Cultured Technology: The Internet and Religious Fundamentalism

Abstract

In this article we identify four principal dimensions of religious fundamentalism as they interact with the Internet: hierarchy, patriarchy, discipline, and seclusion. We also develop the concept of cultured technology, and analyze the ways communities reshape a technology and make it a part of their culture, while at the same time changing their customary ways of life and unwritten laws to adapt to it. Later, we give examples for our theoretical framework through an empirical examination of ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel. Our empirical study is based on a data set of 686,192 users and 60,346 virtual communities. The results show the complexity of interactions between religious fundamentalism and the Internet, and invite further discussions of cultured technology as a means to understand how the Internet has been culturally constructed, modified, and adapted to the needs of fundamentalist communities and how they in turn have been affected by it.

Keywords:

• control and censorship
• cultured technology
• cyberspace
• digital divide
• discipline
• hierarchy
• localization
• online interactions
• patriarchy
• religious fundamentalism
• social capital
• virtual communities

We thank Shlomi Unger, cofounder of the virtual community enabler Hevre, who gave us access, in good faith, to the data set and who helped immensely throughout our research. Also, special thanks are due to Tal Harosh from Hevre, who worked hard to provide us with the data. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and also to Michael Birnhack, Phillip Ein-Dor, Seev Neumann, and Lorne L. Dawson for wise, valuable comments on earlier drafts and for their help.

Notes

¹ Localization means adapting a technology product or service (including its software, documentation and related material) to a specific culture. This also includes making sure that graphics, colors, sound effects, terms, and relevant items such as dates, calendars, measurement units, monetary notations, and legal procedures are in the correct format as per the context and are culturally appropriate.

²For example, forbidden material may be accessed through remote proxies and anonymous remailers. Also, blocking and filtering mechanisms have their own technological deficiencies and may be bypassed by savvy users.

³“Glocalization is described as the growth of social capital, locally and with ties at a distance, as a result of computer-mediated communication” (Hampton, 2001, p. 6; for the general term see Robertson, 1995).

⁴For example: Women and Religion, http://gaelnet.stmarys-ca.edu/study/religion/women.html, accessed 1 November 2003.

⁵SisterSite, http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/1114/, accessed 1 November 2003.

⁶Women's Spiritualities, http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/mys/womens.htm, accessed 1 November 2003.

⁷RAWA, http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/, accessed 15 January, 2004.

⁸Women and Judaism, http://www.earlham.edu/%7Elibr/acrlwss/wsstheo.html#judaism, accessed 15 January 2004.

⁹Tanzeem-e-Islami's, http://www.tanzeem.org.pk, accessed 15 January 2004.

¹⁰Khutbah Online, http://dar-us-salam.com/khutba, accessed 15 January 2004.

¹¹Al-Muhajiroun, http://www.almuhajiroun.com, accessed 15 January 2004.

¹²In 2001 only 28 million Americans were reported using the Internet for religious purposes (Larsen, 2001).

¹³Hizbollah, http://www.hizbollah.org/, accessed 15 January 2004.

¹⁴Islamic Resistance Support Association, www.moqawama.org, accessed 15 January 2004.

¹⁵Almanar, www.almanar.com.lb, accessed 15 January 2004.

¹⁶Classmates.com, www.classmates.com, accessed 27 October 2003.

¹⁷Users were classified according to address, occupation, and affiliation in an identified community.

¹⁸Data on the general population were taken from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 2003.

¹⁹MANOF, http://www.manof.org.il/, accessed 15 January 2004. ZOMET, http://www.moreshet.co.il/zomet/, accessed 15 January 2004. Chabad, http://www.ksol.org, accessed 15 January 2004. and Hageoula, http://www.hageula.com/?CTopic=16, accessed 15 January 2004.

²⁰Between Army and Yeshiva, http://www.geocities.com/tzava/ accessed 15 January 2004.

²¹The Voice of the Orthodox Women, http://www.geocities.com/orthodox_women_2000/openinghebrew.html, accessed 15 January 2004.

²²See note 20.

²³See note 22.

²⁴See: Content Regulation, issue no. 139–16 January 2000, http://www.qlinks.net/quicklinks/content6.htm, accessed 15 January 2004.

²⁵Ultra-Orthodox online members interact with each other in various online communities. Members can file a complaint against other members in the very same virtual community. Complaints are checked by the virtual community enabler, and if found justified, the accused member is removed and he/she cannot access this virtual community anymore.

²⁶A popular forum enabler platform in Israel is called Hydepark. Hydepark contains several forums of ultra-Orthodox. See: http://www.hydepark.co.il, accessed 15 January 2004.

²⁷Mizrachi Jews are immigrants from Middle-East countries and North African Muslim countries who immigrated to Israel, mainly in the 1950s.