The Internet is affecting people's lives today through their personal and social relationships, professional activities, and their spiritual lives and religious practices. Academic studies in the field of communication and religion have been done frequently, but now in the digital era of social networks, studies are being directed to online religion on the Internet, which is ushering in a concept of digital religion. This case study examined how participants in the online Christian Forum seek and/or benefit from their spiritual activities on the Internet. It used a qualitative approach with e-mail interviews in a growing religious activity online, showing the relationship and the impact of it on the users' spiritual/religious lives. As participants bring to their online religious practices their church or offline church experiences, most of them are actively involved in only their virtual or online community, in contrast to previous studies that showed the Internet being used as a complement for offline church involvement. Findings herein point to a strong faith/spiritual activity on the Internet in different sites and discussion forums. People are seeking online what they are not getting in their offline churches, relative to spiritual/Biblical content to aid their Christian faith, as well as for personal relationships in an online community. Thus study reveals a paradox in two areas of Christian faith practices online: the online experiences don't substitute for the offline church in worship and on face-to-face relationships as a community; and the participants miss those offline church experiences. Despite the fact that they miss them, they are not there physically, but practice their faith online. Participants in online Christian Forums in this study also revealed some distinctive individual/personal concepts about Christian doctrines and traditional historic practices which are not aligned with some specific beliefs and historical practices of the Christian church. / text

Today´s society is overwhelming with new technology and expressions of new media outlets.Forums, podcasts, easy internet access, videoblogs etc. is a new part of how people in generalare consuming media, searching for information and finding community. Previous studies haveshown that religious groups tend to use and interact with digital media in other ways than othersocial groups in the society. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine how members of twocongregations in Umeå interact and use different forms of digital media in relation to theirreligious offline-community. Four people agreed to be interviewed and be a part of this studyand semi structured interviews were made.The results was analyzed in relation to theories about how religious communities traditionallyhas used and interacted new forms of digital media. Also, theories about how traditional mediaoutlets changes forms and how people tend to use them was used for analyzing the finding. Theoutcome of those interviews revealed that there is a slight variation in how digital media isconceived and used in these religious communities, but the general view is that the offlinecommunityis a central part of their religious life. The opportunities that, for example religiousteaching online offers is viewed as only complementary to the teachings and other rituals thatoccur in the offline-community.

In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.

In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.

In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.

In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.

Uppsatsens undersökning bygger på en studie av den officiella Scientologikyrkans hemsida: www.scientologi.se. Den frågeställning varpå uppsatsen främst baseras på är: På vilket sätt förmedlar Scientologikyrkan sitt budskap via www.scientologi.se? Tidigare forskning kring ämnet är väldigt knapphändig vilket motiverar valet av uppsatsämne. Uppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkt baseras på Christopher Hellands begrepp religion online och online religion. Studien lägger därför stor vikt på huruvida Scientologikyrkans svenska hemsida är en religion online eller en online religion. En koppling görs även mellan undersökningens resultat och tidigare forskning kring ämnet, för att belägga det som har framkommit genom den utförda studien.

Denna studies huvudsakliga syfte har varit att undersöka och kartlägga hur unga vuxna frånkristna minoritetsförsamlingar i Västerbotten och Norrbotten upplever religiösa kränkningarpå sociala medier. Som bakgrund till denna studie ligger forskning kring sociala medier ochinternets nya status, web 2.0. Metoden för studien har varit kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer,en enskild intervju och två fokusgruppsintervjuer. Till hjälp under intervjuerna har memesanvänds som material. Resultatet av intervjuerna har framställts med ett fenomenologisktteoriperspektiv och visar på att dessa unga kristna upplever religiösa kränkningar online, mensällan gör något åt det. Med hjälp av den hermeneutiska cirkeln har jag i diskussionskapitletanalyserat och diskuterat vad orsaken kan vara till att ungdomarna inte gör något åtkränkningarna. Ett av svaren visar sig vara att de förväntar sig bli kränkta av resten av världenoch i vissa fall finner det vara styrkande för deras tro.

Since its inception, the Internet has served as a powerful medium for the dissemination of religious information and the creation of religious communities. Cyberspace now represents an important global paradigm shift in the way religion is conducted. This research provides a sociological account of the affordances the Internet contributes to religious life by examining the ways in which it has influenced the conduct or practices associated with Buddhism. In particular, it assesses the extent to which the rituals constitutive of the Buddhist practice of meditation have been achieved by the Cybersangha, the term Buddhists use for the online Buddhist community. The thesis argues that the Internet is not well suited to the facilitation of particular types of religious understanding and that there are clear limitations to its ability to provide the shared ritualistic experience necessitated by meditation. This is due to the fact that current technology can enable ritual only to a limited degree, and to the ways in which the textual nature of the Internet poses problems for religious experience of an intuitive, non-mediated nature. For these reasons, despite the fact that many websites advertise ‘online meditation’ and despite the strong attempts of some communities to use the Internet as a meditational medium, online meditation cannot be fully facilitated by the Internet. Since a key method by which a Buddhist attains understanding of reality is the use of the body in a meditative act, the inability to provide for embodiment means that the Internet can never offer an experiential equivalent to that of an offline environment. The lack of this experiential aspect means that it cannot in turn provide for holistic, religious communion. As such, there needs to be a further philosophical and practical appraisal of the capabilities of the Internet in general, and as a medium by which a religious experience can be engendered.

Since its inception, the Internet has served as a powerful medium for the dissemination of religious information and the creation of religious communities. Cyberspace now represents an important global paradigm shift in the way religion is conducted. This research provides a sociological account of the affordances the Internet contributes to religious life by examining the ways in which it has influenced the conduct or practices associated with Buddhism. In particular, it assesses the extent to which the rituals constitutive of the Buddhist practice of meditation have been achieved by the Cybersangha, the term Buddhists use for the online Buddhist community. The thesis argues that the Internet is not well suited to the facilitation of particular types of religious understanding and that there are clear limitations to its ability to provide the shared ritualistic experience necessitated by meditation. This is due to the fact that current technology can enable ritual only to a limited degree, and to the ways in which the textual nature of the Internet poses problems for religious experience of an intuitive, non-mediated nature. For these reasons, despite the fact that many websites advertise ‘online meditation’ and despite the strong attempts of some communities to use the Internet as a meditational medium, online meditation cannot be fully facilitated by the Internet. Since a key method by which a Buddhist attains understanding of reality is the use of the body in a meditative act, the inability to provide for embodiment means that the Internet can never offer an experiential equivalent to that of an offline environment. The lack of this experiential aspect means that it cannot in turn provide for holistic, religious communion. As such, there needs to be a further philosophical and practical appraisal of the capabilities of the Internet in general, and as a medium by which a religious experience can be engendered.