Heidi A Campbell
Biographic Data
| ID | 218808 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Heidi A Campbell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Heidi A |
| FAMILY NAME | Campbell |
| SIGNATURE | CAMPBELL H A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas A&M University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7359-2033 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 296 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 44 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
From Radio to AI. Old and new trends in the Catholic Church’s approach to technological innovation
Through a historical and theological overview of the Catholic Church’s response to information communication technologies (ICTs), this article provides the groundwork for understanding current Church discussions about artificial intelligence (AI). Drawing on primary sources, namely papal speeches and Vatican documents, as well as other secondary historical and critical sources, the article details how the Catholic Church has managed over the deca…
Why Studies of Media, Religion, and Culture Need to Pay More Attention to Religious Metaphors and Misinformation
This article serves as a foreword to the International Society on Media, Religion and Culture’s ( ismrc ) special issue on Metaphors and Misinformation, highlighting themes and research featured at the 2023 ismrc conference in Bochum, Germany. Specifically, this article offers a personal reflection by the then-president of ismrc on the growth and development of the study of Media, Religion, and Culture ( mrc ). It also highlights the importance o…
Looking Backwards and Forwards at the Study of Digital Religion
Over the past three decades, there has been a steadily increasing interest in how religious communities and practices interact and intersect with digital media and emerging technologies. It was initially seen and documented in the late 1990s by scholars of Religion and Media as a novel phenomenon. Attention was paid to how tech-savvy religious groups sought to transport their traditional religious rituals online while others experimented with the…
When Churches Discovered the Digital Divide
During the pandemic, many church leaders had to learn to manage a digital divide present within their congregations, which they were not aware of. This article explores the nature and traits of the digital divide many American churches encountered during this pandemic, based on a study of focus groups involving 478 church leaders from Indiana. This study identifies four specific challenges they faced in adopting digital media and adapting their s…
Technological Choices and Their Liturgical Implications
The Covid-19 pandemic forced many churches into a digital experiment. When lockdowns and health and safety regulations prevented churches from meeting in person, they were pushed into novel forms o
Digital Religion
The internet usage of religious organizations in Mainland China
This article explores common characteristics of official Chinese religious organizations' internet usage by specifically investigating the online presence of the Buddhist Association of China. By focusing on this case study, we are able to map official religious groups' use of and attitudes toward new media in China, especially the internet. The aim of this article is to help scholars more fully understand digital religion practices in contempora…
Religious Responses to Social Distancing Revealed through Memes during the Covid-19 Pandemic
This article examines the emotive narratives surrounding the “new normal” of social distancing practices during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, as revealed by religion-focused Internet memes. In March 2020, many people were introduced to the concept of “social distancing” for the first time via news reports and media coverage of the spreading COVID-19 pandemic which led to the first lockdown. As the year progressed, social distanci…
Transferred, mediated or transformed
This comparative study of 100 iTunes mobile applications featuring sacred texts from five major world religions emphasizes how such texts are represented when digitized. Specifically, this research investigates the technological affordances these apps offer, how these affordances are communicated to users, and the messages about religion these app designs communicate. This article thus portrays the relationship between innovative technological fe…
In My Own Opinion”
This study explores how Israeli Jewish rabbis negotiate their authority through the practice of online Responsa, a Jewish tradition of rabbinical questions and answers (Q&A). A total of n = 567 Q&A were collected from five different rabbis answering on Kipa.co.il. By analyzing questions asked by anonymous users and answered by specific rabbis, this research shows how online Responsa allows rabbis to negotiate their rabbinical authority. We highli…
Considering the Religious-Social Shaping of Technolog
Contextualizing current digital religion research on emerging technologies
This article provides an overview of contemporary research within the interdisciplinary arc of scholarship known as digital religion studies, in which scholars explore the intersection between emerging digital technologies, lived and material religious practices in contemporary culture, and the impact the structures of the network society have on understandings of spirituality and religiosity. Digital religion studies specifically investigates ho…
Introduction Essay
Introduction
Studying Digital Ecclesiology: How Churches are Being Informed by
Technological and Mediated Identity in American Multisite Churches
This article explores how churches present their religious identity online through the digital and multi-media resources they produce to showcase their ministries. In this study we focus on the digital performances of religious identity of multisite churches, which are churches that meet in multiple locations. We argue technology plays a key role not only in facilitating their church services, but in shaping members’ and visitors’ understanding o…
The Dissonance of 'Civil' Religion in Religious-Political Memetic Discourse During the 2016 Presidential Elections
This article explores the interrelationship between religion and politics as presented through memetic discourse surrounding the 2016 presidential election. Based on a study of 150 Internet memes of political candidates and core issues framed by religious discourse, and a case study of memes focused on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, we investigated the distinct understanding of what constitutes religion that arises. Overwhelmingly, the…
Communicating mixed messages about religion through internet memes
This article investigates the dominant messages Internet memes communicate about religion. Internet memes about religion are defined as, ‘memes circulated on the Internet whose images and texts focus on a variety of religious themes and/or religious traditions’ (Bellar et al., 2013). By drawing on meme genres identified by Shifman (2012) and analyzing techniques used to frame ideas concerning religion in memes, this study identifies common genres…
Religious communication and technology
This article provides a review of contemporary research on religious communication and technologies through the lens of Digital Religion Studies, which explores how online and offline religious spheres become blended and blurred through digital culture. Summarizing the emergence and growth of studies of religion and the Internet, and offering an overview of scholarship demonstrating how religious actors negotiate their relationships and spiritual…
Considering critical methods and theoretical lenses in digital religion studies
This article introduces a special issue on critical methods and theoretical lenses in Digital Religion studies, through contextualising them within research trajectories found in this emerging field. By starting from the assertion that current “fourth-wave of research on religion and the Internet,” is focused on how religious actors negotiate the relationships between multiple spheres of their online and offline lives, article authors spotlight k…
Assessing changes in the study of religious communities in digital religion studies
This article provides a focused review of researches undertaken within Digital religion studies in the last three decades, specifically highlighting how religious communities have been studied and approached within this area. It highlights the dominant theoretical and methodological approaches employed by scholars during what is being described as the four stages of research on religious communities emerging over this period of time. Thus, this a…
Surveying theoretical approaches within digital religion studies
This article provides an overview of the development of Digital Religion studies and the theoretical approaches frequently employed within this area. Through considering the ways and theories of mediatization, mediation of meaning, and the religious–social shaping of technology have been engaged and applied in studies of new media technologies, religion, and digital culture we see how Digital Religion studies has grown into a unique area of inqui…
Gaming Religionworlds
This roundtable article discusses the intersection between digital gaming, new media, and Religious Studies in order to provide an agenda for this growing conversation. We argue that religion plays a prominent role in gaming culture with significant impact on popular collective imaginations; therefore, studying religion in gaming should be central to religious scholars' work in trying to understand perceptions of religion in popular culture. This…
Framing the human-technology relationship
This article highlights the fact that careful study of common posthuman outlooks, as described by Roden (2015), reveals three unique narratives concerning how posthumanists view the nature of humanity and emerging technologies. It is argued that these narratives point to unique frames that present distinct understandings of the human-technology relationship, frames described as the technology-cultured, enhanced-human, and human-technology hybrid …
Religion and New Media
Strategic Management of Religious Websites
This study investigates how webmasters of sites affiliated with bounded communities manage tensions created by the open social affordances of the internet. We examine how webmasters strategically manage their respective websites to accommodate their assumed target audiences. Through in-depth interviews with Orthodox webmasters in Israel, we uncover how they cultivate 3 unique strategies -- control, layering, and guiding -- to contain information …
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…
Understanding the Relationship between Religion Online and Offline in a Networked Society
Journal Article Understanding the Relationship between Religion Online and Offline in a Networked Society Get access Heidi A. Campbell Heidi A. Campbell * *Heidi A. Campbell, Department of Communication, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4234, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. I would like to thank Mia Lövheim, Peter Horsfield, Cara Wallis, and Joshua Heuman for their careful reading and thoughtful feedback on drafts of this article, as…
Surveying theoretical approaches within digital religion studies
This article provides an overview of the development of Digital Religion studies and the theoretical approaches frequently employed within this area. Through considering the ways and theories of mediatization, mediation of meaning, and the religious–social shaping of technology have been engaged and applied in studies of new media technologies, religion, and digital culture we see how Digital Religion studies has grown into a unique area of inqui…
Creating digital enclaves
This article examines the motivation behind bounded groups’ creation of digital enclaves online. Through in-depth interviews with 19 webmasters and staff of selected Israeli Orthodox websites three critical areas of negotiation are explored: (1) social control; (2) sources of authority; and (3) community boundaries. Examining these tensions illuminates a detailed process of self-evaluation which leads religious stakeholders and internet entrepren…
Religion and the Internet
This article argues that paying close attention to key findings within the study of religion and the Internet, a subfield of Internet Studies, can enhance our understanding and discussion of the larger social and cultural shifts at work within networked society. Through a critical overview of research on religion online, five central research areas emerge related to social practices, online–offline connections, community, identity, and authority …
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 th…
Strategic Management of Religious Websites
This study investigates how webmasters of sites affiliated with bounded communities manage tensions created by the open social affordances of the internet. We examine how webmasters strategically manage their respective websites to accommodate their assumed target audiences. Through in-depth interviews with Orthodox webmasters in Israel, we uncover how they cultivate 3 unique strategies -- control, layering, and guiding -- to contain information …
Making Space for Religion in Internet Studies
This article seeks to address how religion fits into the larger domain of Internet studies and why studies of religion within computer-mediated communication (CMC) need to be given more attention. An argument is made for the need to take religion online more seriously, not just because it is an interesting phenomenon or a popular use of the Internet, but also because religion continues to be an important part of contemporary life for many people.…
What Hath God Wrought?’ Considering How Religious Communities Culture ( or Kosher ) the Cell Phone
Since Samuel Morse posed his famous question ‘what hath God wrought?’ in the first telegraph conversation, communication technology has been infused with spiritual undertones. The idea of a disembo
Framing the human-technology relationship
This article highlights the fact that careful study of common posthuman outlooks, as described by Roden (2015), reveals three unique narratives concerning how posthumanists view the nature of humanity and emerging technologies. It is argued that these narratives point to unique frames that present distinct understandings of the human-technology relationship, frames described as the technology-cultured, enhanced-human, and human-technology hybrid …
How the iPhone became divine
This article explores the labeling of the iPhone as the ‘Jesus phone’ in order to demonstrate how religious metaphors and myth can be appropriated into popular discourse and shape the reception of a technology. We consider the intertextual nature of the relationship between religious language, imagery and technology and demonstrate how this creates a unique interaction between technology fans and bloggers, news media and even corporate advertisin…
There’s a religious app for that! A framework for studying religious mobile applications
This article provides a new methodological approach to studying religious-oriented mobile applications available on the iTunes app store. Through an extensive review of 451 religious apps a number of problems were noted when relying solely on iTunes categories to identify app functions and purpose. Thus further analysis was done in order to present a new typology and framing of religious apps, which more accurately describe their design. We sugge…
Religion and the Internet in the Israeli Orthodox context
This article provides an overview of research on religion and the Internet within the Israeli context, highlighting how Orthodox Jewish groups have appropriated and responded to the Internet. By surveying Orthodox use of the Internet, and giving special attention to the ultra Orthodox negotiations, a number of key challenges that the Internet poses to the Israeli religious sector are highlighted. Exploring these debates and negotiations demonstra…
Considering spiritual dimensions within computer-mediated communication studies
This article explores how the internet is being studied and conceived of as a sacramental space. The internet as sacramental space demonstrates how religious users see the internet as a viable place for presenting their beliefs and practices. In order to understand this model, several other dominant conceptions of the internet are offered: information space, a common mental geography, an identity workshop and a social space. Each of these accents…
Considering critical methods and theoretical lenses in digital religion studies
This article introduces a special issue on critical methods and theoretical lenses in Digital Religion studies, through contextualising them within research trajectories found in this emerging field. By starting from the assertion that current “fourth-wave of research on religion and the Internet,” is focused on how religious actors negotiate the relationships between multiple spheres of their online and offline lives, article authors spotlight k…
Religious communication and technology
This article provides a review of contemporary research on religious communication and technologies through the lens of Digital Religion Studies, which explores how online and offline religious spheres become blended and blurred through digital culture. Summarizing the emergence and growth of studies of religion and the Internet, and offering an overview of scholarship demonstrating how religious actors negotiate their relationships and spiritual…
In My Own Opinion”
This study explores how Israeli Jewish rabbis negotiate their authority through the practice of online Responsa, a Jewish tradition of rabbinical questions and answers (Q&A). A total of n = 567 Q&A were collected from five different rabbis answering on Kipa.co.il. By analyzing questions asked by anonymous users and answered by specific rabbis, this research shows how online Responsa allows rabbis to negotiate their rabbinical authority. We highli…
Studying Technology and Ecclesiology in Online Multi-Site Worship
This study brings together research approaches from media studies and practical theology in order to study and understand the relationship between online technological features of multi-site worship and the larger offline worshipping community to which it is connected. From the perspective of media studies we reflect on how new media technologies and cultures are allowed to shape online worship spaces and how larger institutional traditions and s…
The Dissonance of 'Civil' Religion in Religious-Political Memetic Discourse During the 2016 Presidential Elections
This article explores the interrelationship between religion and politics as presented through memetic discourse surrounding the 2016 presidential election. Based on a study of 150 Internet memes of political candidates and core issues framed by religious discourse, and a case study of memes focused on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, we investigated the distinct understanding of what constitutes religion that arises. Overwhelmingly, the…
Transferred, mediated or transformed
This comparative study of 100 iTunes mobile applications featuring sacred texts from five major world religions emphasizes how such texts are represented when digitized. Specifically, this research investigates the technological affordances these apps offer, how these affordances are communicated to users, and the messages about religion these app designs communicate. This article thus portrays the relationship between innovative technological fe…
Gaming Religionworlds
This roundtable article discusses the intersection between digital gaming, new media, and Religious Studies in order to provide an agenda for this growing conversation. We argue that religion plays a prominent role in gaming culture with significant impact on popular collective imaginations; therefore, studying religion in gaming should be central to religious scholars' work in trying to understand perceptions of religion in popular culture. This…
When Religion Meets New Media
This lively book focuses on how different Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities engage with new media. Rather than simply reject or accept new media, religious communities negotiate complex relationships with these technologies in light of their history and beliefs. Heidi Campbell suggests a method for studying these processes she calls the "religious-social shaping of technology" and students are asked to consider four key areas: religious t…
Can You Hear the Army?”
This article explores how public prayer events can serve as a space for evangelical youth to perform and construct a public discourse related to their personal and corporate faith. Claims are based on a detailed content analysis of 14 youth-led prayer meetings held across Scotland over a two-year period. This study uncovers some dominant themes related to how evangelical youth create and present their religious identity in order to create communi…
Postcyborg Ethics
The cyborg has moved from a science fiction icon to a tool for discussing the emerging posthuman, the proclaimed next stage of human evolution. The claim that cyborgs now live among us is based on our unquestioning appropriation of technologies into the human life sphere. This raises questions about the role of technology and what it means to be human. This article outlines current posthuman discussions of technology through exploring Steve Mann’…
Considering spiritual dimensions within computer-mediated communication studies
This article explores how the internet is being studied and conceived of as a sacramental space. The internet as sacramental space demonstrates how religious users see the internet as a viable place for presenting their beliefs and practices. In order to understand this model, several other dominant conceptions of the internet are offered: information space, a common mental geography, an identity workshop and a social space. Each of these accents…
Making Space for Religion in Internet Studies
This article seeks to address how religion fits into the larger domain of Internet studies and why studies of religion within computer-mediated communication (CMC) need to be given more attention. An argument is made for the need to take religion online more seriously, not just because it is an interesting phenomenon or a popular use of the Internet, but also because religion continues to be an important part of contemporary life for many people.…
Resources for Christianity on the World Wide Web
Postcyborg Ethics
The cyborg has moved from a science fiction icon to a tool for discussing the emerging posthuman, the proclaimed next stage of human evolution. The claim that cyborgs now live among us is based on our unquestioning appropriation of technologies into the human life sphere. This raises questions about the role of technology and what it means to be human. This article outlines current posthuman discussions of technology through exploring Steve Mann’…
The Question of Christian Community Online
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…
What Hath God Wrought?’ Considering How Religious Communities Culture ( or Kosher ) the Cell Phone
Since Samuel Morse posed his famous question ‘what hath God wrought?’ in the first telegraph conversation, communication technology has been infused with spiritual undertones. The idea of a disembo
Can You Hear the Army?”
This article explores how public prayer events can serve as a space for evangelical youth to perform and construct a public discourse related to their personal and corporate faith. Claims are based on a detailed content analysis of 14 youth-led prayer meetings held across Scotland over a two-year period. This study uncovers some dominant themes related to how evangelical youth create and present their religious identity in order to create communi…
When Religion Meets New Media
This lively book focuses on how different Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities engage with new media. Rather than simply reject or accept new media, religious communities negotiate complex relationships with these technologies in light of their history and beliefs. Heidi Campbell suggests a method for studying these processes she calls the "religious-social shaping of technology" and students are asked to consider four key areas: religious t…
How the iPhone became divine
This article explores the labeling of the iPhone as the ‘Jesus phone’ in order to demonstrate how religious metaphors and myth can be appropriated into popular discourse and shape the reception of a technology. We consider the intertextual nature of the relationship between religious language, imagery and technology and demonstrate how this creates a unique interaction between technology fans and bloggers, news media and even corporate advertisin…
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 th…
Religion and the Internet in the Israeli Orthodox context
This article provides an overview of research on religion and the Internet within the Israeli context, highlighting how Orthodox Jewish groups have appropriated and responded to the Internet. By surveying Orthodox use of the Internet, and giving special attention to the ultra Orthodox negotiations, a number of key challenges that the Internet poses to the Israeli religious sector are highlighted. Exploring these debates and negotiations demonstra…
Creating digital enclaves
This article examines the motivation behind bounded groups’ creation of digital enclaves online. Through in-depth interviews with 19 webmasters and staff of selected Israeli Orthodox websites three critical areas of negotiation are explored: (1) social control; (2) sources of authority; and (3) community boundaries. Examining these tensions illuminates a detailed process of self-evaluation which leads religious stakeholders and internet entrepren…
Digital Religion
Part One Community Heidi Campbell Authority Pauline Cheong Greg Grieves Ritual Christopher Helland Identity Mia Lovheim Authenticity Kerstin Radde-Antweiler Part Two Japanese New Religions Online: Hikari no Wa and Net Religion Erica Baffelli Digital Storytelling and Collective Religious Identity in a Moderate to Progressive Youth Group Lynn Schofield Clark and Jill Dierberg Islamizing New Media Nabil Echchaibi Charting Frontiers of Online Religio…
Religion and the Internet
This article argues that paying close attention to key findings within the study of religion and the Internet, a subfield of Internet Studies, can enhance our understanding and discussion of the larger social and cultural shifts at work within networked society. Through a critical overview of research on religion online, five central research areas emerge related to social practices, online–offline connections, community, identity, and authority …
Understanding the Relationship between Religion Online and Offline in a Networked Society
Journal Article Understanding the Relationship between Religion Online and Offline in a Networked Society Get access Heidi A. Campbell Heidi A. Campbell * *Heidi A. Campbell, Department of Communication, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4234, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. I would like to thank Mia Lövheim, Peter Horsfield, Cara Wallis, and Joshua Heuman for their careful reading and thoughtful feedback on drafts of this article, as…
Digital Jesus
Reading Religion in Internet Memes
This article provides a preliminary report of a study of religious-oriented internet memes and seeks to identify the common communication styles, interpretive practices and messages about religion communicated in this digital medium. These findings argue that memes provide an important sphere for investigating and understanding religious meaning-making online, which expresses key attributes of participatory culture and trends towards lived religi…
There’s a religious app for that! A framework for studying religious mobile applications
This article provides a new methodological approach to studying religious-oriented mobile applications available on the iTunes app store. Through an extensive review of 451 religious apps a number of problems were noted when relying solely on iTunes categories to identify app functions and purpose. Thus further analysis was done in order to present a new typology and framing of religious apps, which more accurately describe their design. We sugge…
Studying Technology and Ecclesiology in Online Multi-Site Worship
This study brings together research approaches from media studies and practical theology in order to study and understand the relationship between online technological features of multi-site worship and the larger offline worshipping community to which it is connected. From the perspective of media studies we reflect on how new media technologies and cultures are allowed to shape online worship spaces and how larger institutional traditions and s…
Religion and New Media
Strategic Management of Religious Websites
This study investigates how webmasters of sites affiliated with bounded communities manage tensions created by the open social affordances of the internet. We examine how webmasters strategically manage their respective websites to accommodate their assumed target audiences. Through in-depth interviews with Orthodox webmasters in Israel, we uncover how they cultivate 3 unique strategies -- control, layering, and guiding -- to contain information …
Assessing changes in the study of religious communities in digital religion studies
This article provides a focused review of researches undertaken within Digital religion studies in the last three decades, specifically highlighting how religious communities have been studied and approached within this area. It highlights the dominant theoretical and methodological approaches employed by scholars during what is being described as the four stages of research on religious communities emerging over this period of time. Thus, this a…
Surveying theoretical approaches within digital religion studies
This article provides an overview of the development of Digital Religion studies and the theoretical approaches frequently employed within this area. Through considering the ways and theories of mediatization, mediation of meaning, and the religious–social shaping of technology have been engaged and applied in studies of new media technologies, religion, and digital culture we see how Digital Religion studies has grown into a unique area of inqui…
Gaming Religionworlds
This roundtable article discusses the intersection between digital gaming, new media, and Religious Studies in order to provide an agenda for this growing conversation. We argue that religion plays a prominent role in gaming culture with significant impact on popular collective imaginations; therefore, studying religion in gaming should be central to religious scholars' work in trying to understand perceptions of religion in popular culture. This…
Media, Religion, Digital Communication (43 works) · Sociology (42 works) · Computer Science (27 works) · Political science (26 works) · Media studies (22 works) · Social Media and Politics (21 works) · World Wide Web (21 works) · Law (20 works) · The Internet (19 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (15 works)