How sacred sites and their agents construct the mediatization of Mary?

This newly published article, which I co-authored with Nurit Stadler, of the department of sociology and social anthropology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, sheds light on the study of online religious worship and its mediatization, particularly regarding Marian veneration on social media platforms. It has just been added to the "online first" category in the top journal of New Media and Society and may be of interest to anyone curious about the study of Marian movements, visual social media, pilgrimage in the digital age and scholars of online mediatization. You can read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241265513 

The image below is taken from the Instagram feed of the Sanctuary of Fátima in Portugal. A central site of pilgrimage for Catholic believers and followers of the Marian movement. Similar postings, alongside ethnographic fieldwork, have fed the study's corpus. 

How do believers acquire religious knowledge online?

I am happy to share that last month (April 2024), I participated in the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference, which took place in Philadelphia. My presentation focused on the ways believers acquire religious knowledge online. This discussion revealed religious epistemology and sourcing practices in the Digital Age, with special attention to the Zionist-Religious variant in Israel’s Jewish population. The presentation was based on a paper I co-authored with my student (who I am delighted to say, officially received his PhD yesterday) , Dr. Akiva Berger. For more information on the paper, you can read the following link:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439884.2023.2169833  

Special Panel, Special Issue: Digital Religious Youth

This month I took part in the bi-annual International Conference for Media and Religion. The conference took place in Bochum, Germany. In the panel, I presented my latest special issue on Digital Religious Youth which you can read about here together with fellow panelists, who were also contributors to the special issue. In the panel I introduced the field and delivered a presentation on the legitimization of new media for religious youth, which offers a special focus on rabbinical approaches to adolescent engagement with digital worlds. A study I worked on with my dear late student, Yaakov Don, who was killed a few years ago in a terrorist attack.

Webinar for my new book: Sacred Cyberspaces, Catholicism, new media and the religious experience, with Michele Martini

All are welcome to the online presentation of my new book, with Michele Martini, titled Sacred Cyberspaces: Catholicism, new media and the religious experience at The Canadian Society for the Study of Religion’s (CSSR) Webinar. More information on the book is available here

Public Talk - in Conversation with Haaretz’s Cyber-Journalist Omer Ben Yaakov - November 15, 2022

Giving a public talk on the Jewish Internet on Tuesday November 15, in Tel Aviv - in conversation with Haaretz’s cyber-journalist Omer Ben Yaakov. The event will take place at the Neve Schechter Center for Contemporary Jewish Culture & Art. For Tickets and more details see: https://neve-schechter.org.il/product/strudel2/

Conference on Digital Religion at Monte Verità

Just returned (about a week ago) from a splendid conference in Monte Verità, Switzerland. The event was hosted by the University of Zurich's University Research Priority Program (URPP) on "Digital Religion(s)". A most impressive initiative (see their blog here) which houses 12 leading research projects  with their respected PI team leaders and advanced students, all of which are headed by Professor Thomas Schlag. The event lasted 5 days and brought together scholars from multiple disciplines such as sociology, communications, religious studies and theology to explore different aspects of this emergent field. To learn more on the conference check out the Twitter hashtag: #Monte2022 

New Publication: Smartphone Religious Networking: Negotiating Contested Identities within a Pious Community over WhatsApp

Just published a new paper with my former student, Nakhi Mishol-Shauli, on the ways Haredi publics negotiate their identities through the use of public WhatsApp groups. The paper can be read here for free (no paywall)