Religious communities on the internet

Abstract

Conference proceedings often do not lend themselves to effective publications, but the fruit of this 2003 conference on The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on Religious, Ethnic and Cultural Diaspora Communities in the West, held in Gothenburg, Sweden, is an exception. The nine articles and preface by the editor provide a significant contribution to the rapidly growing field of studies of religion on the Internet. Acknowledging the need to collect more empirical data on Internet use patterns, Larsson notes that research needs to be conducted both online and offline (p. 9). The case studies here cover a variety of local contexts in Denmark, Egypt, Great Britain, North Africa, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Sociologist Lorne L. Dawson provides a methodological discussion on the appropriateness of labeling online social networks as ‘communities’ in the Gemeinschaft sense first proposed by Ferdinand Toennies in the 19th century. Noting that the term ‘community’ has been applied loosely to all kinds of networking groups on the Internet, Dawson argues that the definitional confusion be mitigated with ‘a plausible set of variable features of online interaction to provide us with empirical evidence of the relative presence of communal life’ (p. 43). The author’s list of eight insights drawn from recent Internet research in the field of Sociology is a valuable contribution. For example, he observes: ‘For individuals, life online must be placed in the context of life offline. Life online is largely in continuity with life offline and must be examined with that relationship in mind. Life online may have distinct features and possibilities, but its meaning is always influenced by the broader life experiences of users’ (p. 33). This is an important methodological consideration in light of earlier flirtation of some enthusiasts with the notion of humans becoming cyborgs. Morten Thomsen Hojsgaard suggests a model for studying the Internet arena of circulation of interfaith dialogue online. He Cont Islam (2009) 3:197–199 DOI 10.1007/s11562-008-0058-7