Online religious learning: digital epistemic authority and self-socialization in religious communities

ABSTRACT

Over the past two decades, the internet has become a central platform affording lay-learners access to a multiplicity of experts. While these outlets empower lay-learners, they create competition amongst clerical and knowledge authorities. This article addresses the question: how is religious authority understood and negotiated by learners, and in turn, how do they evaluate authoritative sources. Twenty-six in-depth think-aloud interviews were conducted with Religious-Zionists in Israel on their internet sourcing practices. Findings uncovered four strategies employed when sourcing information online: (1) Generating a reliable source network based on the learners’ social and primordial affiliations. (2) Complexity based sourcing practices stemming from learners’ uncertainty in their ability to autonomously attain a satisfying answer. (3) Fitting an appropriate source to queries based on their availability and prestige. (4) Negotiating learner's autonomy in a particular field of knowledge based on the social or epistemic norms that govern it.

KEYWORDS:

• Epistemic authority
• digital religion
• online learning
• Epistemic autonomy

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback. In addition, deep gratitude is offered to Professor Ayelet Baram-Tsabari for her continued guidance and support of this research project. Finally, the authors wish to express their appreciation to Aref Badarne for his careful editorial contribution and astute comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See Knesset report on RZ education (2012) https://fs.knesset.gov.il/globaldocs/MMM/15556b58-e9f7-e411-80c8-00155d010977/2_15556b58-e9f7-e411-80c8-00155d010977_11_6959.pdf.