Author Description

While the churches are emptying, other virtual religious places – as the religious websites – seem to be filling up. The researcher focusing on religion and Internet must seek answers to a number of questions aligned with the media itself. This volume presents different case studies relating to both the great historical religions – Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam – and the new religions emerging online. The articles examine a diversity of the geographical areas, religions and forms of online religious practice. Other topics concern how the digital age transforms religious practises, religious innovations and how previously marginalized religious movements gain visibility. By scrutinising the digital religion of our present decade, this volume provides empirical, theoretical and methodological contributions to the field. The purpose of the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion (ARSR) is to investigate the role of religion in the contemporary world. The ARSR employs an interdisciplinary and comparative approach at an international level, to describe and interpret the complexity of religious phenomena within different geopolitical situations, highlighting similarities and discontinuities. Dealing with a single theme in each volume, the ARSR intends to tackle the relationship between the practices and the dynamics of everyday life and the different religions and spiritualities, within the framework of the post-secular society.