Research

My overall goal for research is to continue the tradition of study of media texts and technologies as contexts for the creation, development and preservation of cultural and subcultural identities. My particular interests lie in the place of religion in mediated cultural settings, the creation and development of global diasporas, and the formation of the cultural identity of the “digital native” – where new media technologies are not just tools, but are constitutive in identity.

Current research projects and interests

Everyday Cyborgs: Posthumanism in the ordinary and extraordinary worlds of digital natives
Posthumanism challenges the modern notion that “what it means to be human” is essential to all of us and is unchanging. These notions have been exposed, explored and debated widely in popular film and literature. This research aims to discover the extent to which these debates and posthuman values and ideals play out in the lives of digital natives, including ways in which they process information, form relationships, construct values, morals and religious ideas. It is hoped the research will contribute to discussions on the following questions:

  • What does it mean to be connected?
  • What does it mean to “know” someone?
  • How does a digital native “learn”? “Think”?
  • How do digital natives view and value the human/technology divide?
  • How do digital natives view and value the real/virtual divide?

The research begins with a review of research literature and identification of sites for study before constructing methodologies.

Cyborg theology
Much research has been conducted on religious practices and symbols employed in the expression of religious identity in Cyberspace. Yet to date there has been little on the impact of Internet use on the construction of theological principles and methods that shape these online practices. This project intends to make a contribution to the emerging study of theology and new media by presenting the concept of the religious Cyborg, and placing the concept alongside a study of the religious practices and discourses of thirty Australian bloggers.

Popular culture in Western society paints the Cyborg as one whose physical humanity is sustained through technology. Yet a case may be set for the construction of the Cyborg concept as sociological, cultural and even religious. Authors such as Erik Davis (1998) and David Gunkel (2007) paint the Cyborg where humanity is not defined just by the physical, but by the social and spiritual. For these authors, the religious Cyborg is one for whom technology pays an important part in the construction of physical and spiritual spaces around them, and for whom the relationships that define a Cyborg as formed, reformed and maintained in Cyberspace. In late modernity where local religious communities and denominational institutions are no longer important settings for the construction of personal religious identities (see Castells, 2001), and where secularism has relegated discourses about the spiritual realm to the private sphere of Western living (see Casanova 1994; Wertheim, 1999; Brasher, 2001), the Internet promises to provide a space where religious desires and aspirations are imagined and explored in both private and public ways.

This project will present the study of thirty Australian bloggers who have some connection with the movement known as the emerging church movement. A discursive analysis of posts and comments shared between bloggers will be set against data from personal interviews between the author and bloggers, in order to consider what role the Internet plays in the construction of social settings by which important relationships are created and maintained for the development of both individual and corporate religious identities.

From this study, the following claims will be made:

  1. The project of identity construction of the religious Cyborg is not just found in his or her residence in Cyberspace, but in the journeys to and from all spaces both offline and online. Thus communications and relationships in Cyberspace should not be studied in isolation.
  2. Cyborg theology challenges discursive borders between the offline world and Cyberspace as “real” and “virtual”. Cyborg theology sees all spaces as virtual, as insufficient settings for authentic interaction and expression of identity.
  3. The diminishing power of religious institutions to speak for religious people, and therefore to be points of reference for religious identity, gives way to the rise in such power of networks, both online and offline. Public religion in late modernity is marked by the fall of denominational Christianity. These institutions are becoming, among others, mere nodes in the networks of interactions that individuals use to construct their own religious identity.
  4. The Internet does not shape how people construct religious identities as much anymore than the other way around. People express their identities by the way they shape the Internet. Those interested in the research of religion online should look to the Internet not just as a haven of peculiar religious practices, or as a meeting point for discrete online communities, but as a set of changing and evolving social settings for the ongoing debate and dialogue on the place religion in all aspects of life, online and offline.

Networked individualism, discursive constructions of community and religious identity: The case of Australian Christian bloggers
This project explores the use of blogging technology to fuel networked individualism’s impact on religious identity. It draws from a study of Christian bloggers in Australia to highlight how people use the technology to negotiate membership to Christian communities, both online and offline, and form their own relationships that foster faith identity. It suggests implications for the future role of religious institutions in public discourses on religion, the place of local faith communities in fostering religious identity of individuals, and the impact of being online on expressing religious identity offline.

Imaging religious identity: intertextual play in postmodern Christian bloggers
In the fledgling but rapidly growing academic discipline of religion, media and culture, much attention has been paid to the use of new media to create and develop individual religious identities, build connections and foster group identities. Yet to date most research has focussed on exchanges of literal text between users, and little has considered the importance of visual text (either still images or videos) in the communication of meaning in online environments. In this presentation, I would like to introduce the image as an object of research in the construction of religious identity in online interaction.

The project will explore the blogs of 35 Australians who are conversant with a religious movement known as “the emerging church”, a global collection of ideas and conversations residing mainly in traditional Protestant churches that seeks new expressions of faithful living in postmodern urban culture, and challenges the consumerism of contemporary evangelicalism seen in “the megachurch”. By the use of captioned images, video capture (including links to YouTube) and web page design, I will show how bloggers endeavour to present themselves as being “on the margins” of conventional Christian life and practice, and employ intertextual play to challenge modern binary oppositions of orthodoxy/heresy, art/dirt, fun/work, and constructions of gender and ethnicity.

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. Considerations include:

  • How information produced by religious practitioners has been framed by podcasters for online consumption, and its effect on the messages received by audiences.
  • How podcasting is working to create and enhance online religious communities, and shape relationships between producers and consumers of podcasted religious content.
  • The role of “podcast priest” and how religious practitioners’ roles are changed in this relatively new online medium.

From audiences through users to prod-users: understanding new media audiences for research
Introduced in 1999 as a simple tool for updating personal web pages, blogging quickly evolved into a widespread social networking platform, that would become a precursor for how Internet users engage in newer online social media programs like Facebook and myspace. In the last decade the blogosphere has been an important and popular site for researchers who wish to explore the changing relationships between producers and audiences of media text, shifting patterns of authority in public discourse, and the nature of relationships, communities and networks.

This production will draw from experiences in the short history of researching religion online and my own PhD project in exploring identity construction among Australian bloggers, to address the following three questions.

  1. What does blogging do to the aim of research?
  2. What does blogging do to methods of research?
  3. What does blogging do to the researcher?

Ethnic identities in global diasporas: the case of Korean Christians online
This projects examines how Koreans living overseas use new media technology to connect to their cultural identity through religious networks and resources. The research will test the notion that new media do more to create a global Korean Christian identity than connect users to local Korean culture. I aim that this research will serve as a case study for wider discussions about new media and the creation of global diasporic identities as separate from home cultures. The project begins with interviews with Korean Christians worshipping in Protestant and Evangelical churches in Melbourne.

Working with promise: women and religious authority online
While Web 2.0 promises the democratisation of voices in Cyberspace, recent research has shown that those left out of public debates offline (e.g. women, teenagers, cultural and linguistic minorities) feel the same is happening online. This research examines why in a case study of religious discourses in the blogosphere for women. The project begins with what I know – the place of women in emerging church discourse in the blogosphere.

In between public and private spheres: the networked publics
It seems everywhere you look there is moral panic about young people’s lives online. Even students in schools in my town say that cyberbullying and sexting are bigger problems than bullying and harassment in schools or the streets. Parents, teachers, the social sector and government are concerned about the vulnerability of young people on the Web, and try hard to find creative ways to communicate with young people about how to behave online. However I propose that the behaviours and discourses in and around online life show a big generation gap between older people and younger digital natives. I propose that the division between public and private spheres of interaction are blurred for young people, and consider that there may be a third level that impacts on how young people negotiate structures, morals and values of portraying themselves and interacting with others – “networked publics”. I would like to survey young people about this idea with respect to their online use.

Click here for a list of publications and presentations.