Today is the last day of my classes at RMIT. While I will enjoy the extra day to study and sleep and whatnot, I no doubt will miss the extra cash that’s been coming my way. *sigh*

Anyway, if you click on the link marked “articles” at the top of this page you’ll find more links that will lead you to the powerpoint slides I used for lectures. I know one of you guys is interested. If they don’t make sense, don’t worry, there’s no shame in being stupid. Ha ha ha ha, kdding, I mean I’ve been asked to compile a course book for RMIT based on my lectures and when that happens I’ll add notes to these slides.

I’m also presenting this paper at AoIR in October, as part of a panel on online religion:

Godcasting: exploring religious audiences and podcasting communities

In 2006 it was reported that, second only to radio station programs, religious programs are the most popular genre of podcasting. Yet to date very little research has been conducted on religious podcasting, its content, production or consumption. I would like to offer some preliminary findings from data collected in 2006 and 2007 from individuals’ and organisations’ use of podcasting for religious purposes. In my presentation I will consider how information produced by religious practitioners has been framed by podcasters for online consumption, and its effect on the messages received by audiences. I will also put forward some arguments and questions to consider on how podcasting is working to create and enhance online religious communities, and shape relationships between producers and consumers of podcasted religious content. I will focus particularly on the new role of “podcast priest” and how religious practitioners’ roles are changed in this relatively new online medium.

At the beginning of 1994, at the tender age of 22, I had worked for a year in a Uniting Church in the Adelaide Hills, doing the usual youth worker things like youth groups, bible studies, yada yada yada. Before then I had only ever earned money stacking shelves at K-Mart, tutoring high school students in Maths and Italian, and translating the odd letter or two for smoking dosh, so this looked like a real like career-type job.

So when I moved to Melbourne I decided that ministry was the route to take. I scored another youthie-type gig in the city’s northwest for a while, and worked my way towards becoming a student of the reverendist arts. By 1995 I was a candidate. During all that time I knew I would not be made of money, that I would never expect to be completely comfortable financially, that I would have something new to learn about being without money from time to time. So when the Synod offered to raise my student stipend by way of a loan, I accepted without thinking too hard. After all, money is money and I should take it when I can get it.

Little did I know (well, little did I choose not to ignore) the bill that I would receive at the end of 1997. Can’t remember exactly what it was, but knew it would take a short lifetime to pay it off.

And Friday, I did. 10.5 years paying back the church.

Ah the sweet freedom.

Given I’ve already given you a few abstracts, what the hell, I’ll give you some more. This paper is to be presented at the conference for media, religion and culture in August, and at the Internet Researchers gathering in October.

Clergy vs. Google & Technorati: Religious authority in Web 2.0

This presentation will explore how authority is distributed among religious bloggers and their readers, with a particular focus on a Protestant movement known as the “emerging church”. This paper will highlight findings from data viewed in religious blogs in the years 2006-2008, of online posts and conversation concerning the authority of religious offices and personalities, and comments and concerns of and by bloggers who receive high “authority rankings” in search engines such as Google and Technorati.

While Web 2.0 and its applications has been heralded by some as the great democratising force in Western culture, giving voice to the otherwise silenced in many of our institutions, including politics, journalism and religion, this presentation will argue that who has the power offline still has power online. Moreover, while the authority of traditional religious offices, such as the episcopacy or the academy, may be overtly challenged by bloggers and their audience, the social factors that are favoured by these places of authority (gender, age, class and ethnicity) are equally favoured in Web 2.0 as they are in the offline world.