Associations Online: Barriers for Using Web-Based Communication in Voluntary Associations

Despite the high adoption level of Facebook and other social network sites (SNSs) in Norway, local level voluntary associations have not embraced SNSs to the same degree. Regular websites are the main web representation, and information provision is the main function of the associations’ web representations. Using quantitative data on website content and organizational characteristics we have analyzed which factors hinder SNS adoption. The results point to size and complexity of associations and to age-based digital divides among members as important factors for having a profile on a SNS. It seems that a certain numerical point must be reached in terms of organizational and community size, for SNSs to be useful. Also, older members, smaller economy and a low degree of formalization in associations might hamper the implementation of SNSs in associations. Using Norway as a critical case, this article contributes new knowledge about web communication in voluntary organizations, an increasingly important field of research internationally.     

Political Organizations and their Online Communication

This paper raises the question of the possible impact of online communication on political organizations in a very fundamental way. It follows the assumption that it is necessary to first clarify the relationship between political organizations and their communication before researching the possible impacts of online communication. Therefore, this paper discusses decisions, communication, and intermediation as the essence of any political organization. It presents a heuristic framework that differentiates the interrelation of organizations and communication in five perspectives: organizations as constituted by communication, as communicators, as structures or spheres wherein communication takes place, as topics of communication, and as indicators of change in communication. Each perspective is rooted in organizational sociology and may be applied to questions of political organizations and their online communication. Therefore, the distinction of these perspectives enriches the debate and serves as a useful tool to sort the arguments and research questions.     

大学生网上交际行为的调查与原因探析

网络已经成为大学生学习和生活的重要组成部分,网上交际也越来越成为大学生人际交往的一种方式.我们对大学生网上交际状况进行了调查研究,并对大学生网上交际行为的原因进行了探析,最后就如何合理引导大学生的网上交际行为提出几点建议.     

From Sin to Sick: Digital Judaism and Pornography

This article explores how a Jewish religious website dedicated to solving pornography addiction negotiates religion/tradition and science/technological modernity. Further, the article discusses how medicalization of sexuality is used to resolve inherent tensions in the practice of digital usage. Medicalization language transforms the GuardYourEyes.com website from a forbidden medium for ultra-Orthodox members into a clinical space, a tool for healing. Furthermore, medicalization language allows religious digital prosumers to speak freely about sexuality. By framing sexuality as a “problem of truth” (Foucault, 1998), the ultra-Orthodox authors of GuardYourEyes.com can speak about sex, without being guilty of breaking the admonition that forbids speaking about sex. However, this open discussion serves as a tool to discipline and regulate sexual behavior, thus maintaining the accepted community norms, albeit in a way that is revolutionary for this community. Furthermore, by supporting religious language with medical language, religion and science blur in a way that could potentially undermine both.     

TALKING ABOUT SEX: Religion and Patterns of Parent–Child Communication about Sex and Contraception

Despite the association between religiousness and conservative sexual attitudes, links between religion and patterns of parent–child communication about sex and birth control are largely undocumented. This study examines these relationships using two nationally representative data sets of parents and adolescents. I evaluated a conceptual model of religious influence on the sexual socialization of adolescents. Results suggest that parental public religiosity curbs the frequency of conversations about sex and birth control, and after accounting for conversations about sexual morality, so does parental religious salience. Despite notable relationships with religious affiliation, age, race, and gender still shape parental communication patterns most consistently.     

Web-Based Education in the Human Services: Use of Web-Based Video Clips in Counselling Skills Training

SUMMARY

This use of web-based video clips for counsellor skills training is used in the Campus Alberta Applied Psychology Counselling Initiative which provides Master's-level counsellor education at a distance. The core counselling skills course is delivered through the Web using digital video clips of counselling skills demonstrations, chat room skills practice and weekly discussion forums. A follow-up face-to-face Summer Institute allows learners to receive live feedback on their skill development. Course content is grounded in the construct of the working alliance (Bordin, 1979). Course activities use Bloom's taxonomies of learning objectives. Program evaluation suggests that learners are meeting competencies as they move from this course to practicum placements.     

Religion and Migration around the Globe: Introducing the Global Religion and Migration Database

International migration is a global phenomenon involving nearly 215 million people, equivalent to 3% of the world’s population. Previous databases of global migration catalog international migration using a variety of variables (sex, education, age); however, religion is rarely addressed within these data sets. Representing nearly half a million data points, the Global Religion and Migration Database (GRMD) was constructed – the only global database estimating the global migrant population (stock) by origin, destination, and religious affiliation. This research note serves as an introduction to the GRMD, detailing the construction of the database and providing key findings from a global perspective.     

The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow: Judaism for the masses

In 2012, a new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center opened in Moscow – an event unthinkable during the Soviet regime. Financed at the level of $50 million, created by an international crew of academics and museum designers, and located in a landmark building, the museum immediately rose to a position of cultural prominence in the Russian museum scene. Using interactive technology and multimedia, the museum's core exhibition presents several centuries of complex local Jewish history, including the Second World War period. Naturally, the Holocaust is an important part of the story. Olga Gershenson's essay analyzes the museum's relationship to Holocaust history and memory in the post-Soviet context. She describes the museum's struggle to reconcile a Soviet understanding of the “Great Patriotic War” with a dominant Western narrative of the Holocaust, while also bringing the Holocaust in the Soviet Union to a broader audience via the museum. Through recorded testimonies, period documents, and film, the museum's display narrates the events of the Holocaust on Soviet soil. This is a significant revision of the Soviet-era discourse, which universalized and externalized the Holocaust. But this important revision is limited by the museum's choice to avoid the subject of local collaborators and bystanders. The museum shies away from the most pernicious aspect of the Holocaust history on Soviet soil, missing an opportunity to take historic responsibility and confront the difficult past.     

A Qualitative Study of Communication among Child Advocacy Multidisciplinary Team Members Using a Web-Based Case Tracking System

A qualitative study was conducted to gain information about communication among child advocacy multidisciplinary team (MDT) members when using a Web-based case tracking system. Analysis of the focus groups revealed a number of strengths and barriers. Users positively appraised aptness of the system for expediting communication and saving time. Lack of training and duplication of effort with other systems were recognized as impediments. In addition to the typical reactions to such systems, other factors, such as motivation and subjectivity, are discussed which may affect the success of such systems.     

Listening in Context: Religion and Spirituality

A review of the literature on listening as related to the contexts of religion and spirituality suggests that while religious/spiritual groups and individuals recognize listening as a communication and spiritual construct and claim to practice listening, the views of what constitutes listening vary greatly. In their discussions of listening, writers focus primarily on practicing listening and on aspects of the greater listening process rather than on a well-grounded understanding of how listening is related to religion and spirituality. Many of the reports of the role of listening are based on untested assumptions; thus, researchers are encouraged to investigate the role of listening in religion and spirituality with scientifically based methods.     

Politics and Religion in India: Minorities

This paper is addressing the minority issue in India. In the introduction we give a definition of minority, which is not asserted by a numerical criteria, but rather by the share of power and freedoms. We proceed giving an overlook of the largely diverse Indian state, which for its pluralistic composition has to face socioeconomic and religious challenges. Some legal guarantees are provided by the Constitution, although they are not fully respected in practice. Rejecting Indian secularism??s criticisms. Then we analyze the model of Indian secularism, consisting in the separation between State and religious, though taking into account the delicate balance of multiple social interests. The positivistic view of Bhargava suggests us that the Indian conception is better equipped at political and moral level to deal with deep religious diversity. The conclusion suggests that Indian democracy has a great potential, even with its cracks and odds still to be solved, and at least in absolute terms has much to teach to other proclaimed secular countries in the Western world.     

Suicide and Religion: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Previous work on the relationship between religion and suicide has focused on the simple bivariate relationship and has failed to address the problem of the possible convergence between Catholicism and Protestantism in the underlying determinant of suicide, the degree of social integration. The present study explores the relationship more systematically through a series of multiple regression analyses. The lack of any significant relationship between the proportion Catholic and measures of the suicide rate supports the convergence hypothesis. In contrast, two control variables taken from other prominent theories of suicide have considerable explanatory power. Tests of Durkheim's theory of marital integration and suicide all confirm a significant relationship but one of a parabolic form. Finally, the paradigm connecting the level of industrialization to suicide is confirmed, but preliminary analysis of social mobility rates and suicide indicate that this relationship is more of a function of cultural heterogeneity produced by the modernization process than of increasing mobility rates.     

Web-Based Support for Fundraising and Grantsmanship

A variety of organizational computing applications, such as information systems, currently assist human service professionals in making decisions. This paper concerns a class of computing applications, called expert systems, which have evolved from the field of artificial intelligence. Expert systems are computer programs which use interface schemes to apply generalized human expertise to the facts of a specific case. Expert system concepts, potentials and implications are presented along with the issues involved in their development and use. A simple expert system, written in BASIC, is included to illustrate the concepts. Expert systems offer great potential for assisting human service professionals in making complex decisions.     

Teaching Religion and Media: Syllabi and Pedagogy

This study explores the pedagogy of Religion and Media. The topic has garnered growing attention in recent years (Stout, 2012 Stout, D. (2012). Media and religion: Foundations of an emerging field. New York, NY: Routledge. [Google Scholar]) and the sheer array of classes is a testament to its status as a lively growing topic. This study takes a nonnormative, exploratory approach to uncover four key categorical approaches to how the topic of religion and media is taught in universities. The methodology included a textual analysis of 48 syllabi and interviews with professors who teach religion and media.     

Religion and Attainment

Abstract

Religion is an important determinant of social and economic attainment, but the mechanisms that underlie this relationship are not well understood. Early scholars recognized this connection, but their ideas do not adequately explain contemporary stratification patterns. Recent research documents robust empirical relationships between religion and material outcomes but has not yet begun to identify causes of these patterns. I fill this gap by providing a comprehensive, contemporary, theoretical explanation of the religion-inequality link that synthesizes ideas from early and more recent research. I draw on ideas from status attainment and life course research to develop a synthetic model that includes religion as both a background and a mediating component. I conclude by providing examples of implications of the model. These ideas improve understanding of the critical relationship between cultural orientation and material resources.     

Souls on Ice: Incorporating Emotion in Web-Based Education

SUMMARY

Emotions have been neglected in education and online education, in favor of a heavy emphasis on cognition and rationality. This article explores the significance of emotion in learning and how recent research is identifying some pathways and dynamics in the way emotions impact on learning and on web-based learning. Online learners have not been considered as “emotional beings” and web-based education has not addressed this dimension in any significant way. A constructivist, emotionally-oriented (CEO) model of web-based education is introduced which emphasizes safety, challenge, and new thinking, and offers several strategies to enhance the emotional experience of learners.     

Religion and Nation Building: The American Case

Abstract

Conceptualization of the American Revolution in terms of political development raises questions about changes in religion. Viewing nation-building as one component of the structural changes in modernization suggests a decline in the strength of religious institutions an a lessening of the importance of religious orientations in political change. Opposite expectations are put forward by commentators who stress a basic continuity in American religion and a significant impact of religion in the revolutionary movement. Evidence of the strength of organized religion indicated by influence in higher education, the occupations of college graduates, the number of religious congregations, and the growth of rational ideologies supports the conclusion of a. decline in religion during early nation-building in America. Also religion became more separate from political institutions and more differentiated internally. Modernizing structural transformations in colonial America's economy and social structure are suggested to account for the changes in religion accompanying nation-building.