Browsing by Author "Jolkkonen, Jari A."

This thesis is a qualitative study of religious events on the Internet, characteristics and experiences in five congregations. The main data collection method was the interview. The following Lutheran congregations were involved in the study: Helsinki Cathedral congregation (Agricola church) and congregations in Kangasala, in Lieto, in Varkaus and in Oulu. The rapid technological development of the Internet, especially the increase of the access speeds in the network, has made possible to transfer live video and audio over a network. Broadcasting of religious events through the network has been proven to be an inexpensive way to bring a service of church to be followed through the network. The systems for religious events were considered to be easy to use in the studied congregations. The image quality was rated to be good on average by the interviewees. The sound quality was evaluated up to be a very good in three churches by the interviewees. The study shows, that there are on average same number of people as followers through the network as number of persons in the church for worship. Taking into account also those people who follow the worship service afterwards via the network, the number of people is even larger than number of people present in the church during the service. Religious events in the church on holidays are followed through the network more than the usual Sunday worships. Especially popular have been the holiday music productions, such as Easter passions that have collected thousands of followers across the network. Based on the interviews, the network service is appreciated most favorable by the members of the congregation. Some of the priests were a little worried at the beginning, when the service is transmitted to the network, but they became accustomed to it very soon. The most common motive for the network transmission has been to bring the church where the people are. Webcasts have become an integral part of the weekend's media offerings in the studied congregations. Other motives to offer webcasts are to proclaim gospel in modern media. In the church of Agricola there is willingness to raise awareness of the spiritual artists for webcasts. Network broadcasts have influenced in a positive way to the image of the congregation. Many local newspapers were interested in the topic and have written articles in magazines. The network broadcasts of the religious events have not influenced descending to the number of visitors in the events in studied churches. In all the studied congregations there were built communal and ritual elements on the webcasts. Examples of ritual elements are e.g. possibility to send prayers, to participate in the offering, or to sing hymns and spiritual songs when the hymn numbers are shown, or the lyrics are displayed on the screen. There is also possibility to send prayers via webcast to the religious event. It is part of communal dimension when the congregation prays together for prayer requests sent to the religious event. The dimension of the community in prayers is linked to the fact that there should be a possibility to pray for the prayers, which is sent to the service. In three congregations there have been made trials for discussion possibilities during the network broadcast of service. Experience has shown that most functioning discussion platforms have been the platforms of social media (like Facebook) where the discussion is made by own names. By the time of this interview, the online discussions have not been very active.