Interactivity and New Media: Why is Jesus Here?

The purpose of this study is to examine why new media and interactive media fit into Christian culture.  The main goal of this research is to discover the motives behind using new and interactive media in lay ministries, the church and missions efforts.  In examining the motives for the use of new and interactive media, research will be done to discover if the new media is consumed in Christian communities because the audience seeks it out, or if new media is recommended to Christian communities in hopes that their perceptions of the world will be altered or the information presented will be internalized without question.

Following the completion of said research, I hope to have gathered enough information to formulate a theory concerning the reason why new media is used in Christian culture.  As the overall goal of this research is to discover why new media is used, the research will be completed in qualitative form.

I intend to use a variety of sources for my research including scholarly research already completed on the topic, interviews with ministers and Christian media professionals and a survey questioning Christians’ motivations to use new media.

In an effort to analyze previously conducted research in a new way, I intend to use the sources I find when completing my literature review and developing questions from the ideas presented in these sources and presenting said questions to current professionals in the Christian media industry and Christians in general.  Furthermore, I intend on presenting the findings from past research to those participating in interviews and surveys in an effort to see if the participants agree with past findings.  This way both media professionals and media consumers’ can comment on the scholarly research on the topic and provide their own thoughts, thus furthering the research already completed on the topic.

Furthermore, I intend to question Christian Media professionals and consumers about interactivity and Christianity.  I hope to discover why consumers seek out this type of media, and what consumers use said media for.  Hopefully, I will discover which parts of Christian communities embrace interactivity and why they feel this media is appropriate for them. I want to learn what Christian Media professionals plan to do with interactive media in the future, and how they feel their plans will be received.

Such a study has the potential to form a theory concerning the motivations behind the use of new and interactive media in Christian culture. Such a theory could say a lot concerning the opinions of Christians and the methods they choose to employ in their effort to spread their beliefs.

Tags: research proposal