Searching for salvation: An analysis of US religious searching on the World Wide Web

The goals of this research were to answer three questions. How predominant is religious searching online? How do people interact with Web search engines when searching for religious information? How effective are these interactions in locating relevant information? Specifically, referring to a US demographic, we analyzed five data sets from Web search engine, collected between 1997 and 2005, of over a million queries each in order to investigate religious searching on the Web. Results point to four key findings. First, there is no evidence of a decrease in religious Web-searching behaviors. Religious interest is a persistent topic of Web searching. Second, those seeking religious information on the Web are becoming slightly more interactive in their searching. Third, there is no evidence for a move away from mainstream religions toward non-mainstream religions since the majority of the search terms are associated with established religions. Fourth, our work does not support the hypothesis that traditional religious affiliation is associated with lower adoption of or sophistication with technology. These factors point to the Web as a potentially usefully communication medium for a variety of religious organizations. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evolutions of an Online Generation: Education, Industry and IMC

This paper traces the evolutions of a new generation of students who are predominantly the ‘online generation’; explores the emerging impact of this generation on industry; identifies the changing role of education from traditional classroom to an online environment; and explores the contribution related to integrated marketing communications (IMC). Educational requirements from a business perspective must incorporate global business demands; virtual learning environments progress the online generation towards a post-modern learning state. The central proposition of this paper is that the emergence of IMC in evolving industry practices is influenced by student generations who are producing a new paradigm of alignment between education and industry. This is purely a conceptual exploration using limited examples to provide some context and illustrate the questions raised for consideration.