Generational, public, and communicational shifts lead to refigurations of religious communities. Secularization in Western Europe and increased competition in religious markets put additional pressure on religious institutions. Furthermore, the Covid-19 pandemic has put strain on religious institutions. The Catholic Church as an institution in crisis has been an object of focus and is also at the center of Sacred Cyberspaces : Catholicism, New Media, and the Religious Experience.
Oren Golan and Michele Martini’s volume contributes to the field of digital religion, as the authors focus on understanding changes in the Catholic Church through the lens of webmasters. Golan and Martini draw from multiple theorical frameworks from digital religion to understand how the work of the emergent webmasters (identified by Golan and Martini as key players in this process) makes them agents of change and continuation using the example of the Catholic Church. The authors pose the following research question: “Does the emergence of various online platforms, not least mobile devices, constitute a game changer in terms of socio-religious activity, or does the internet merely reproduce existing structures, theologies, and modes of devotee interaction” (17)? Golan and Martini use an empirical approach to address their research question, so evaluating their book means looking at their research design as well as the arguments they form from their data.
The book lacks a unified methodology chapter, which leads to remarks on methodology popping up throughout. Golan and Martini conducted an ethnography of Roman Catholic institutions, including a “semiotic analysis of video and images circulated on social media” (12), especially on YouTube and Instagram, and forty extensive interviews with media support staff, webmasters, and other stakeholders, including prelates. The Catholic interviewees are primarily situated in the Holy Land and affiliated with the Canção Nova or the Franciscan Custodia Terrae Sanctae, as well as their cooperation project the Christina Media Center (CMC) (88). Additionally, they draw from two case studies of Jewish appmasters from the United States.
Analyzing empirical data, Golan and Martini develop a perspective on the emergence, professionalization, and practices of webmasters. In chapter 1, which provides a nethnography of the mediatization of Catholic communities and the Vatican online, the authors conclude that this digital shift has led to the emergence of webmasters as authorities in the Catholic Church. Chapter 2 elaborates on this further by developing a theory of the professionalization of the webmaster. Regarding its central function in the analysis of the rise of the webmaster, the chapter lacks a clear methodological foundation. The first problem is that the modalities are unclear. The second is that the reasoning behind the comparison between two Jewish appmasters and one Catholic cleric webmaster remains unexplained. This blurs the concept of the webmaster, even further, although some of the blurriness might connect to the ongoing professionalization of webmasters.
The analyzed Catholic webmaster is depicted as more dependent on religious authority and institutional affiliation, as the CMC operates under the guidance of, and in accordance with, the Vatican. According to Golan and Martini's typology, he is an institutional player, in contrast to what the authors call an entrepreneurial loner. Following their theorization of webmaster professionalization, Golan and Martini contend that religious webmasters incorporate two ethics backgrounds, one originating from internet culture and tech business, and the other from their respective community. The authors argue that by adhering to these two backgrounds, religious webmasters become actors of religious transformation.
In chapter 3, Golan and Martini further develop what it means for webmasters to have institutional affiliation. The CMC and its webmasters are contextualized regarding the historical media use of the Catholic Church. The authors explore the work of CMC webmasters, which relates to the core tenant of religious webmasters: proselytization through building online experiences of sites of pilgrimage. The webmasters function as mediators and educators facilitating online experiences of holy sites through online videos. The fourth chapter deploys a new media environment approach to understand how the practices of webmasters reenchant virtual spaces. The authors identify the following strategies scriptural legitimacy, experiential legitimacy, journalistic legitimacy, and ritual legitimacy. Webmasters apply these to promote holy sites as they connect their locales to Scripture using video and voice-over.
Chapters 4 and 5 present a somewhat limited interpretation of Walter Benjamin's concept of "aura," which is used to capture the inherent tension in livestreaming of holy sites. This necessitates the work of webmasters to translate the aura of the sacred into the cyberspace by invoking proximity to the sacred. In chapter 6 Golan and Martini try to tie their findings together. The livestreaming of holy sites aims to proselytize the youth, re-establish the affinity to the Holy Land, and facilitate a constant presence of the transcendental. They conclude that the webmasters obtain a secondary position in the Church hierarchy as mediators in this process. At the same time, they compete for this position with lower ranks of the ecclesiastic hierarchy. This is termed “dynamic conservativism”: CMC webmasters produce traditional content while reestablishing themselves as new authorities for its proliferation.
The seventh and final chapter is a visual analysis of the Instagram account of Pope Francis. Golan and Martini write that professionals construct a distant charismatic leadership that elevates the pope over other clerics and emphasizes his relation to the divine. They compose an image of a pope that can be experienced directly via Instagram and is shown interacting with believers.
In conclusion, Golan and Martini classify the digital strategy deployed by the Catholic Church as a fortification of the faith and the structure of the Catholic Church against social and media dynamics, as well as against the dynamics of the religious marketplace. The major shortcoming of Sacred Cyberspaces is that the key concept of the webmaster remains somewhat vague. Golan and Martini use the terms “appmasters” and “webmasters” interchangeably; they sometimes use “webmaster” as an umbrella term and sometimes as a descriptive term only attributed to some of their interviewees. Furthermore, while the authors differentiate webmasters and clerics in a figure on page 159, they build their theory of the profession of the webmaster by referring to Father Carlos, a Catholic cleric, as the only Catholic case. It would be necessary to further develop the relationship and interaction of webmasters with clerics and other actors, examining where they compete and where they complement.
A major contribution of this volume is that it shows how the Catholic Church translates its structure and geography to the cyberspace and how webmasters work to shape these media environments.
Gero Menzel is a research assistant at the Department of Roman Catholic Theology at Goethe University Frankfurt.
Gero Menzel
Date Of Review:
April 11, 2024
