Tomorrow we will be discussing our final case study which focuses on my own work on religion and the internet. The reading " Approaches to Religious Research in CMC" from Mediating Religion offers a preliminary report of my PhD research which culminated in a book called "Exploring Religious Community Online: We are one in the network". This provides insight into a 4 years study on how people use the internet to build Christian community online and the effect this participation has in the offline church involvement. For more info on the book check out this review. Hope you come prepared with some good questions!
This week we will be looking at Religion and Music, and specifically at how contemporary Muslim artists are using music to communicate ideas about religious community and identity. We will draw on this week's reading, "A New Research Agenda: Exploring Transglobal Hip Hop Umma" by H. SamyAlim, which explores how hip Hop is being used to bring cohesion across cultures to Muslims around the world. For more information on Contemporary Muslim check out Muslim Hip-Hop which provides profiles and music samples from Muslim artist around the world who see their faith as a prime motivation for creating their music.
In class we will be looking at several examples of popular contemporary Muslim music including SamiYusuf and the Danish Band Outlandish and the South African Band Iman and how they try to communicate issue of faith cross culturally through their music. Check out the following videos:
SamiYusuf, is a rising star of contemporary Arabic Nasheed (traditional) music. His song Hasbi Rabbi is sung in English, Hindi, Turkish & Arabic and the video takes him to different parts of the world to engage with the Muslim Umma (community) in those places.
Outlandish, a Muslim Danish Trio mixes hip hop, folk, soul and pop to create music focusing on themes of racism, social justice and religion. as seen in their video " I Only Ask of God"
In order to fully contextualize these events it is important to see how the SBC's relationship to the mass media. The SBC has long been active in issuing a number of resolutions "defined as an expression of opinion or concern, as compared to a motion, which calls for action" related to the mass media. These include resolutions related to Television Programming (1982), TV Morality (1992) and Youth and Violence in the Media (1999). They have also been active in trying to create their own sources of news and information such as the Baptist Press, an Online news service from the SBC offering "news with a Christian perspective". What do these actions and positions tell us about how the SBC sees the secular media?
Interesting insights can also be gained about how the SBC view its relationship to the secular press by reading ABP editor admits spinning news during SBC (2001). What does this article tell us about SBC policy or justification for their views about the media?
In this week's case study we look at a particular part of the Jewish community and their response to one media technology. Ultra Orthodox Jews represent about 13% of Israel's total population of about 4.5 million and have significant communities in many other parts of the world including London & NYC. With the rise of many new media technologies it is a community that is constantly in conflict with the "tools of modernity" and having to make tough choices about what media forms they will and won't accept. You have been asked to read an article on the Ultra Orthodox and their response to TV. For a hint of larger tension between the Ultra Orthodox , modernity and the media also look at articles from the Guardian Online: The ultra-Orthodox Jews on a mission to save Jerusalem from secularism or this article from the Jewish News Week: Secular media continue to scapegoat the Orthodox. So what do these article argue about Ultra-Orthodox engagement with the media?
Before you say the Ultra Orthodox only condemn/reject the media...take a look at this exception "Israel's Tele-Rabbi" where one sephardic rabbi is using TV & the web as a tool for evangelising wayward Jews. What does this tell us UltraOrthodox views of media? Is TV acceptable or unacceptlable, and why?
On Thursday we will be discussing Zimmerman-Umble's article on the Amish and the Telephone. Related to this you should check out what Howard Rheingold learned about the Amish & their interaction with the cell phone in "Look Who's Talking" published in Wired. Also take a look at Time magazine's article and Textually.org on the same topic. Based on these articles, How does the Amish response to the cell phone differ or resonate with Zimmerman's article on the Amish and the Telephone?
