Digital Methodologies in the Sociology of Religion

Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, at Coventry University, UK.Suha Shakkour is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Derby, UK.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsList of ContributorsIntroduction: Digital Methodologies in the Sociology of Religion, Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (Coventry University, UK) and Suha Shakkour (University of Derby, UK)Section I: Digitising Research in the Sociology of Religion1. Methodological Challenges, Innovations and Growing Pains in Digital Religion Research, Heidi A Campbell (Texas A&M University, USA) and Brian Altenhofen (Texas A&M University, USA)2. Surveying the Religious and the Non-Religious, Tristram Hooley (University of Derby, UK) and Paul Weller (University of Derby, UK)3. Online Crowdsourcing Methods for Identifying and Studying Religious Groups as Special Populations, Victoria A. Springer (University of Nevada, Reno), Peter J. Martini (University of Nevada, Reno) and James T. Richardson (University of Nevada, Reno)Section II: Social Networking Sites and Digital Ethnography4. Facebook as anti-social media: using Facebook groups to engage opponents to the building of Dudley mosque, Chris Allen (University of Birmingham, UK)5. Antagonism in religious discourse on YouTube, Stephen Pihlaja (Newman University, UK)6. Online Sufism – Methodological Thoughts on Researching Esoteric Islam in an Online context, Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (Coventry University, UK)7. Studying Digital Hinduism, Heinz Scheifinger (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, UK)8. Young Sikhs’ Religious Engagement Online, Jasjit Singh (University of Leeds, UK)Section III: Digital Communication9. Studying Apps: Research Approaches to the Digital Bible, Tim Hutchings (Durham University, UK)10. Videoconferencing as a tool facilitating feminist interviews with Muslim women who wear the niqab, Anna Piela (Leeds Trinity University, UK) 11. The Online Communication Model: A theoretical framework to analyse the Institutional Communication on the Internet, Daniel Arasa (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Italy) and Juan Narbona (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Italy)12. Researching religious authority and organization: Digital and social media communication opportunities and challenges, Pauline Hope Cheong (Arizona State University, USA), Boris H. J. M. Brummans (University of Montreal, Canada) & Jennie M. Hwang (University of Montreal, Canada)Section IV: Virtual Reality and Religion13. Online Ethnographic Research: Avatars in Virtual Worlds, William Sims Bainbridge (National Science Foundation, USA) 14. Researching Religion, Digital Games and Gamers. (E-)Merging Methodologies, Simone Heidbrink (University of Heidelberg, Germany), Tobias Knoll (University of Heidelberg, Germany), Jan Wysocki (University of Heidelberg, Germany)15. The G-d in the Machine: Studying the Representation and Performance of Judaism in PC Games using Multimodal Corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis, Isamar Carrillo Masso (Bangor University, UK)Afterword: Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (Coventry University, UK) and Suha Shakkour (University of Derby, UK)BibliographyIndex

A phenomenal example of the masterful interweaving of the sociological study of religion with the ever-transforming world of digital technology, which makes it a must read for those interested in those subjects that fall within or between these two categories.