Religious Orthodoxy and New Media Technologies

福特汉姆大学的阿亚拉·法德尔将调查新媒体技术对极端正统宗教社区内的怀疑和抗议活动的影响。该项目分析了布鲁克林一个极端正统派犹太人社区的做法，他们私下质疑《律法》是否是上帝的话，但仍留在他们严格的宗教社区内。与此同时，这些极端正统派个人在网上匿名批评他们的社区，并在线上和线下秘密探索世俗世界。在过去的十年里，社区权威人士越来越多地将这场冲突归咎于互联网，称目前的情况是一场“信仰危机”，甚至声称互联网对犹太人的延续可能比大屠杀更危险。Fader将从三个角度进行研究：试图加强信仰的社区领导层；秘密使用多种语言(意第绪语、英语和英式英语)的数字媒体的极端正统派个人；以及父母一方离开宗教社区的民事儿童监护权案件。数据收集将借鉴文化和语言人类学的方法，包括在线材料、在人种学访谈中录制的录音、参与者观察和与社区顾问的转录。该项目有助于研究数字时代极端正统宗教社区内的冲突和变化。关注的焦点是那些对非自由主义宗教信仰失去信心，但同时又拒绝世俗主义的人的后果。在一个宗教日益两极分化的世界里，该项目询问了一个案例研究，它模糊了信仰与怀疑、道德与不道德、世俗与宗教之间的界限。该项目旨在引发学院与公众之间关于当代宗教、道德和数字媒体的对话。传播和教学影响将包括学生培训、会议介绍、出版物和对当地社区团体的介绍。

Ayala Fader of Fordham University will investigate the impact of new media technologies on skepticism and protest within ultra-Orthodox religious communities. The project analyzes the practices of a community of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn who privately question whether the Torah is the word of God, yet remain within their stringently religious communities. At the same time, these ultra-Orthodox individuals anonymously critique their communities online and secretly explore the secular world online and offline. Over the past decade, communal authority figures have increasingly blamed the Internet for this conflict, calling the current moment a "crisis of emune (faith)" and even claiming that the Internet may prove more dangerous to Jewish continuity than the Holocaust. Fader will conduct research from three perspectives: that of communal leadership who try to strengthen faith; ultra-Orthodox individuals who secretly use digital media in multiple languages (Yiddish, English and Yinglish); and in civil child custody cases when one parent has left his/her religious community. Data collection will draw on methodologies from cultural and linguistic anthropology and include online materials, audio-recordings made in ethnographic interviews, participant observation and transcription with community consultants. The project contributes to research on conflict and change within ultra-Orthodox religious communities in the digital age. The focus is the consequences for those who lose faith in a nonliberal religious belief, yet simultaneously reject secularism. In a world increasingly polarized by religion, the project interrogates a case study, which blurs the boundaries between belief and doubt, morality and immorality, the secular and the religious.The project aims to provoke conversations between the academy and the public about contemporary religion, morality and digital media. Dissemination and pedagogical impact will include student training, conference presentations, publications and presentations to local community groups.