Advancing Online Community: The Internet, Artificial Intelligence, and Religion

• In Event: Scholar to Scholar V

Abstract

Is there an impact on a religious community’s structure, the greater surrounding community, and/or the individual members when a community traditionally associated with a physical environment (i.e. church, synagogue, mosque, etc.) and trained leader(s) suddenly become remediated online and a computer program becomes the new source of leadership? This paper explores the answer to this question (and very real possibility) through a series of interviews, suggesting broader implications to the results obtained.

Author

• Christin Phelps, North Carolina State University