Religious organisations on the internet in Finland – a comparative study
Fredrik BäckThe paper "Religious organizations on the internet in Finland - a comparative study" is based on the fact that the use of internet in order to reach out to new segments of the religious population is continuously growing as the technology makes construction of cheap new channels of communication possible. The study has examined the manner in which finnish religious organizations approach the internet as medium for communication by analysis of the websites of twenty different groups and tries to formulate a typology based on the perceived attitude towards and approach to the internet as channel of religious communication. Focus of analysis consists of two main parts: firstly the construction and content of the different websites and secondly the level of establishment in the finnish society. The main research question of the study is formulated as such; To what extent do the religious websites of different groups in Finland differ and can these differences be related to the level of establishment in society of said groups? The work is based on the notion that the level of content and construction of a website for a religious group is related to how well established said group is in finnish society. The preliminary findings of the study indicate that there is indeed a link between level of establishment in society and level of content and construction of religious websites, where the more established organizations are also in the possession of more advanced websites with a higher degree of content.