Tan Meng Yoe, Malaysian Christians Online. Faith, Experience, and Social Engagement on the Internet

The book is situated in the field of digital religion, online communities and religious performativity in digital spaces with a focus on the Christian community in Malaysia.It captures the personal stories of Malaysians based on their lived experiences as Christians in the digital age.The author, Tan Meng Yoe, a scholar of online religion and a Malaysian Christian himself, draws from his insider knowledge to conduct an ethnographic and digital ethnographic research involving interviews with Christian (mostly Evangelical) bloggers, web site moderators and church pastors.Through observations and textual analysis of blogs, social networking websites and online news portals, he aims to uncover the different ways in which Malaysian Christians express their religious identity and practices on digital platforms.The book consists of eight chapters and provides an insight into Christianity in Malaysia and interrogates the effect of online religious practices and engagements on personal spiritual identities and traditional religious hierarchies.It also provides an overall introduction and an engaging discussion on online religious practices and detailed instructions on digital ethnographic research methods.The various concepts and ideas pertaining to online religious practices are viewed through the lens of the Actor-Network Theory (ant).ant perceives a collaborative symmetry between humans and non-humans and accords equal agency to both on the effect they have on lived experiences.Developed in the 1980s, ant has received various critiques by scholars in the twenty-first century.However, it does prove to be a useful lens through which digitally mediated practices can be understood.In discussing the distinction between the physical and digital spaces, the author posits an interesting notion on the fluid boundaries between offline and online social realities by viewing the cyberspace as a valid and critical part and extension of a person's everyday life instead of a separate virtual reality removed from one's lived experiences.The daily expressions of faith are termed everyday religion which is defined as lived religious experiences involving habits, rituals, embodied practices, actions and expressions either in private (home and private spaces) and/or in public settings (including churches and church organisations and spaces).The book does not distinguish between everyday religion and organized religion but instead sees organized religion as having a direct influence on everyday faith practices

Aesthetics · Art · Christianity · Digital media · Epistemology · Ethnography · Faith · Media studies · Negotiation · Online community · Participant observation · Political science · Religious identity · Social media · Social science · Sociology · The Internet · World Wide Web · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Media, Religion, Digital Communication · Religious studies · Religious Tourism and Spaces