Connectivity and communion: The mobile phone and the Christian religious experience in Nigeria (original) (raw)
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Religious Use of Mobile Phones
Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition, 2018
This article is divided into three sections. First, a brief background on studies of mobile technology and digital religion provides necessary context for understanding the history and trajectory of religion and mobile studies. Next, three key areas of religion and mobile media research are explicated: how religious individuals and communities negotiate mobile media use, the ways in which religious mobile apps are being designed and used for religious practice, and the commodification of religion through mobile media. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion of emerging trends within mobile media and religion, which suggests future research opportunities.
Journal of Intercultural Theology , 2020
The invention of smartphone is one of the most significant milestones of human development in the 21st century. It has continued to transform the world in the different aspects of human endeavours: religion, work, education, politics and business. Indeed, the smartphone has become so addictive that people hardly go out without them. Specifically, smartphones have increasingly become a common feature in Catholic parishes during Masses and other liturgical celebrations. This study examines the perception of the Catholic faithful (priests and lay faithful) on the role of the smartphone in liturgical celebrations and whether it is still a tool of human development today. Using Descriptive Research design research, the study uses a sample size of 350 lay faithful and 51 priests in the Catholic Diocese of Auchi (present Edo North Senatorial District) in Edo State, Nigeria. The study is based on the Grounded Theory Model of Mobile Technology Addiction.
The Use of the Mobile Phone for Religious Mobilization in Niger Republic
The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries (ISSN: 1681-4835), 2017
While many scholars have studied the ways in which the Internet and online social networks are shaping contemporary religious practices and how new information and communication technologies are supporting networked forms of religious activism, only a few have analyzed the relationships between religion and the use of the mobile phone in African countries. However, in Africa as elsewhere, mobile phones are influencing the everyday practices of religion in multiple ways that are not simply anecdotal but affect beliefs and behaviors and raise ethical concerns among believers. In some cases (e.g., divorce, Qur’an verses, ringtones, prayer disruption), religious authorities have been obliged to draw up rules and provide guidance to the faithful. This article seeks to identify the opportunities offered and the challenges posed to religion by the introduction of mobile phones in Niamey, the capital-city of Niger Republic. It specifically examines how believers are using this device to mobilize co-religionists, to maintain religious ties and religious faith, as well as how they are coping with the challenges and seeking to resolve related issues. The article argues that the mobile phone is helping mediate in new ways and in a new context the religious norms and behaviors that have always guided Muslim communities. In other words, the advent of the mobile phone offers new opportunities but also poses new challenges to believers who strive to cope with this new phenomenon by inventing new ways to integrate the device into everyday practices. The article is based on semi-structured interviews carried out in June, July, and August 2009 in Niger’s capital city, Niamey, with ordinary Ni gerien Muslims. It combines qualitative data obtained through interviews and observation with demographic statistics and survey results to describe the role the mobile phone plays in the current evolution of Islam in Niger. KEYWORDS Islam, Niger, Mobile Phone, Religious Practices, Religious Behaviors
POLITICS AND RELIGION JOURNAL
In my researches in the field of media religion and culture, I have made extensive comparative analyses of the Catholic and Pentecostal churches in Nigeria and their different communication strategies. This paper highlights the appropriation of the new information and communication technologies by these two Christian denominations in Nigeria. Special attention is paid to the Catholic Church, because, unlike the Pentecostal denominations which see media technologies as an extension of the church pulpit, the Catholic Church has generally exhibited a somewhat cold attitude towards these instruments of mass communication. This attitude goes back to the advent of cinema which the Church’s hierarchy then saw as having the potential of corrupting faith and moral. The Catholic Church has remained largely a print-based Church, investing most of her communication energy in the print media and in oral catechism. But in recent years, this negative attitude of the Church has started to change. O...
In the age of globalization the importance of telecommunication to the economy of nations has been stressed. In this vein, the Nigerian government deregulated the telecommunication sector in 2001. This led to the introduction of the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) into the country.1 Since then, the growth in mobile phone use has been tremendous. Ernest Ndukwe, the executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, outlined the benefits of GSM to the nation as foreign capital flow, stimulation of foreign investment, increased access to telephone services, job creation, indigenous skills acquisition and technology transfer, economic empowerment of the local population, and increased tax revenue for the government (Ndukwe 2003: 6). Since the introduction of mobile telecommunication in Nigeria, the use of short message service (SMS) has grown rapidly, especially among young people. SMS offers a cheaper means of communications for many mobile phone users. Today in Nigeria, SMS is used for a variety of purposes, such as interpersonal communication, invitations for interviews, electioneering, banking transactions, seasonal greetings, and so forth.2 This chapter examines its use among Nigerian Pentecostal Christians in southwestern Nigeria, with a focus on its use for communal bonding, proselytization, and fulfillment of Christian social responsibilities.
How the iPhone Became Divine: New Media, Religion and the Intertextual Circulation of Meaning
New Media & Society, 2010
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 advertising. Our analysis of the ‘Jesus phone’ clarifies how different groups may appropriate the language and imagery of another to communicate very different meanings and intentions. Intertextuality serves as a framework to unpack the deployment of religion to frame technology and meanings communicated. We also reflect on how religious language may communicate both positive and negative aspects of a technology and instigate an unintentional trajectory in popular discourse as it is employed by different audiences, both online and offline.
Journal of Content, Community & Communication, 2019
Interpersonal relations in a world of digital ubiquity have brought religious institutions into personal digital networks. The development of personal-religious networks has affected individual faith practices and altered religious responses. This article explores patterns of behavior emerging from a collective sense of belonging and affective responses in online church networks where smartphones act as an extension of self. It analyses the relationship between faith and visual practices/aesthetics impacting today’s religious experience. It also explains affective loops that are consciously constructed by church authorities to shape collective action. The function of these loops is to create a deeper sense of connectedness between practitioners and the church through harnessing technology and its affective power.
Revista Română De Sociologie, 2022
Religion has found its way to the digital space. Digital religion, worship and piety are becoming more conspicuous than ever in Christianity in Nigeria. This reality has raised a great deal of questions concerning the compatibility of religion and the cyberspace. The moral and community aspects of religion have also been somewhat thwarted and the academic study of religion became even more complex. This study interrogates the digital religion, worship and piety phenomenon in the light of Emile Durkheim's functional theory of religion and Jeremy Bentham's ethical theory, utilitarianism. This descriptive study garners data from focus group discussions, participant observation, interviews, and published literature, and adopts the inductive approach to research and analyzes data thematically. Findings show that the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions on physical contact heightened digital religion in Nigeria. A sociological and ethical analysis of the phenomenon of digital religion is instructive and reveals that digital religion is laced with a great deal of social and moral gains, as well as pitfalls. Digital religion also complicates the academic study of religion in contemporary times. To counter all these, this paper recommends, among other things, that caution should be taken in order not to make a total transition to digital religion, but rather use a hybridized form. Again, the paper recommends the deployment of rule utilitarianism in order to clearly define acceptable rules for digital religion, worship and piety, and scholars of religion should use the already available knowledge of digital methodologies to be able to better analyze the evolution of religion in contemporary times.
Digital Evangelism: The Place of Religion in the Emerging Social Order in Nigeria
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2022
The relationship that exists between technology and religion has become a phenomenon that is culturally interactive, however, the degree and scope of synergy are often complex and progressive in a globalized society where technology has evolved into a sophisticated institution that is sustained or locked in a grid of digital infrastructure negotiating both time and space. On the other hand, the popular Marxist perception that termed religion as "the opium of the people" has gradually metamorphosed into a multi-faceted institution, wherein it seeks to address not only man's spiritual but also man's extensive communal, partisan, cultural, economic, and other needs. We have also seen the proliferation of religious movements that have grown out of these societal needs who advocate for a new social order through administrative transparency, accountability in service, religious and cultural harmony in our societies. The interests of these movements though conflicting sometimes manage to address our common and practical societal needs always. This suggests that religion in continuum of its social responsibilities has taken a dive into new territories by adopting and deploying new technologies, it has negotiated for a space in the mediation of Nigeria's emerging social order. Apparently, this study examines the two leading religions in Nigeria, Christianity, and Islam and how these religions are using technology to reach its expanding audiences. This paper suggests that religion is only able to perform its task effectively today by depending among other things upon the mastery of practical components of technology as evangelical tools in mediating the new social order (administrative transparency, accountability in service, religious and cultural harmony in our societies).