Diaspora on the Electronic Frontier: Developing Virtual Connections with Sacred Homelands

This study demonstrates how diaspora religious traditions utilized the Internet to develop significant network connections among each other and also to their place of origins. By examining the early Usenet system, I argue that the religious beliefs and practices of diaspora religious traditions were a motivating factor for developing Usenet groups where geographically dispersed individuals could connect with each other in safe, supportive, and religiously tolerant environments. This article explores the new forms of religious practices that began to occur on these sites, focusing on the manner in which Internet technology and the World Wide Web were utilized for activities such as long-distance ritual practice, cyber pilgrimage, and other religiously-motivated undertakings. Through these new online religious activities, diaspora groups have been able to develop significant connections not only among people, but also between people and the sacred homeland itself.     

Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet

While many themes have been explored in relation to religion online—ritual, identity construction, community—what happens to religious authority and power relationships within online environments is an area in need of more detailed investigation. In order to move discussions of authority from the broad or vague to the specific, this article argues for a more refined identification of the attributes of authority at play in the online context. This involves distinguishing between different layers of authority in terms of hierarchy, structure, ideology, and text. The article also explores how different religious traditions approach questions of authority in relation to the Internet. Through a qualitative analysis of three sets of interviews with Christians, Jews, and Muslims about the Internet, we see how authority is discussed and contextualized differently in each religious tradition in terms of these four layers of authority.     

Islam and Online Imagery on Malaysian Tourist Destination Websites

In December 1996, TIME magazine published an article titled "Finding God on the Web," which projected how the Internet would shape information seeking on faith and religion. A decade later, the Web has become a popular tool for gathering religious information as well as information and imagery related to religious travel. Yet there is little research on religious destination imagery online. Imagery—positive or negative, pictographic or narrative—influences the selection of tourism destinations. This study explored online Muslim images in Malaysia via interviews and content analyses of pictures and text on tourism destination websites' homepages. The results reveal minimal portrayal of Muslim images by Malaysian tourism destination organizations. This study adds to the small body of research, especially in Muslim countries, on online religious imagery and suggests avenues for tourism operators in Malaysia and elsewhere to improve their online image with both Muslim and non-Muslim travelers.     

Technological Modernization, the Internet, and Religion in Singapore

This study critically examines the ways in which technological modernization and religion co-exist and mutually reinforce one another within the Singaporean context. Interviews with religious leaders of a diverse set of faiths in Singapore about how they understand the role of information technology in religious practice reveal a broad-based acceptance of the Internet and other information technologies and little sense of a danger to religious faith. Contrary to the proposals of secularization theory, these findings suggest that various religious communities have adopted and in some cases embrace the Internet as part of their contemporary religious mission and strategy for growth. The findings further contribute to historical research on the social construction of technology and lend support to emergent research on the spiritual shaping of Internet technology by religious communities seeking to integrate the Internet into their everyday social and religious practices in wired contexts such as Singapore.     

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Religion and Computer-Mediated Communication

Previous research on religion and CMC has focused primarily on Christianity and the Western world. The articles collected in this special theme section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication examine a wide range of religions online through both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as Hinduism, Shinto, Taoism, Chinese traditions, animism, Japan's New Religions, and diverse forms of Buddhism are examined, in an equally wide range of national cultures and traditions: Israel, Egypt and the Arab world more broadly, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States. Individually and collectively, the articles highlight shared characteristics of religion cross-culturally that foster or hinder religions' migration online—a migration that most, although not all, religions undertake in varying degrees.     

Does Culturally Adapted Online Communication Work? A Study of American and Chinese Internet Users’ Attitudes and Preferences Toward Culturally Customized Web Design Elements

Various scholars have argued that today's multicultural online marketplace necessitates cultural adaptation of Web communications. This argument has largely been based on the assumption that culture, as a source of acceptable norms and behaviors, influences online expectations, preferences, and experiences. Few, however, have questioned the validity of this assumption. Our study aims to fill that gap. It examines whether Internet users' cultural backgrounds are reflected in the attitudes toward Web design elements. A survey of American and Chinese Internet users and a content analysis revealed that cultural backgrounds play a substantial role in determining Web design preferences and attitudes. The findings of this study represent an important step in developing and validating a framework that international marketers can use to customize Web sites and improve targeting in online environment. The findings also suggest that cultural customization of online communication is particularly effective when users have strong ethnic identities.     

Online shopping,misleading advertising and consumer protection

One of the most substantive developments in the delivery of marketing activities in recent years has undoubtedly been the emergence and growth of Internet shopping. This relatively new form of communication has revolutionised the buying and selling of products and services, enabling customers to select and import items – many of which are not available through local shop fronts – directly from vendors around the world with the click of a button, and often at a reduced price. Although online shopping has provided a new international landscape to conduct business, the use of this medium and the absence of face-to-face interactions has presented the law with numerous challenges in terms of the scope of consumer protection. This article examines the nature and extent of misleading and deceptive online advertising and looks at the degree to which common law and legislation have evolved to deal with false, deceptive or misleading advertising on the Internet.     

Internet Use Among Religious Followers: Religious Postmodernism in Japanese Buddhism

Strong sect organizations are a feature of traditional Buddhist denominations in Japan. Having long benefited from the protection of Japan's feudal society, these once strong organizations have been buttressed by factors of social change in the modern and post-modern eras, including modernization and the evolution of the media. The Internet is a rich source of information about innovations of religions adapting to social change. To examine these changes, I undertook a survey from 2002 to 2004 of 2,007 followers and religious specialists. The results highlight a critical attitude among followers: Sending and receiving messages in the interaction between a religious group and its followers results in followers expanding the scope of allowable subjects of criticism, and they have begun to entertain doubts regarding their faith systems. We may infer that in postmodern faith, horizontal interaction among religious followers will take on an increasingly important role in comparison with the vertical (top-down) structure of traditional doctrines.     

New Labor,new censorship? Politics,religion and internet filtering in Australia

This article examines the recent Australian Government decision to impose mandatory Internet service provider level filtering to home and school users. This policy has been championed by various religious groups suggesting that a particular set of values influences the law in this area. It is argued that the result of this policy may well be new forms of censorship of the Internet in the future.     

Internet addiction in adolescents: Prevalence and risk factors

As new media are becoming daily fare, Internet addiction appears as a potential problem in adolescents. From the reported negative consequences, it appears that Internet addiction can have a variety of detrimental outcomes for young people that may require professional intervention. Researchers have now identified a number of activities and personality traits associated with Internet addiction. This study aimed to synthesise previous findings by (i) assessing the prevalence of potential Internet addiction in a large sample of adolescents, and (ii) investigating the interactions between personality traits and the usage of particular Internet applications as risk factors for Internet addiction. A total of 3105 adolescents in the Netherlands filled out a self-report questionnaire including the Compulsive Internet Use Scale and the Quick Big Five Scale. Results indicate that 3.7% of the sample were classified as potentially being addicted to the Internet. The use of online gaming and social applications (online social networking sites and Twitter) increased the risk for Internet addiction, whereas extraversion and conscientiousness appeared as protective factors in high frequency online gamers. The findings support the inclusion of ‘Internet addiction’ in the DSM-V. Vulnerability and resilience appear as significant aspects that require consideration in further studies.     

Religious Authority and the Blogosphere

It is often argued that the internet poses a threat to traditional forms of authority. Within studies of religion online claims have also been made that the internet is affecting religious authority online, but little substantive work has backed up these claims. This paper argues for an approach to authority within online studies which looks separately at authority: roles, structures, beliefs/ideologies and texts. This approach is applied to a thematic analysis of 100 religious blogs and demonstrates that religious bloggers use their blogs to frame authority in ways that may more often affirm than challenge traditional sources of authority.     

Policies and procedures to manage employee Internet abuse

Industry analysts estimate that billions of dollars in lost revenue were attributed to employee Internet abuse. Trends also suggest that lost job productivity and corporate liability have emerged as new workplace concerns due to growth of new online technologies and mobile computing. Such employee Internet misuse creates new management dilemmas on how to respond to incidences of such misuse as well poses network security risks and drains on network bandwidth. Within an organization, it is imperative to ensure that employees are using computing resources effectively and appropriately. Utilizing the previous literature in the field, this paper proposed a revised framework to manage employee Internet abuse. The former model proposed did not account for new digital media and recommended screening applicants for Internet addiction, using more of a clinical test than a job performance test. This new model describes both prevention and intervention methods to address incidents of online misuse in the workplace and refocuses hiring decisions into post-employment training. It also examines the new hiring concerns with the new iGeneration of college graduates and it examines how organizations should best utilize acceptable Internet use policies with clear methods of Internet monitoring to enforce that workers are complying with company policies. This paper also talks about the potential benefits of rehabilitation approaches to manage employees who abuse instead of terminating them to decrease job turnover and improve job retention. Implications for current management practices are also discussed.     

Searching for Culture—High and Low

This article examines the link between finding out about cultural activities on the Web and finding out through other people. Using data from interviews with Torontonians, we show that people first obtain cultural information from interpersonal ties or other offline sources and only then turn to the Web to amplify this information. The decisions about what information to seek from which media can be evaluated in terms of a uses and gratifications approach; the main gratifications identified include efficiency and the availability of up-to-date information. Our findings also have implications for the model of the traditional two-step flow of communication. We suggest the existence of new steps, whereby people receive recommendations from their interpersonal ties, gather information about these recommendations online, take this information back to their ties, and go back to the Web to check the new information that their ties have provided them.     

Comparing online opportunities and risks among Israeli children and youth Hebrew and Arabic speakers

This study explores the relationships between application usage, online communication patterns, problematic Internet use (PIU) of online applications, and online self-disclosure among children from culturally different groups. An online survey was administered in Hebrew and Arabic among 3867 Israeli 7–17 year old, including Jews, Arabs, and Bedouins. The level of PIU was relatively low—only 9.5% scored “very high” in the PIU index. For all the groups the highest level of communication was reported for safe interactions with family and friends, lower level for purely virtual communication with online acquaintances, and the lowest level for meeting online acquaintances face-to-face. However, various forms of the online communication patterns and use of applications differed across the groups, suggesting cultural diversity in Internet usage among children in the same country. PIU and self-disclosure explained 47.3% of variance in risky e-communication activities (e.g. sending ones' photos to online acquaintances, providing them with a school or home address, and meeting them face-to-face), as well as 34.4% of variance in exposure to unpleasant online experiences (e.g. receiving messages, pictures, or videos that make the children feel uncomfortable). However, both PIU and self-disclosure were unrelated to educational activities and to the use of educational applications.     

E-learning and the third age

As a result of the general improvement in living conditions in industrialised Western countries, people aged over 60 years usually reach the ‘third age’ in good mental and physical condition. Contemporary society has thus had to endeavour to offer the ‘new old’ not only social services but also pastimes, leisure, social, cultural and educational activities. Among the range of opportunities being made available is that of acquiring skills in the use of information and communication technology (ICT), an area of ever‐increasing prominence. This can be seen not only as an opportunity for individual cultural growth but also the basic condition for conceiving a range of practical network‐based services and applications of great social significance for the elderly population. This article refers to one of these initiatives, developed in Liguria (one of the Italian regions with the oldest population), whose purpose was to train about 600 over‐60s in the use of ICT. What we will analyse here in particular are the results of e‐learning activities offered to a sample of participants and with reference to a segment of the entire training process envisaged by the regional initiative. The specific objectives of the activity were to verify the real possibility of proposing short, online learning modules on the use of Internet for older users; to survey users' attitudes/reactions to e‐learning; and to analyse the follow‐up of distance training activities.     

长治观音堂明代彩塑造型艺术审美探析

山西长治观音堂明代彩塑是在多教建构的宗教意识与文化语境中确立的庙宇彩塑的典型代表。其彩塑艺术在史学上反映出不同历史时期沿革流变后的审美特征与人文世态,在艺术造型上强调了宗教信仰与民俗文化的高度融合,在理论上承载了儒、释、道＂三教合一＂互融并生的思路和定位。文章着力阐述长治观音堂彩塑在传统与外来宗教并铸而迸发出的色彩、造型及其装饰的瑰丽之美。     

A digital revolution: Comparison of demographic profiles,attitudes and gambling behavior of Internet and non-Internet gamblers

Internet gambling is one of the fastest growing sectors of e-commerce and rapidly growing as a mode of gambling. Although Internet gambling is characterized by high levels of customer choice, little is known about Internet gamblers or their engagement with Internet and non-Internet forms of gambling. Regulators are struggling to respond to Internet gambling given that little is known about the impact of this mode of gambling on the existing gambling market, who is gambling online and how. This paper presents one of the largest studies of Internet gambling; an online survey completed by 6682 Australian gamblers. Results show that Internet gamblers are a heterogeneous group, although there is a tendency for Internet gamblers to be male, have high incomes and be well educated. Internet gamblers have more positive attitudes towards gambling and are more highly involved gamblers, engaging in many different gambling activities in both online and offline forms. However, a proportion of Internet gamblers prefer the privacy and anonymity of Internet gambling and do not like land-based venues, suggesting that Internet gambling is creating a new market of gambling customers. Understanding the impact of this new mode of gamblers on existing gamblers and new players is important to contribute to the appropriate regulation of this activity.     

Contribution of Internet news use to reducing the influence of selective online exposure on political diversity

Research has recognized both selective and heterogeneous exposures on the Internet through online news and discussion. How online exposures through Internet news and discussion influence political diversity in individuals’ everyday lives needs to be addressed. The current research examines the extent to which Internet news use alters the effect of selective online interaction on political diversity in individuals’ social networks. Results show that while Internet news use has no direct relationship with political diversity in individuals’ social networks, it nevertheless moderates the negative effect of selective online interaction and indirectly contributes to political diversity. The social structural aspect of political diversity in social networks is discussed in comparison to political discussion networks.     

Number Matters: The Multimodality of Internet Use as an Indicator of the Digital Inequalities

This study explores the multimodality of Internet use as a critical indicator of digital inequalities. Rather than relying on traditional measures of user/nonuser and information/entertainment uses, this study focuses on a broad scope of online activities and investigates them collectively. Results show that the more modes of Internet activities people are engaged in, the more advanced uses they will add to their online behaviors. Female, older, poorer, and less educated only use the Internet for very limited basic applications, which are associated with fewer political communication and participation. While previous research concludes that the type of Internet activities matters, this study suggests that it is the number of types that matters in examining potential inequalities and their social consequences.     

Crisis Communications Management on the Web: How Internet‐Based Technologies are Changing the Way Public Relations Professionals Handle Business Crises

This article analyses how Internet‐based technologies can help companies to: monitor their business environment online in search of potentially conflictive issues that need to be managed (issues management); to prepare a crisis communications plan that considers the Internet side of today's business landscape (crisis communications planning); to respond adequately to crises should they arise by using all available online tools (crisis response); and to establish appropriate Internet‐based actions once the crisis dies down (post‐crisis). The article also questions whether the traditional one‐way corporate approach and tone is still suitable in the new, more participative, online business environment, or whether companies should use a different tone, language, and attitude when engaging with their audiences on the Internet in a crisis situation.