The Chronicles of Me: Understanding Blogging as a Religious Practice

Abstract Blogs represent an especially interesting site of online religious communication. Analysis of the content of 200 blogs with mentions of topics related to Christianity, as well as interviews of a subset of these bloggers, suggests that blogs provide an integrative experience for the faithful, not a “third place,” but a melding of the personal and the communal, the sacred and the profane. Religious bloggers operate outside the realm of the conventional nuclear church as they connect and link to mainstream news sites, other nonreligious blogs, and online collaborative knowledge networks such as Wikipedia. By chronicling how they experience faith in their everyday lives, these bloggers aim to communicate not only to their communities and to a wider public but also to themselves. This view of blogging as a contemplative religious experience differs from the popular characterization of blogging as a trivial activity.

[1]  M. Tremayne,et al.  Preface: Blog terminology , 2006 .

[2]  L. Dawson,et al.  Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet , 2004 .

[3]  V. Serfaty,et al.  The Mirror and the Veil: An Overview of American Online Diaries and Blogs , 2004 .

[4]  Axel Bruns,et al.  Uses of blogs , 2006 .

[5]  Jennifer J. Cobb.  CyberGrace: The Search for God in the Digital World , 1998 .

[6]  Philip J. Stone,et al.  Extracting Information. (Book Reviews: The General Inquirer. A Computer Approach to Content Analysis) , 1967 .

[7]  Philip Palmgreen,et al.  Uses and Gratifications: A Theoretical Perspective , 1984 .

[8]  J. Poon,et al.  WWW.FAITH.ORG (Re)structuring communication and the social capital of religious organizations , 2008 .

[9]  Judith M. Buddenbaum,et al.  Social Science and the Study of Media and Religion: Going Forward by Looking Backward , 2002 .

[10]  Thomas E. Ruggiero.  Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century , 2000 .

[11]  N. Ammerman.  Organized Religion in a Voluntaristic Society , 1997 .

[12]  A. Giddens.  Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age , 1992, The New Social Theory Reader.

[13]  Miriam J. Metzger,et al.  Internet use in the contemporary media environment. , 2001 .

[14]  Karine Nahon,et al.  Cultured Technology: The Internet and Religious Fundamentalism , 2005, Inf. Soc..

[15]  Robert Abelman,et al.  Religious television uses and gratifications , 1987 .

[16]  Marshall S. Smith,et al.  The general inquirer: A computer approach to content analysis. , 1967 .

[17]  Pauline Hope Cheong,et al.  Technological Modernization, the Internet, and Religion in Singapore , 2007, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[18]  Lynne S. Wilcox,et al.  Revolution , 2004, Preventing chronic disease.

[19]  Bonnie A. Nardi,et al.  Why we blog , 2004, CACM.

[20]  R. L. Holbert,et al.  The Relationship Between Religiosity and Internet Use , 2003 .

[21]  Judith M. Buddenbaum.  Characteristics and Media-Related Needs of the Audience for Religious TV , 1981 .

[22]  P. Norris,et al.  Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide , 2004 .

[23]  H. Lasswell.  The structure and function of communication in society , 2007 .

[24]  Thomas J. Johnson,et al.  Wag the Blog: How Reliance on Traditional Media and the Internet Influence Credibility Perceptions of Weblogs Among Blog Users , 2004 .

[25]  An Analysis of Religion News Coverage in Three Major Newspapers , 1986 .

[26]  Heidi A. Campbell.  Exploring Religious Community Online: We are One in the Network , 2005 .

[27]  Alek Tarkowski,et al.  Rzeczpospolita blogów [Republic of Blog]: Examining Polish Bloggers Through Content Analysis , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[28]  P. Soukup.  MEDIA AND RELIGION , 2002 .

[29]  Inna Kouper,et al.  Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis "From the Bottom Up" , 2005, Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[30]  P. McFedries.  Technically Speaking: Blah, Blah, Blog , 2003, IEEE Spectrum.

[31]  Brenda Chawner,et al.  Uses of Blogs , 2007 .

[32]  Michele Tepper.  The rise of social software , 2003, NTWK.

[33]  Alan M. Rubin,et al.  The Influence of Religiosity on Television Viewing , 1992 .

[34]  D. Lyon.  Jesus in Disneyland: Religion in Postmodern Times , 2000 .

[35]  Donald Matheson,et al.  Weblogs and the Epistemology of the News: Some Trends in Online Journalism , 2004, New Media Soc..

[36]  A. McGrath.  The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World , 2004 .

[37]  Lois Ann Scheidt,et al.  Bridging the gap: a genre analysis of Weblogs , 2004, 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the.

[38]  Philip E. Agre.  The Internet and Public Discourse , 1998, First Monday.

[39]  Christopher Helland,et al.  Surfing for Salvation , 2002 .

[40]  Dan Li.  WHY DO YOU BLOG: A USES-AND-GRATIFICATIONS INQUIRY INTO BLOGGERS' MOTIVATIONS , 2005 .

[41]  Mike Thelwall,et al.  Hyperlink Analyses of the World Wide Web: A Review , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..