80.4 FRIEND ME: DEVELOPMENT AND IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Author(s):  
Tracy Asamoah
Author(s):  
Santos Felipe Ramos

This chapter draws from a 6-month participant-observation with an Occupy Wall Street group in Richmond, Virginia—Occupy Richmond—to deliver an ethnography of public discourse in postcolonial, queer, and multimedia contexts, as part of a critical analysis of imperialism in the digital age. The author develops techno-seduction as a term to deconstruct the lure of technological determinism that promotes static interpretations of democracy, participation, and the digital, in addition to considering how these interpretations impact intrapersonal and group identity formation. Finally, the chapter asks that we suspend our conception of the digital/non-digital dichotomy by thinking of the digital as dead, as a force that guides and influences our sociopolitical interactions, rather than as an isolated concept wholly separable from the non-digital.


Author(s):  
Jessica Johnson

This chapter argues that the accelerated ascendency of megachurch celebrity pastors is best examined and understood in terms of marketing strategy and commodification processes specific to a digital age in which social media and interactive technologies are impacting the identity formation of Christians and non-Christians alike. It demonstrates how relationships between celebrity pastors and their congregants are mediated by cultural and technological shifts as church branding has become integral to evangelical purpose. It compares two campaigns to market books by celebrity pastors—Mark Driscoll's Real Marriage (2012) and Judah Smith's Jesus Is (2013). It considers how pastors have managed to gain celebrity and inspire congregational growth in what is considered one of the least churched cities in the United States—Seattle.


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 492
Author(s):  
David I. Tafler

For First Nations people living in the central desert of Australia, the performance of oral storytelling drawing in the sand drives new agency in the cultural metamorphosis of communication practices accelerated by the proliferation of portable digital devices. Drawing on the ground sustains the proxemic and kinesthetic aspects of performative storytelling as a sign gesture system. When rendering this drawing supra-language, the people negotiate and ride the ontological divide symbolized by traditional elders in First Nations communities and digital engineers who program and code. In particular, storytelling’s chronemic encounter offsets the estrangement of the recorded event and maintains every participants’ ability to shape identity and navigate space-time relationships. Drawing storytelling demonstrates a concomitant capacity to mediate changes in tradition and spiritual systems. While the digital portals of the global arena remain open and luring, the force enabled by the chiasmic entwinement of speech, gesture and sand continues to map the frontier of First Nations identity formation and reformation.


Author(s):  
Jannatul Akmam ◽  
Nafisa Huq

With the marking of the digital age, all forms of digital technologies become a part of the existence of human life, thereby, an extension of self. The ever-increasing influence of the virtual world or Internet cultures demands to read its complex relationship with human existence in a digital world. Theory of psychoanalysis, specifically object-relation theory can be called forth to analyze this multifaceted relationship. Within the light of this theory, Internet cultures are acting as “objects” like games, memes, chat rooms, social net etc. and the virtual world can be interpreted as the “object world”. The chapter is interested in reading the deep psychoanalytic experience of people (with a special focus on the youth) in reference to their relationship with the virtual arena. The experience can be associated with religion, spirituality, perception of beauty, sexuality, Identity formation and so on. Their behavior and responses to the virtual world will be framed within the psychoanalytic paradigm in the light of “object relation theory” in a digital age.


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chantal Ferreira ◽  
Hannelie Yates ◽  
Alfred R. Brunsdon

Digital technologies have become an integrated part of everyday life, and this development has not left relationships untouched. A need exists for theological reflection on the interaction between the dynamic contexts of the digital age and Christian marital relationships. The relational implications of the digital age are quite vast; therefore the focus of the article will be limited to online identity formation as a particular challenge of the digital age. Employing the method of a literature study within the scientific field of practical theology, this article explores the interplay between online identity formation and Christian marriage. It suggests that online identity formation exists around a reciprocal interaction with two prominent qualities of Christian marriages: The expansion of the self and one-ness. When considering the interplay between online identity formation and Christian marriage, awareness can be created regarding the marital implications of spouses’ online engagements, which may enhance contextual pastoral care with a relational focus within the digital age.Contribution: The article contributes to practical theological reflection on challenges posed to Christian marriages by the digital age. It is aimed at stimulating pastoral thinking regarding online identity formation and its adverse effects on so-called one-ness in Christian marriages that can enhance pastoral care with a view on the flourishing of couples in the digital age.


Author(s):  
Jannatul Akmam ◽  
Nafisa Huq

With the marking of the digital age, all forms of digital technologies become a part of the existence of human life, thereby, an extension of self. The ever-increasing influence of the virtual world or Internet cultures demands to read its complex relationship with human existence in a digital world. Theory of psychoanalysis, specifically object-relation theory can be called forth to analyze this multifaceted relationship. Within the light of this theory, Internet cultures are acting as “objects” like games, memes, chat rooms, social net etc. and the virtual world can be interpreted as the “object world”. The chapter is interested in reading the deep psychoanalytic experience of people (with a special focus on the youth) in reference to their relationship with the virtual arena. The experience can be associated with religion, spirituality, perception of beauty, sexuality, Identity formation and so on. Their behavior and responses to the virtual world will be framed within the psychoanalytic paradigm in the light of “object relation theory” in a digital age.


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