@book {286,
	title = {Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture: Perspectives, Practices, Futures},
	year = {2012},
	publisher = {Peter Lang},
	organization = {Peter Lang},
	address = {New York},
	keywords = {Authority, avatars, community, history, identity, internet, online church, social media, theology, theory of religion online},
	url = {http://www.paulinehopecheong.com},
	author = {Pauline Hope Cheong and Fischer-Nielsen, Peter and Gelfgren, Stefan and Ess, Charles}
}
@article {279,
	title = {Cultivating online and offline pathways to enlightenment: Religious authority in wired Buddhist organizations},
	journal = {Information, Communication \& Society},
	volume = {14},
	year = {2011},
	pages = {1160-1180},
	abstract = {In light of expanding epistemic resources online, the mediatization of religion poses questions about the possible changes, decline and reconstruction of clergy authority. Distinct from virtual Buddhism or cybersangha research which relies primarily on online observational data, this paper examines Buddhist clergy communication within the context of established religious organizations with an integrationist perspective on interpersonal communication and new and old media connections. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Buddhist leaders in Singapore, this paper illustrates ways in which priests are expanding their communicative competency, which we label {\textquotedblleft}strategic arbitration{\textquotedblright} to maintain their authority by restructuring multimodal representations and communicative influence. This study expands upon previous research by Cheong, Huang \& Poon (in press) and finds that constituting Buddhist religious epistemic authority in wired organizational contexts rests on coordinating online-offline communicative acts. Such concatenative coordination involves normalizing the aforementioned modality of authority through interpersonal acts that positively influences epistemic dependence. Communicative acts that privilege face-to-face mentoring and corporeal rituals are optimized in the presence of monks within perceived sacred spaces in temple grounds, thereby enabling clergy to perform ultimate arbitration. However, Buddhist leaders also increase bargaining power when heightened web presence and branding practices are enacted. The paper concludes with limitations and recommendations for future research in religious authority. },
	keywords = {Authority, community, internet, religion, theory of religion online},
	doi = {10.1080/1369118X.2011.579139},
	url = {http://www.paulinehopecheong.com},
	author = {Pauline Hope Cheong and Huang, Shirlena and Poon, Jessie}
}
@inbook {284,
	title = {Religion 2.0? Relational and hybridizing pathways in religion, social media and culture},
	booktitle = {Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture: Perspectives, Practices, Futures},
	year = {2012},
	pages = {1-24},
	publisher = {Peter Lang},
	organization = {Peter Lang},
	chapter = {Religion 2.0? Relational and hybridizing pathways in religion, social media and culture.},
	address = {New York},
	keywords = {Authority, community, identity, internet, religion, social media},
	url = {http://www.paulinehopecheong.com},
	author = {Pauline Hope Cheong and Ess, Charles}
}
@article {282,
	title = {The Internet Highway and Religious Communities: Mapping and Contesting Spaces in Religion-Online},
	journal = {The Information Society},
	volume = {25},
	year = {2009},
	pages = {291-302},
	abstract = {We examine {\textquoteleft}religion-online{\textquoteright}, an underrepresented area of research in new media, communication, and geography, with a multi-level study of the online representation and (re)-presentation of Protestant Christian organizations in Singapore, which has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the world and also believers affiliated with all the major world religions. We first critically discuss and empirically examine how online technologies are employed for religious community building in novel and diverse ways. Then we investigate the role religious leaders play through their mental representations of the spatial practices and scales through which their religious communities are imagined and practiced online. We show how churches use the multimodality of the Internet to assemble multiple forms of visible data and maps to extend geographic sensibilities of sacred space and create new social practices of communication.},
	keywords = {Authority, community, geography, internet, theory of religion online},
	doi = {10.1080/01972240903212466},
	url = {http://www.paulinehopecheong.com},
	author = {Pauline Hope Cheong and Huang, Shirlena and Poon, Jessie and Casas, Irene}
}
@article {281,
	title = {Religious Communication and Epistemic Authority of Leaders in Wired Faith Organizations.},
	journal = {Journal of Applied Communication Research},
	volume = {39},
	year = {2011},
	pages = {452-454},
	abstract = {The mediation of communication has raised questions of authority shifts in key social institutions. This article examines how traditional sources of epistemic power that govern social relations in religious authority are being amplified or delegitimized by Internet use, drawing from in-depth interviews with protestant pastors in Singapore. Competition from Internet access is found to delocalize epistemic authority to some extent; however, it also reembeds authority by allowing pastors to acquire new competencies as strategic arbiters of religious expertise and knowledge. Our study indicates that although religious leaders are confronted with proletarianization, deprofessionalization, and potential delegitimization as epistemic threats, there is also an enhancement of epistemic warrant as they adopt mediated communication practices that include the social networks of their congregation.},
	keywords = {Authority, internet},
	doi = {10.1080/00909882.2011.577085},
	url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01579.x/abstract},
	author = {Pauline Hope Cheong}
}
@article {1302,
	title = {Transnational immanence: the autopoietic co-constitution of a Chinese spiritual organization through mediated communication},
	journal = {Information, Communication \& Society},
	volume = {Online},
	year = {2013},
	abstract = {Information and communication technologies are often cited as one major source, if not the causal vector, for the rising intensity of transnational practices. Yet, extant literature has not examined critically how digital media appropriation affects the constitution of transnational organizations, particularly Chinese spiritual ones. To address the lack of theoretically grounded, empirical research on this question, this study investigates how the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation (Tzu Chi), one of the largest Taiwan-based civil and spiritual nonprofit organizations among the Chinese diaspora, is co-constituted by various social actors as an operationally closed system through their mediated communication. Based on an innovative theoretical framework that combines Maturana and Varela{\textquoteright}s notion of {\textquoteleft}autopoiesis{\textquoteright} with Cooren{\textquoteright}s ideas of {\textquoteleft}incarnation{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}presentification{\textquoteright}, we provide a rich analysis of Tzu Chi{\textquoteright}s co-constitution through organizational leaders{\textquoteright} appropriation of digital and social media, as well as through mediated interactions between Tzu Chi{\textquoteright}s internal and external stakeholders. In so doing, our research expands upon the catalogue of common economic and relational behaviors by overseas Chinese, advances our understanding of Chinese spiritual organizing, and reveals the contingent role of digital and social media in engendering transnational spiritual ties to accomplish global humanitarian work.},
	keywords = {Asia, Authority, autopoiesis, Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, communicative constitution of organizations, information and communication technologies, nonprofit, social media, Taiwan, transnationalism},
	url = {http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2013.833277$\#$.Ulm51VCsim5},
	author = {Pauline Hope Cheong and Jennie M. Hwang and Boris H.J.M. Brummansb}
}
@article {280,
	title = {Religious Communication and Epistemic Authority of Leaders in Wired Faith Organizations},
	journal = {Journal of Communication},
	volume = {61},
	year = {2011},
	pages = {938-958},
	abstract = {The mediation of communication has raised questions of authority shifts in key social institutions. This paper examines how traditional sources of epistemic power that govern social relations in religious authority are being amplified or delegitimized by Internet use, drawing from in-depth interviews with protestant pastors in Singapore. Competition from Internet access is found to delocalize epistemic authority to some extent; however, it also re-embeds authority by allowing pastors to acquire new competencies as strategic arbiters of religious expertise and knowledge. Our study indicates that while religious leaders are confronted with proletarianization, deprofessionalization and potential de-legitimization as epistemic threats, there is also an enhancement of epistemic warrant as they adopt mediated communication practices that include the social networks of their congregation. },
	keywords = {Authority, internet, theory of religion online},
	doi = {10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01579.x},
	url = {http://www.paulinehopecheong.com},
	author = {Pauline Hope Cheong and Huang, Shirlena and Poon, Jessie}
}
