fishers, surfers and casters

At CMRC this week I saw two presentations on religious videos and personalities. The first was by Rianne Subijanto and Nabil Echchaibi from the University of Colorado (US) and explored the rise of the “TV Muslim preacher” in Egypt and Indonesia. The second was by Denis Bekkering from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and focussed on the rise, fall and slow rise again of a US web-based Christian evagelist.

Echchaibi and Subijanto’s presentation started with the question “How do Muslims relate to their religion daily through mass media?” and used examples from YouTube, religious channels, and even a reality TV show called Imam Muda, where contestants battle it out to be the best rookie Imam, and the winner is ordained. They made the following conclusions:

1. That Islam on TV exists in struggles between modern/moderate and orthodox/islamist struggles on the political level and in the public sphere
2. That the television personality acts as a religious brand with which viewers/users find a connection and through which they can express and work on their religious identity
3. Television allows for the rethinking of religious imagery and symbolism, including even the way the Imam dresses
4. It appeared to me that the videos borrowed much from prosperity model of (tele-)evangelism. The presenters noted that the producers of these videos and channels borrowed business models from American televangelists, however the new “messages” found in the videos also reflected local preaching styles and some traditions.

Bekkering’s presentation focussed on the struggle to maintain authority in the face of protest in YouTube. Focussing on recent videos of an American evangelist, who a few years ago lost much popularity after his extra-marital affair was exposed, Bekkering discusses how the evangelist’s ministry endeavours to prevent and block protest on his site through the active moderation of comments on his youTube page, and the editing of videos where protestation appears in the filming of his ministry events.

I found in both presentations a great comparison between “viewers” and “users” in the negotiation of religious text, meaning and authority in videos in both platforms. I also saw a great potential, which was touched upon, in the examination of aesthetic approaches to the construction of religious authority (how scenery is used to promote the authority of the presenters in the videos, and how an “image” is created for the promotion of religious branding). I would like to talk with them more about it.

Hi everyone,

Just received news that I passed my PhD. I have been given a big list of amendments that I need to make. Good news is that I don’t need to re-submit my thesis, so I reckon I’ll be a doctor by the end of October. For all intents and purposes, then, this is no longer the blog of a PhD student (hooray). It’s now the blog of an unemployed research graduate (poo).

In developing my CV, I have written for myself a teaching and research profile. I’m aiming that this blog will be a collection of thoughts, discussions and links around research interests listed in them. I want to focus this blog around the following themes:

Glocal identities: This theme includes how people are using new media to find identity and belonging in cultures that span distances, with respect to the maintenance/shaping of global diasporas and the impact of new media on how people think of culture, race and nationality. Of real interest is the changing place and face of religion and how it relates to this.

Cyborg culture: Gotta love that word, Cyborg. Just as postmodernism grew from literary and philosophical obscurity in the 1950s to pervade popular culture in the West, so posthumanism is named, embodied, symbolised, debated, embraced, rejected. Still working on an operational definition of the term, but I think if the modern ideas of meta-narrative and flaneur are challenged in postmodenism, then posthumanism calls to rethink preconceptions that “what it means to be human”: (a) exist in all humans, (b) exist only in humans, and (c) is does not change. It seems that more and more this conversation is being introduced into book and cinema (Kindle and iPad) audiences. I’m keen to find a context for exploring posthumanism in the culture of digital natives, exploring how they retrieve/store/process information, make social relations, and participate as local and global citizens, through the integration of technology into their everyday lives, bodies and self-perceptions.

Public/private: It’s a big question of late to new media researchers, whether social media technologies and applications blur the divide between spheres of public and private discourse. I wonder if it’s that simple – are there only two spheres? I’d like to test the idea that new media have either made another sphere, or made more apparent a phenomenon that has been around for a while. I’d like to explore the notion of “networked publics”. I’d like to see if it’s a useful term for thinking how people present themselves, talk about others, and explore boundaries of privacy in online spaces.

Religious prosumption: This was a big interest while doing the PhD, and I’d like to pursue it further. The promise found in “Web 2.0″ rhetoric is in the reshaping of relationships between producers and consumers of media texts, to enhance democracy by letting more people into public discourses, and challenge patterns of authority in social institutions, like religious organisations. How rhetoric transforms into reality, with respect to the voices of women, young people, cultural and racial minorities, etc, is the focus of this theme.

Convergence: Big word. It could refer to the conditions which allow for a machine to penetrate a society, like how the printing press didn’t work in China because they didn’t have right paper for it. Or it could refer to how texts and narratives are shared and progressed over multiple media platforms, like how the Matrix story moved from the cinema to DVD to console gaming and back to Matrix Reloaded. I’m interested in both, but I’m more interested in the former. In any case, both uses of the term challenge the usefulness of technological determinism as a way of looking at people’s relationship with technology, and encourage thinking about the social values that shape technology.

A few links here from around the place…

• Jeff Sharlet is one of the authors of Killing the Buddha and Believer, beware, and one of my favourite commentator on religion in American history, politics and journalism. He is about to edit a new book on American religious history, by collecting pieces of literary journalism. I look forward to seeing it out. He talks about it here and seeks help from his blog’s readers.
• Pew has released its fourth edition of The Future of the Internet, and it appears to be a test of people’s responses to arguments introduced by Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google making us stupid?” (see my short post on it here).
• Heidi Campbell writes on her reflections on attending a conference called “Theology after Google” and has got some links to interesting thinkers and talkers whom she met.

Hacking politics: Aleks Krotoski interviews Austin Heap, inventor of Haystack – the tool that introduced Iranians to an open Internet, on his views on democracy, speech and an open Internet. Austin Heap: Revolutionising the internet

Digital nation: One of my favourite authors, Douglas Rushkoff, engages some of the really big names in Internet research (danah boyd, Sherry Turkle. etc) in a roundtable discussion on what it means to be online. Issues include parenting, participating in the economy, you know, all things Internet and social and moral panicky-like. It’s part of PBS’s Digital Nation series and website. Lots of videos to watch.

The new landscape of the religion blogosphere: The Immanent Frame presents a new report on blogging about religion, considering its place within the larger blogosphere and what religious bloggers think about blogging. Another post in the blog introduces some contributors and readers.