972. Symbols in African ritual. Science 179: 1100–1105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zaleski, Jeff. 1997. The soul of cyberspace: How technology is changing our spiritual lives. San Francisco: Harper.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Heidi A. Campbell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Campbell, H.A., Rule, F. (2020). The Practice of Digital Religion. In: Friese, H., Nolden, M., Rebane, G., Schreiter, M. (eds) Handbuch Soziale Praktiken und Digitale Alltagswelten. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-08357-1_38

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-08357-1_38

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-658-08356-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-658-08357-1

  • eBook Packages: Social Science and Law (German Language)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics