I’ve finally finished writing the paper I am presenting at a plenary session at the Conference on Media, Religion and Culture in Sao Paulo. If you’re interested you can read it here. This is a summary:
This paper explores the changing nature of Christian denominational discourse in an Australian context as informed by Internet technologies. It will takes as its case study three Internet sites developed and published for the promotion of three separate Christian youth festivals held in Australia between July 2008 and January 2009, undertaking a discursive analysis of their structures, content and design to examine how Internet and institutional religion interact in delivering a Christian message to Australian young people. The analysis will show that, despite the diverse theological positions, convention goals and approaches to the Internet, all three sites are surprisingly similar in form, while the content stays true to denominational tradition.
The study raises questions about the intersection of technology, culture and religion, that I intend to posit in the presentation. In particular, I would like to raise how the contours of Christian diversity in Australia are being redrawn, so that membership to a particular denomination, institution or group can no longer define what kind of Christian any Australian is.
