by Sylvie Shaw
When I went shopping a few days ago, the assistant asked me if I'd had a good day. 'Yes', I replied. 'I was working'. 'What do you do?', he asked. When I told him, he wanted to chat some more. He acknowledged how interesting it must be to teach about so many religions and asked how I found it. Then he almost whispered. 'I'm a, you know, Muslim'.
He told me how often he gets criticised and his religion vilified - but mentioned this did not happen where he worked, only outside.
So I thought, what's the difference between this shop assistant and his appearance and someone like Charlie Pickering on The Project? Not very much. How could people tell?
When the British religion theorist Grace Davie was at UQ in 2012, she mentioned that one of the most palpable social problems in the UK and Europe, i.e. religious vilification and misunderstanding, is related to the lack of the community's religion literacy or religious knowledge. At a time when knowing about someone else's religion is important, especially to break down barriers and build bridges and interfaith relations, there seems less and less relevant information about the religion of the other, and an increasingly narrow media construction of religion and religious practitioners.
With this in mind, I wondered if social media could help break down the
dysfunctional stereotyping and promote religious understanding and even
religion literacy. Already, religion sites, especially Christian sites, are the most popular on Fb (Ward 2011).
An article on ReligionLink (2013) titled 'God and Facebook: Is social networking changing religion?' states that social media has a role to play in continuing 'to influence the way people communicate and practice religion'.
Practising religion has become an online phenomenon. An American Rabbi, Laura Baum (2010) describes her experience in running an online congregation:
'Using computers and mobile devices, people connect to us (their rabbis), each other, and Judaism year-round....They may listen to our podcasts or read a blog and then engage in
conversation with others around the world on Facebook. They may
participate in our Passover seder, which is set up as a webinar so that
people can read sections of the Passover story aloud.
Last Passover, someone from Paris read one page, someone from New
York the next, and people from 32 states and 10 other countries sang
Passover songs together across continents.
There’s a persistent myth that community is something that only
happens in person, that relationships and memberships must be defined in
geographic terms. The reality is that relationships built and
maintained online, using tools like Facebook, Twitter and Skype, are
increasingly common and can even be stronger than physical connections'.
Building social and spiritual communities online has become a significant feature of religious websites as Baum relates. But there is also a parallel growth of hate sites and online hate communities, especially those espousing bigotry and xenophobia towards religion and religious adherents. The intention of hate sites is to aim 'bias-motivated, hostile, [and] malicious speech' to others, with the intention of injuring, dehumanizing, harassing intimidating and victimizing people constructed as other (Cohen-Almagor 2012:1).
Rachel Cohen-Almagor has conducted an extensive search of online hate sites and carried out interviews with internet practitioners. She frames her paper in terms of the norms of social responsibility held in society, where each person acts in a way that does not disturb social equanimity or 'harm the community' (2).
She singles out a range of hate speech against non-white immigrants, African-Americans, homosexuals and lesbians, Jews, and Muslims, showing that the hate speech protagonists see the internet as a cheap and effective way of getting their grisly message out, including about religion. Cohen-Almagor states:
'Many of the hate sites on the web are very religious in nature. Religion is
depicted as the rock around which life should be organized, providing the answer
(indeed, the only answer) for all people’s questions; suggesting that we have little
choice in making decisions, as everything has already been decided for us by God.
They encourage people to be absolutely committed to their faith and trust in the
Almighty to guide their way' (6).
Her advice in countering the hate, based on her research study, is to first - rejoinder with speech of a positive kind, but also, to surround the countering communication with education. For example, she cites the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission in Australia which launched a 'Click Against Hate' campaign for Jewish schools to identify and
respond to online anti-Semitism. She also mentions a number of community groups who use online solidarity to rally against the purveyors of hate, including discriminatory online social media sites. Another solution she poses is to filter and block nasty sites, and to seek help from ISPs to name and shame these sites.
Cohen-Almagor's recommendation on the role of education is important. She says:
'Education is vital in enshrining the values of liberty,
tolerance, pluralism, and diversity in the minds of people. Education should alert
and raise awareness to Internet hate and its harms and perils, accentuating that
hate speech has led to hate crimes; indeed, to some of the most ghastly, dark days
of humanity. The fight against hate is hard and complex. Law alone will not
suffice.'
From hate sites, to anti-hate social mediated communities, from online congregations to online religion chat and even religion-specific dating sites, the internet is playing a role in shaping the way religion is discussed, debated, promulgated and practised.
Questions:
How much influence do you think that social media has in relation to religious organisations?
Do you think that participating in online services is as relevant as being there in person?
Do you think that participating in online services is as relevant as being there in person?
What role do you see social media having in promoting religious diversity and religion literacy?
What suggestions do you have to counter hate sites and religious vilification?
References
- Baum L. 2010. My faith: why I lead an online synagogue. CNN Belief Blog, Oct 4, 2010. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/04/my-faith-why-i-lead-an-online-synagogue
- Cohen-Almagor R. 2012. Fighting hate and bigotry on the internet. Policy & Internet 3(3): 1-26.
- ReligionLink. 2013. God and Facebook: Is social networking changing religion? http://www.religionlink.com/tip_110125.php
- Ward B. 2011. Religious pages keep engaging Facebook users, http://allfacebook.com/religious-pages-keep-engaging-facebook-users_b57975
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