| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 傳播研究所 === 96 === Religion has influenced the development of technology in history. With the media improving, religions used the mass media to help them speak up. After people invent the WWW, computer mediated communication became a new channel for religions to perform themselves in a new way. The first use of computer in religion beliefs was in 1980’s, and in 1990’s many scholars in the field of CMC has made effort in researching the cyber-faith or so-called online religion.
However, in Taiwan, these kinds of researches are few. Therefore, this research was from the viewpoint of Taiwan Christianity with the in-depth interviews of 15 interviewees, try to find out how the characteristics of CMC influence the Christian online religion in Taiwan, and how the online religion plays the role in the users’ experiences and makes the effects on the users’ religion and their lives. This research shows that users take online religion websites as a complementary in their religious lives, such as spiritual tools and religious social support. Those online religion users do not give up their original spiritual pursuits like going to churches.
In addition, the characteristics of CMC have made large influences on the original Christianity culture, such as the disorder of religion hierarchy, to rethink the importance of social network in Christianity, and the possibility of the cyber-church. Moreover, the technology of web 2.0 will perhaps arouse a big issue on online religion in the future because the users will not be only user but also a provider online religion.As a result, this research discovered the initial period of Taiwan Christianity online religion, and it is a preliminary study. In the future, it is helpful for other researchers or churches in Taiwan to pay attention on the aspect of online religion research and development.
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