Religious Internet Communication. Facts, Trends and Experiences in the Catholic Church.

School of Church Communications Pontifical University of the Holy Cross

Daniel Arasa Lorenzo Cantoni

Lucio Adrián Ruiz (Eds.)

RELigious intERnEt CommuniCAtion

Facts, Experiences and trends in the Catholic Church

EDusC

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tABLE oF ContEnts

Preface Heidi Campbell ........................................................................................9

PARt i. Framework

Chapter 1: internet and Catholic Church: A map and a Research Agenda Lorenzo Cantoni ....................................................................................15

1. goals of the Book ...........................................................................152. A map ............................................................................................17

2.1. Contents and Services .................................................................202.2. Accessibility Tools (Online Channel and Hyper-Media Codes) ......212.3. People Who Manage ...................................................................252.4. Users/Clients .............................................................................31

2.4.1. The Case of Web 2.0 ...........................................................342.4.2. Online Communities .........................................................35

2.5. The Context / Relevant Info-Communication Market ..................362.6. The Case for Usability ................................................................41

PARt ii. in-Depth studies

Chapter 2: Diocesan Websites. What Can We Learn From the Largest Dioceses? Daniel Arasa ...........................................................................................45

1. Diocesan Websites as tools for institutional Communications .....451.1. Church’s Institutional Communications .......................................461.2. Why Does a Diocese Need a Website? ...........................................481.3. The WCM Applied to Diocesan Websites ......................................51

2. Contents and services (WCM’s Pillar i) ......................................... 523. technological instruments (WCM’s Pillar ii) .................................664. managers (WCM’s Pillar iii) ..........................................................71

4.1. Activities and Roles ....................................................................71

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4.2. Challenges .................................................................................765. Visitors (WCM’s Pillar iV) ............................................................. 81

5.1. Users .........................................................................................815.2. Target Users ..............................................................................82

6. Conclusions ....................................................................................83

Chapter 3: online Church Communications. Lessons from Journalists Daniel Arasa ...........................................................................................87

1. Journalists as target Audiences of Church online Communications ............................................................................871.1. Diocesan Websites’ Approach to Media Professionals .....................881.2. Journalists’ Approach to Diocesan Websites ...................................89

2. Journalists’ Perspective on Current Diocesan Websites ..................912.1. On Content and Services ............................................................912.2. On Technical Instruments ..........................................................96

3. Journalists and media Relations Activities Through Diocesan Websites ..........................................................................973.1. Journalists’ Perspective on Press Resources ....................................993.2. Journalists’ Perspective on Webmasters’ Media Attitude .............. 101

4. Dealing with Journalists (for Church online Practitioners) ......... 106

Chapter 4: internet Communication in Religious institutions slawomir Zyga ..................................................................................... 113

1. The World studied: Where and How the Data Were gathered .. 1142. Cyberspace and the monastic World ............................................ 116

2.1. Inside or Outside the Internet: Degree of Internet Adoption and Use (IAU) ............................................................. 117

2.2. Inside the Internet (How, Where and Why?): Reflections on the Kind of Use ...................................................................... 122

2.3. Inside the Internet (Animation Process): Management and Development .............................................................................. 125

3. invalidation of misconceptions ..................................................... 1284. Conclusions and Future Perspectives ............................................ 131

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PARt iii. Cases

A. Ecclesiastical organizations ....................................................... 137A.1. The Holy see

A.1.1. The Vatican (Judith Zoebelein) ............................................ 139A.1.2. Congregation for the Clergy (Lucio A. Ruiz) ......................... 145A.1.3. RIIAL – Information Network of the Church in Latin

America (Leticia soberón) ......................................................... 154A.2. Bishops’ Conferences

A.2.1. CEI - Italian Bishops’ Conference (Domenico Pompili) ........ 161A.2.2. CELAM – Latin American Episcopal Conference

(David gutiérrez) ..................................................................... 167A.3. Dioceses and Prelatures

A.3.1. Archdiocese of Madrid (Juan Pedro ortuño) ......................... 174A.3.2. Prelature of Opus Dei (Juan narbona) .................................. 178

A.4. Congregations and movementsA.4.1. Congregation of Missionaries of St. Charles – Scalabrinians

(slawomir Zyga) ....................................................................... 188A.4.2. Communion and Liberation (stefania Ragusa) ..................... 196

B. media ................................................................................................. 201B.1. Vatican Radio (Federico Lombardi and Pietro Cocco) ............... 203B.2. EWTN - Eternal Word Television Network (Jeff Burson

and michelle Johnson) .................................................................. 209B.3. The Southern Cross - Newspaper (michail Rassool) ...................... 214B.4. Zenit - News Agency (Jesús Colina) ............................................. 220B.5. Our Sunday Visitor - Publishing Company (greg Erlandson) ....... 226B.6. Catholic.net - Internet Portal (Lucrecia Rego de Planas) ............. 232

Concluding Remarks Daniel Arasa, Lorenzo Cantoni and Lucio A. Ruiz ............................. 239

References............................................................................................. 243

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PREFACE

Arguably the Catholic Church was the first religious institution to fully utilize and develop official policy regarding the internet for members of its community. this is because of the Church’s tradition of looking forward at the potential of new technologies to impact re-ligious culture and larger society and their willingness to use them for their purposes. indeed this is seen in the late Pope John Paul ii’s 1990 World Communication Day message which urged the Church to em-brace the opportunities offered by computers and telecommunication technology to fulfill its mission. As he stated:

in the new “computer culture” the Church can more readily inform the world of her beliefs and explain the reasons for her stance on any given issue or event. she can hear more clearly the voice of public opinion, and enter into a continuous discus-sion with the world around her, thus involving herself more immediately in the common search for solutions to humanity’s many pressing problems.

the result of this affirmation was an official sanctioning and sup-port of the internet by the Catholic Church in order to serve its pur-poses. this was realized in 1995 when the Vatican became one of the first religious institutions to launch its own web site to further its global mission. As sister Judith Zoebelein, a webmaster for the web site com-mented, “our community is oriented towards evangelizing, if you will, in different ways, and out the message of the dignity of the person in the tools of today” (sister Judith Zoebelein, god, the Vatican and the

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internet, 10 may 2007, http://theodicy.blogspot.com/2007/05/god-vatican-and-internet.html).

over the past two decades the Catholic Church has continued to expand its utilization of the internet to spread its message in a variety of online outlets. many of these unique Catholic uses and online ap-proaches are outlined in detail in this book. Herein lies this book’s strength and major contribution to the current study of religion and the internet. it offers readers and researchers a comprehensive overview of Catholic usages of internet communication. the authors provide a solid review of the creativity and motivations of Church innovators who have utilized different facets of network technologies to extend the Church’s work and solidify its internal communications.

this is done through highlighting the Church’s recent history and breadth of online engagement via diocesan web sites, journalis-tic strategies for Church online communication, use within monastic communities and numerous case studies of internet appropriation in a range of ecclesiastical organizations and Catholic media. the result is one of the most thorough documentation to date of a single’s religious institutions use of the internet for its chosen purposes. the authors present a broad corpus of data and suggest some potential theoretical patterns for their interpretation. through this they invite the readers to look with a critical eye at their research and draw their own conclu-sions as to the potential implications these forms of usage have for the Church and for the larger study of religion online. the book also offers other researchers of religion and the internet access interesting material on Catholic use of the internet for their own analysis. thus the book present a rich resource for future studies exploring how a dis-tinctive religious community engages with the internet, and may aid in the identification of common patterns of internet appropriation or networking strategies used within different religious organizations.

it is also important to note that this book emerges amidst recent Catholic scholarship and ecclesiological reflection calling for more detailed investigation of the potential impact of the internet on the Catholic Church and society at large. Catholic theologians and schol-ars have looked seriously at potential impact of the Church’s continued mixing of traditional messages and rituals with new technologies. For instance, Zukowski and Babin in The Gospel in Cyberspace: Nurturing

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Faith in the Internet Age (2002) analyze how contemporary media cul-ture is shaping Church discussions of evangelism and religious educa-tion and the theological implications of these trajectories for traditional practice. Catholic online developments have also led to reflection on impact the internet on Church and society at the larger institutional level. the Pontifical Council for social Communications has issued a number of statements that point towards the Church’s concern about how media technologies may encourage or inhibit issues of social in-equity, intercultural dialogue and freedoms of expression (“Ethics in internet”, 2002). Also “the Church and the internet” (2002), charge Catholics to “use the internet well”, as “tool for accomplishing use-ful work” and for “the international common good” further stressing the Catholic social justice tradition that believes media should be em-ployed to benefit humanity. By considering these conversations in light of the data presented in this book, researchers and readers are offered a reservoir of possible sources for further exploring Catholic ethical and theological concerns. the book sets the stage for a detailed case study of how one particular religious community’s philosophy of communi-cation may directly shapes their new media usage.

to this end i believe Religious Internet Communication, Facts, ex-periences and trends in the Catholic Church provides valuable data and resources for exploring in greater depth Catholic communities and organizations use of internet technology for its communication and ministries.

Heidi Campbell Assistant Professor of Communication

texas A&m university

PARt i

Framework

Part i is composed by Chapter 1, Internet and Catholic Church: A Map and a Research Agenda, which serves as an intro-duction for the book. the author, Lorenzo Cantoni, clarifies the goals of the book and the theoretical framework of research surrounding the different studies and cases. Departing from the communication model of Roman Jakobson, a research map is established and a guidance for further research is determined.

Chapter 1 also presents a complete explanation of the Web-site Communication model (WCm), which is the instrument at the basis of this study for the analysis of website and online religious communication.

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CHAPtER 1

intERnEt AnD tHE CAtHoLiC CHuRCH: A mAP AnD A REsEARCH AgEnDA

Lorenzo Cantoni

in this introductory chapter, an overview of Christian Catholic online communication is offered, encompassing both communication activities and research on them. After a brief caveat (par. 1) about the book itself – what it wants to be, and what it is not –, a map of the researched domain is sketched along the Jakobsonian communication model paralleled by the Website Communication model (WCm – par. 2). the map represents the online communication of the Catholic Church taking five different – although highly interrelated – perspec-tives: those (i) of contents and services being provided; (ii) of technolo-gies being used and the online medium itself; (iii) of people sending messages; (iv) of people accessing/receiving/using those messages; and (v) of the wide context in which these communication activities take place or, in other words, the relevant info-market. A special ad hoc section is devoted to the issue of usability. in each section, links are put toward the other sections of this volume, showing how relevant dimensions of analysis are dealt with by each of them.

1. goals of the Book

As it will be shown in detail in the following paragraphs and chap-ters, online religious communication – and Christian communication in particular – has given birth to a large number of publications, be they conference papers, magazine and journal articles, white papers,

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etc. nonetheless, many times the research approach has been mixed with a more practical oriented goal, in order to offer practitioners in the field both theoretical frameworks and practical guidelines.

in April 2002, a mit Communication Forum was devoted to Religion and the internet, stressing that “Religious Web sites have received little academic attention” (mit Communications Forum 2002). Although several studies have been devoted to that subject since then, there is still a need – this is the editors’ belief – for more research, clearly aimed at scientifically studying and interpreting the concerned field. moreover, it seems important to bridge the space between general academic research, and research conducted in con-fessional contexts: while it is obvious that scientific research has to meet the same general methodological requirements and standards, researchers in the first group should further include religious online communication among their research scope – in fact, as it will be extensively shown in this book, its size and importance cannot be overestimated –, while researchers in the second group should gather more quantitative data, and better distinguish between different levels of discourse (describing, interpreting, giving suggestions and guide-lines, prescribing). this bridging should promote a more intense and fruitful dialogue among researchers, which will be beneficial both to better understand and interpret online religious communication, as well as to better design it.

the above distinction does not imply any naive division between non-believing researchers and believing ones: academic research has been done and is being done by people belonging to every religion and confession as well as by non-believers; but sometimes people tend to think that non-believers are more entitled to do research in this area. massimo introvigne (2007) reports – in a review of the book Discovering God, by Rodney stark (2007) – an interesting “par-able” said to him by stark. think of a world in which people who fear flying, who never flew and who believe that people who use aircrafts are crazy, themselves do write books on flight and aircrafts. Wouldn’t it be strange? in the field of sociology of religion we witness some-thing similar...

in this context and with the above mentioned goals in mind, the book you have in hands wants to offer a quite comprehensive view

Chapter 1. internet and the Catholic Church: A map and a Research Agenda

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of the usages of internet communication in the Catholic Church1; to do so, it presents original research in the field as well as a number of cases encompassing various application areas. it is targeted, first of all, at the academic community, which studies communication, institutional communication, religious communication, and online media. A second type of readers, are professionals in communication offices of Church institutions and other religious bodies, who want to gather a more extensive background on the field. Beside what this book wants to be, it is important to stress also what it is not: neither a practical book, moving from description to prescription, nor a recipe book, where to find prêt-a-porter solutions and communication tem-plates.

2. A map

this is a book on communication. one of the most influential communication models – the one proposed by Roman Jakobson (Ja-kobson 1990) – can help us better organize our research map, and pro-vide guidance for further research/explorations. Jakobson organizes the communication space into six different elements and functions, as it is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The six factors of the speech event (Jakobson 1990, 73)

ContEstADREssER mEssAgE ADDREssEE

ContACtCoDE

Jakobson’s model has been adapted for online communication into the Website Communication model (Cantoni & tardini 2006; Cantoni & tardini 2008). Designed – as the name spells it – to in-

1 to avoid redundancies, from now on, the term ”Church” without any further specification will refer to the Roman Catholic Church.

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terpret website communication, it can be easily adopted to map online communication in general. to introduce the WCm,

A metaphor can help (Cantoni & Piccini 2003; Bolchini et al. 2004). Let us think of a coffee shop: what is it? it is an ensemble of:1. eatable or usable objects such as food, beverages or games;

and 2. plates, glasses, tables and chairs, the kitchen and its tools,

the premises, a game table, a tV set, etc. All these objects allow the previously listed objects to be made or enjoyed.

However, the coffee shop is not real, ‘alive,’ without:3. a community of people who manage it, cook the food, serve

the tables, etc.; and4. a community of people who frequent it to eat, drink, play,

stay with friends, etc.these four dimensions, two of them (1 and 2) related to things and two (3 and 4) related to people, are also present in website communication.A website, moving from this metaphor, can be conceived as being a cluster of:1. contents and services, like voting, buying, selling, reserving,

polling, interacting, chatting, customizing, etc.;2. accessibility tools, i.e. technical tools that make available those

contents and services;3. people who manage; and4. users/clients.

one more aspect is to be taken into consideration to complete the framework. Let us come back for a moment to our coffee shop: every element cannot be considered only in itself and by itself, but gets its meaning and its value only in a given con-text, in its ‘semiosphere’ (Lotman 2001). Every sign has to be defined not only for what it is, but also for what it is not, ac-quiring a specific value only in a given ecological context; the fact that a coffee shop is the first one selling Italian food (or in the city centre, the most visited, the only one with live music, etc.)


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does depend both on its nature and on the world it belongs to, where other competitors are working as well. As it happens for stock quotes, the exact value of each single item is due also to a complex market/social negotiation (Cantoni & tardini 2006, 99-100).

Figure 2. The WCM (Cantoni & Tardini 2006, 100)

P R O J E C T

E V A L U A T I O N

P R O J E C T

E V A L U A T I O N

P R O J E C T

E V A L U A T I O N

P R O J E C T

E V A L U A T I O N

Figure 2 represents the WCm and its distinctive elements. in Ja-kobsonian terms, pillar 1 represents the message itself (in fact, more than that, it includes all other kind of possible interactions), pillar 2 is close to both channel and code, while pillars 3 and 4 represent the sender and the addressee; the “fifth element” corresponds to the Jako-bsonian context, although it is much wider.

in the following sections, the five WCm elements will be pre-sented, showing how they can help organize and promoting research on the concerned subject. At the same time, references will be made to the following book chapters and cases, showing how they do fit within

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the map itself and how they can help in sketching a consistent picture of the same subject.

2.1. Contents and Services

in this paragraph, the issue of contents and services will be pre-sented from three distinct points of view: (a) that of an overall typol-ogy; (b) that of similar aspects online Church communications share with other online communication fields; and (c) that of content analy-sis and “literary genres”.

First of all, let us consider a general typology of religious online communication. According to oliver Krüger (2004), it can have four main functions:

[a] the first function is the presentation of religious institu-tions, groups, and doctrines (on respective homepages just as on newsletters). [b] the second is interactive communication on religious themes (through chatrooms, guest books, FAQs, dis-cussion forums and discussion lists). [c] the third function is the offering of religious services (free or against payment), such as pastoral care, horoscope predictions, or the offering of ritu-als online, while [d] the last is simply commercial: the advertise-ment and sale of books, music compact disks, ritual items, etc. All these functions may appear on one website, but in most cases, there is one dominant aspect (Krüger 2004, 186).

A second viewpoint can analyze aspects of online religious com-munication that bear many similarities to different research and appli-cation areas, be they, for instance, those of egovernment, eLearning, etourism, and so on. in fact, just to keep the abovementioned exam-ples, Church communication activities encompass all of them: think of “legal” relationships ruled by the canonical law (e.g., requesting a certificate of Baptism or marriage); or of the many distance education experiences being run by Catholic and Pontifical universities as well as by religious orders (according to Peters 2002, st. Paul’s letters were the first important case of distance learning); or think of the usage of iCt in advertising and managing pilgrimages and great events: while sanctuaries attract each year millions of people (just to mention a few


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of them: guadalupe in south America; santiago, Lourdes, Fatima, Czestochowa, Loreto in Europe; the Holy Land in the middle East), big international events promote among the greatest free movements of people on the planet, like the Holy Year 2000 or the World Youth Days; global events which could be hardly conceived without the pres-ence of iCt to communicate and manage them.

third, content analyses can be performed, to map kinds of con-tents being offered by or being produced through interactions in online services. there is a significant need for a map of what could it mean to be – for instance – the website of a diocese, or of a religious order, of a local Catholic radio, a sanctuary, etc. in fact, new “literary genres” are growing, shaping users’ expectations and being shaped at the same time by them. such an inquiry should combine, then, not only the analysis of what is offered, the “supply side” so to call it, but also the actual demand for it (and/or for something more/else), which has to be measured through a deep analysis of actual usages – which contents are users accessing? What services are they actually using? – as well as through an analysis of requirements and expectations of the relevant stakeholders.

two chapters in this book are directly concerned with the afore-mentioned issues: one (chapter two) is devoted to map contents and services offered by some of the biggest dioceses in the world, while the other chapter (chapter three) studies expectations and requirements of journalists when it comes to institutional communication of the Church. All cases in the second part of the book offer a brief outline of the contents/services offered by their respective institutions, and could provide a useful starting point for subsequent extensive explorations of specific clusters of online communications.

2.2. Accessibility Tools (Online Channel and Hyper-Media Codes)

in this paragraph, the channel/medium itself is investigated from two main perspectives: (a) the connection between media (research) and the Church, with a special attention to the case of the second Ec-umenical Vatican Council; (b) the characteristics of so-called media-morphosis are then presented and discussed against the case of Church online communication.

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Christian religion is deeply involved in communication due to its very nature (Arasa 2008; Cantoni 2008), and it is not by chance that writing and the movable-characters press have found such an impor-tant role and growing context in it. the history of communication media can then be studied also in relationship with the Church itself (it is worth mentioning that, for instance, mcLuhan has devoted sig-nificant studies to it [mcLuhan 2002; gronowski 2003], and ong, a Jesuit himself, is considered among the fathers of studies on socio-cognitive contexts bound to the available “technologies of the word” [ong 2002]). in fact, according to Clifford, while Christian scholars have extensively explored the interconnections between communica-tion technologies, culture and religion – he cites m. mcLuhan (1911-1980), J. Ellul (1912-1994), W. ong (1913-2003) and i. illich (1926-2002) – “Jewish and muslim scholars have not concentrated on media technologies per se” (Clifford 2006, 422).

many studies have explored online religious communication pointing out the impact that the new electronic medium can have onto the religious experience itself (mayer 2008; udeani et al. 2008; Camp-bell 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007; Hadden & Cowan 2006; swanson 2004; Hoover & schofield Clark 2002; Christians 2002, just to men-tion some of them). in this area, a special attention should be paid to intermediation, dis-intermediation and re-intermediation processes; the case of the second Ecumenical Vatican Council (1962-1965) is – in this respect – highly interesting (introvigne 2008, 100-103; Amato 2006 and 2007). it was, in fact, the first Council after the gutember-gian era. Council fathers were collaboratively editing written docu-ments, to be later on read by interested people and presented with authority at different levels by members of the Catholic hierarchy – as it used to happen until the previous Council. But at the same time, and during the celebration itself of the Council, mass media were antici-pating discussions, decisions, opinions, etc., becoming themselves part of the debate. those pieces of information have deeply shaped the fu-ture understanding and interpretation of the Council; the final official documents have been – in a certain sense – deprived of their role: when they were issued and published, many addressees were convinced that they already knew their content, because they had followed the mass media debate. For the first time in history, information agencies not fully equipped to understand, interpret and transmit Church teach-


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ings – and sometimes biased by strong prejudices against the Catholic Church (Jenkins 2003) – were mediating those contents not only to an external audience, but also to Catholics themselves, both laypeople and priests.

Digital media are now reopening the game: on the one side, they offer great opportunities for disintermediation: the Catholic faithful – be it a bishop, a priest or a simple layperson – can get an immediate and direct access to official documents and statements, being able to judge by themselves if mass media coverage is adequate or somehow biased; on the other side, old players can play a fairest play, due to a wider and easier access to first-hand materials; moreover, new in-termediating players are starting to play an active role in the game: mailing lists, portals, online press agencies, personal blogs and so on, all of them are struggling to get attention in a context of information overload (Eppler 2006).

As for other areas, “mediamorphosis” (Fidler 1997) presents anal-ogous characteristics, which have been proposed by Fidler as follows:

1. Coevolution and coexistence. [...]2. Metamorphosis: new media do not arise spontaneously and

independently – they emerge gradually from the metamor-phosis of older media. When newer forms emerge, the older forms tend to adapt and continue to evolve rather than die.

3. Propagation: Emerging forms of communication media propagate dominant traits from earlier forms. [...]

4. Survival: All forms of communication media, as well as me-dia enterprises, are compelled to adapt and evolve for sur-vival in a changing environment. their only other option is to die.

5. Opportunity and need. [...]6. Delayed adoption: new media technologies always take lon-

ger than expected to become commercial successes. they tend to require at least one human generation (20–30 years) to progress from proof of concept to widespread adoption (Fidler 1997, 29).

in the following lines let us go through each one of them showing how they can be found in the concerned field of Church online com-

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munication; here, in fact, the issue is not about the media technologies themselves, but about their diffusion and adoption in a given informa-tion and communication market.

1. Coevolution and coexistence. “All forms of communication are [...] tightly woven into the fabric of human communication system and cannot exist independently from one another in our culture. As each new form emerges and develops, it influences, over time and to varying degrees, the development of every other existing form. Coevolution and coexistence, rather than sequential evolution and replacement, have been the norm since the first organisms made their debut on the planet” (Fidler 1997, 23-24). As it is clearly shown by all cases pre-sented in this book about Catholic media, they have not discontinued previous publishing forms, rather, they have adopted new technologies to support them (e.g., digital production in a radio or in a publishing company) and to extend their reach and enlarge their features. Audio and video media, for instance, are getting a new persistency through their websites and podcasting services.

2. Metamorphosis and 3. Propagation are also present in cases, showing significant efforts to find the right and win-win equilibrium among different communication media, as well as to meet changing user requirements and “media diets”.

4. Survival. All surveyed organizations are showing a significant commitment to adopt – at different extents – iCt and to implement them in their media offer.

5. Opportunity and need. Changing expectations on the audience side are calling for new and different media offers, and a favorable context is offering relevant chances to enter the new media world. in particular, the chapter on internet communication in religious institu-tions (chapter four) shows clearly that adoption of iCt is closely con-nected with real needs to better accomplish one institution’s specific goals, and not – as it could be supposed – with age of its members or other subjective factors.

6. Delayed adoption. While we perceive a significant acceleration in the media market, in many cases, in fact, different stages coexist, and the effective usage of certain channels/services is far from reaching its maximum possible reach. Data about actual usages, as we will see later on, are of the utmost importance to measure this aspect.


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2.3. People Who Manage

in this paragraph, two relevant areas are covered: (a) the view of the Church itself about online communication, and (b) the character-istics an innovation should have (in our case, new media) to get higher chances of adoption and acceptance in relationship with the Church.

not only scholars have studied and are studying these issues – let us say, from an ‘external’ point of view – but also inside religious com-munities the issue of dealing with iCt and the internet has been and is being debated, adopting – to say so – an ‘internal’ approach (Hipps 2005; Careaga 1999 and 2001). in the Christian Catholic Church many authors have debated if and how to use iCt and the internet, asking how the religious mission could be supported (or hindered) by new technologies (Arasa 2008; Carroggio & La Porte 2002; stenico 2001, just to mention a few of them).

A further step in this direction has been taken by the Church her-self, whose Pontifical Council for social Communications published a document titled Church and the Internet (PCsC 2002) and a second one titled Ethics in Internet (PCsC 2002a). in both documents a clear invitation toward a use – a sound one – of iCt and the internet has been done and repeated. While a detailed presentation of this ‘internal’ approach is clearly beyond the scope of this chapter, a few quotations will help to understand the kind of commitment – or internal sponsor-ing – online communication is enjoying inside the Church, as well as the caveats stressed by the same documents.

At the very beginning of Church and the Internet, the document states a positive approach to new media and the internet:

the Church’s interest in the internet is a particular expression of her longstanding interest in the media of social communica-tion. seeing the media as an outcome of the historical scientific process by which humankind “advances further and further in the discovery of the resources and values contained in the whole of creation”, […] the Church often has declared her convic-tion that they are, in the words of the second Vatican Council, “marvellous technical inventions” […] that already do much to meet human needs and may yet do even more.

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thus the Church has taken a fundamentally positive approach to the media. […] Even when condemning serious abuses, documents of this Pontifical Council for social Communica-tions have been at pains to make it clear that “a merely censori-ous attitude on the part of the Church... is neither sufficient nor appropriate” (PCsC 2002, n. 1).

When discussing opportunities and challenges of the internet, the document spells:

the internet is relevant to many activities and programs of the Church – evangelization, including both re-evangelization and new evangelization and the traditional missionary work ad gentes, catechesis and other kinds of education, news and information, apologetics, governance and administration, and some forms of pastoral counseling and spiritual direction. Al-though the virtual reality of cyberspace cannot substitute for real interpersonal community, the incarnational reality of the sacraments and the liturgy, or the immediate and direct proc-lamation of the gospel, it can complement them, attract people to a fuller experience of the life of faith, and enrich the reli-gious lives of users. it also provides the Church with a means for communicating with particular groups – young people and young adults, the elderly and home-bound, persons living in remote areas, the members of other religious bodies – who oth-erwise may be difficult to reach (PCsC 2002, n. 5).

this document stresses also the issues of internal communication and media education (PCsC 2002, n. 6 and n. 7).

When it comes to challenges and problematic aspects, the docu-ment lists “the presence of hate sites devoted to defaming and attack-ing religious and ethnic groups” (PCsC 2002, n. 8), pornography and violence. it adds also the fact that “it is confusing, to say the least, not to distinguish eccentric doctrinal interpretations, idiosyncratic de-votional practices, and ideological advocacy bearing a ‘Catholic’ label from the authentic positions of the Church” (PCsC 2002, n. 8). sug-gested areas of research concern:


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the suggestion that the wide range of choices regarding con-sumer products and services available on the internet may have a spillover effect in regard to religion and encourage a ‘con-sumer’ approach to matters of faith. Data suggest that some visitors to religious web sites may be on a sort of shopping spree, picking and choosing elements of customized religious packages to suit their personal tastes. […]similarly […] the virtual reality of cyberspace has some worri-some implications for religion as well as for other areas of life. Virtual reality is no substitute for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the sacramental reality of the other sacraments, and shared worship in a flesh-and-blood human community. there are no sacraments on the internet; and even the religious experiences possible there by the grace of god are insufficient apart from real-world interaction with other persons of faith. Here is another aspect of the internet that calls for study and reflection. At the same time, pastoral planning should consider how to lead people from cyberspace to true community and how, through teaching and catechesis, the internet might sub-sequently be used to sustain and enrich them in their Christian commitment (PCsC 2002, n. 9).

Ethics in Internet (PCsC 2002a) lists the following areas of con-cern about the internet: digital divide (PCsC 2002a, n. 10); cultural dimensions – “Cultural domination is an especially serious problem when a dominant culture carries false values inimical to the true good of individuals and groups” (PCsC 2002a, n. 11); freedom of expres-sion; journalism, which is in danger of becoming more liable to ideo-logical and commercial pressures (PCsC 2002a, n. 13); libertarianism (PCsC 2002a, n. 14).

Communication through iCt and the internet has been discussed and presented also in documents and discourses by recent popes. For instance, John Paul ii devoted a message for the world communica-tions day to Internet: A New Forum for Proclaiming the Gospel (John Paul ii, 2002), in which he claimed that “the Church approaches this new medium with realism and confidence. Like other communications media, it is a means, not an end in itself. the internet can offer mag-

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nificent opportunities for evangelization if used with competence and a clear awareness of its strengths and weaknesses” (John Paul ii, 2002).

Benedict XVi (2009), seven years later, has devoted again to on-line communication his message for the world communications day, titled New Technologies, New Relationships. Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship, in which discusses advantages and shortcomings of social media and the so-called web 2.0. in the mes-sage, he writes: “reflecting on the significance of the new technologies, it is important to focus not just on their undoubted capacity to foster contact between people, but on the quality of the content that is put into circulation using these means. i would encourage all people of good will who are active in the emerging environment of digital com-munication to commit themselves to promoting a culture of respect, dialogue and friendship” (Benedict XVi, 2009).

in march 2009, Benedict XVi, in a letter concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbish-op Lefebvre, noted: “i have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. i have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy see we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news.” (Benedict XVi, 2009a), putting the information role of the internet among the “lessons learned” by the Holy see.

the interest toward communication – and online communica-tion – within the Catholic Church is also proved by the many chairs and courses offered in Pontifical and other Catholic universities on the subject.

A new information and communication environment – in which different media do reorganize their reciprocal role and place through a dynamic ecological equilibrium – requires developing specific com-petences. Different stakeholders, ranging from bishops to communi-cation professionals, up to common laypeople, need to integrate new technologies in their own media diet as well as in their smorgasbord or palette of opportunities.

Due to a significant push from the hierarchy itself – shown by the official documents issued on the topic – and to a wide interest arising from many Church members, it seems that a diffused awareness of the importance of the subject has been already reached. the issue of adop-


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tion and acceptance belongs to this layer as well as to the following one, involving both senders and receivers, who have to decide whether or not to use online communication, how and up to which extent. While this issue can be dealt with by different approaches (succi & Cantoni 2008), in the following lines the main characteristics an innovation should have in order to be adopted are introduced, following the proposal by Rogers (1995, 15-17) as integrated by Fidler (1997, 13-17).

1. Relative advantage: the innovation must be perceived as bet-ter than the idea it supersedes. the advantage may be mea-sured not only in economic terms, but also in terms of social prestige, convenience and satisfaction

2. Compatibility: the innovation must be perceived as consis-tent with the values, norms, past experiences and needs of the adopters’ community […].

3. Complexity: the innovation must be perceived as easy to un-derstand and use. the more it is perceived as difficult, the less rapidly the innovation will spread. obviously, this pa-rameter cannot be univocally defined and measured, being relative to the contexts where technologies are introduced.

4. Trialability: the possibility of trying out and experimenting with the innovation before adopting it helps in reducing un-certainties.

5. Observability: the results of the innovation must be visible; this actually helps in exchanging information and stimulat-ing discussions about it.

6. Reliability: the innovation must be perceived as reliable.7. Familiarity: is the degree to which an innovation is perceived

as familiarly linked to earlier or existing technologies, avoid-ing sudden breaks with the past. it is the case, for instance, of photography, which was initially perceived as a more effi-cient means of producing portraits and landscape art; mobile phones are strictly linked with wired telephones; and so on (Cantoni & tardini 2006, 11-12).

the above-listed characteristics, which should be perceived by potential adopters, in order to enhance the chances an innovation has to be accepted and adopted, are to be taken into consideration when studying the diffusion of online communication in the Church. in par-

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ticular, while compatibility has been ensured and clarified by the of-ficial documents, relative advantage and observability call for a realistic analysis of pros and cons of given online communication activities/strat-egies. if sometimes naive technophiles who “gaze on technology as a lover does on his beloved” (Postman 1993, 5) think that technologies are always an added value in themselves, actual and extensive experi-ences – trialability – are needed to provide evidence of it in different contexts. For instance, the advantages of managing a parish website are to be clearly demonstrated, both in respect to the resources needed and in respect to the actual interest of the intended audience. Here again we face the issue of “literary genres” (first pillar in the WCm) and the issue of studying actual interests and usages on the addressees’ side (fourth pillar).

Data on managers of online communication are presented in this book in the chapter about the online presence of dioceses, through interviews with their webmasters, as well as in the chapter about in-ternet communication in religious institutions. Also cases present how internal work is organized and – for some of them – also the educa-tional/professional background of their operators.

While it is not at all possible to generalize, it seems that there is a relevant room for improvement in this area. Providing fresh and reli-able data, as well as thoughtful analyses, could help in this direction – as we editors believe, and hope to offer through this book. important steps could be represented not only by dedicated education and train-ing activities (many important experiences have already been done), but also by a diffused media education, which could better equip the clergy and laypeople to operate in the so-called information and com-munication society (stout 2006a). Among the areas where there is a significant room for improvement on the online communication man-agers’ side – yielding to a higher maturity level –, we can enlist the study of actual users and of their usages. Let us now move to this level of analysis.

2.4. Users/Clients

in this paragraph the issue of addressees is dealt with. in particular, (a) its importance to reconstruct a three-dimensional map of Church


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online communication is justified, then (b) three types of audiences are briefly introduced, namely: external/internal publics; media profes-sionals and more/less technologically equipped audiences; the cases of (c) web 2.0 and (d) online communities are then discussed.

online communication allows an easy access to (almost) all avail-able materials; it is, in fact, a universe continuously changing. Although a great advantage for the researcher, who can compile and organize lists of online religious communications – ranging from cyber-churches to online monasteries, from virtual Eucharistic adoration to online com-munity prayers etc. (mayer 2008) – this availability may suggest the idea that all forms of online religious communication enjoy the same level of adoption and success. However, from the mere availability of online contents and services no inference can be made about their ac-tual success; a great website – from a graphical, technical or content/service point of view – may not be visited by anybody, or by very few people, while a less convincing one (from the same viewpoints) could be highly visited and used. A list of all available literary genres – fol-lowing the metaphor we suggested – does not imply whatsoever that all of them find stable and satisfied audiences; it does not even imply that they find anyway an audience beyond their producer(s) and few interested researchers.

Research on actual audiences and usages are of the utmost impor-tance to help organize available contents/services, and to distinguish successful and sustainable experiences from simple experimentations or niche trials. Qualitative research, aimed at studying given online communities and practices needs to be complemented by quantitative research, aimed to provide a three-dimensional map of online Church communications.

Adopting the gospel say “By their fruits you will know them” (Mt. 7, 16), time will make it clear which communications have found real addressees, and which ones have not. moreover, time will also show which senders will keep, maintain, update and promote their websites and interact with their audiences, and which ones will leave their on-line artifacts without any further maintenance activity, sort of messages in a bottle left in the cyber-sea. in fact, many online communication experiences resemble more to a trial or an effort of enthusiastic brico-leurs than to clearly planned and sustainable activities.

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nowadays the field itself is too young to allow for many conclu-sions on that. only quantitative research – and reliable data offered by the involved players – will help draw some tentative conclusions and define key performance indicators for the different areas of Church online communication. Every case in the second section of the book will contribute quali-quantitative data about websites’ visitors.

Beside a better quantification of the involved audiences, their seg-mentation is also needed. if online communication is technically open to everybody, this does not imply that it is addressed to everybody; al-most no message can be addressed to anybody, due to its language, style, genre, cultural background and so on. online Church communication has still to clarify its different publics. While they can be segmented according to languages and culture – the Catholic Church has shown along her history a great capacity of intercultural communication and integration –, other criteria can be used for this differentiation. in par-ticular, let us consider the following three dimensions: (i) personal be-lieving/belonging, (ii) online practices, with (iia) the special case of media professionals, and (iii) technological skills and equipment.

(i) Personal believing/belonging. this first criterion can envisage three different audiences, depending on their degree of belonging to the Church or to a specific organization (dioceses, parish, association, etc.). According to mayer, there are the “practicing believers, happy to stay in websites they are attuned with” (mayer 2008, 57); then, there is “a public of people who did not cut relationships with their Church, but not very engaged, or who ask themselves about certain aspects of their faith” (mayer 2008, 57); the third public is made of “people who never were members or who are completely far from the Church” (mayer 2008, 57-58).

(ii) Online practices. Another segmentation takes into consider-ation the different online activities one can do when visiting a religious website. According to Hoover, schofield Clark & Rainie (2004) there are three main categories, namely:

· Category 1 – online activities related to personal spiritual or religious concerns. this includes prayer requests, down-loading or listening to music, sending faith-related greeting cards, and using email for spiritual matters. some 55% of online Americans use the internet these ways.


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· Category 2 – online activities related to traditional institu-tional religion. this includes, getting ideas for celebration of holidays, looking for places where respondents can attend church services, making donations to a religious organiza-tion or charity, and using email to plan church meetings. some 36% of online Americans use the internet in these ways.

· Category 3 – online news seeking. some 32% of internet users go online for news about religious events and affairs (Hoover, schofield Clark & Rainie 2004, 8).

Among people in category 3, a special attention should be devoted to journalists, visiting and using online church communication to col-lect information and news.

(iia) Media professionals. in many cases, a particular attention is devoted to journalists and other media professionals. in fact, especially for institutional communication, they constitute a relevant audience; at the same time, they have started to use extensively the web to collect stories and pieces of information. that is why a chapter in this book (chapter three) has been devoted to their approach to Church com-munication: a careful attention to clearly defined publics allows, on one site, for a better understanding of their actual needs and satisfac-tion levels, while, on the other site, helps to offer them a better quality communication.

(iii) More/less technologically equipped. two aspects can be consid-ered here. one is the case of digital divide: a different availability of iCt due to income, age, place of living, etc. in fact, the Church mes-sage needs to be sent to people independently from their digital access level. to address this issue, some websites are offering versions that do not require high bandwidth (e.g., RiiAL or clerus.net) or experienc-ing other-than-websites communications, like mailing lists, which are more accessible also for less equipped people.

the second aspect is that of so-called digital-immigrants and dig-ital-natives (Prensky 2001): in this case, reference is made to the famil-iarity one has with a technology: has it belonged to his/her experience since s/he was very young, or has it entered her/his experience later on, once communication routines had already been formed? in many

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cases, online communication is managed by digital-immigrants – due to simple age reasons – and only recently digital natives are starting to play a significant role. Connected with this second dimension, we can consider the issue of so-called web 2.0 (Kolbitsch & maurer 2006).

2.4.1. The Case of Web 2.0While there is no unique definition of web 2.0 (mcKinsey 2007),

and many argue that it is more a matter of successful marketing of concepts than a clear research object, we can approach it from three perspectives. it is a new way of using the internet and the web, char-acterized by:

– a wider availability of user generated contents (ugC), published thanks to software and services, which support an easy publication, even without the use of a computer (blogs, wikis, reviewing portals, etc.). Here we witness the movement from “passive” toward “active” competence, the last one not remaining in the hands of a specific group of scribes, but becoming diffused and socialized (Cantoni & tardini 2008);

– the raise of a new metaphor for the web, which complements that of an endless library. the web is more and more considered also as a public square, where to meet people and interact with them. While some web 2.0 enthusiasts suggest that this new metaphor is substitut-ing the first one, it seems more adequate to say that both are widely adopted and guide web usages: the web as a place where to find rel-evant information – think of the role plaid by search engines – and the web as a place where to meet and discuss with other people – think of applications like FaceBook, Linkedin, meetup, Youtube, Flickr, the many instant messengers, and other social applications. in fact, these first two characteristics are to be considered together: the widespread of ugC does not mean that everybody nowadays wants to become a journalist or a renown author, it means that while interacting with relatives and friends, we leave more or less perma-nent traces, published online;

– an extensive use of multimedia content. in fact, while from the very beginning the web could be defined as a multi-media hyper-text, due to technical reasons – available bandwidth and compression al-gorithms – as well as to publishers’ experiences – used to think in


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terms of text + still images – it has resembled for many years to a hyper-textual book, full of texts and (low/medium quality) images. the availability of ADsL and faster connections has opened the way for a better fulfillment of the multi-media promise, yielding to a richer presence of moving images, videos, sounds and animations.

While the cases presented in this book do not belong directly to this trend, many of them show a relevant interest for the web 2.0, and have started to offer more interactive features, or are complementing their offer with services provided by web 2.0 main players, in particular by social networking services.

According to Barna (2008a), “people within the Christian com-munity are just as immersed in (and dependent upon) digital technolo-gies and social networks as are those outside of it. Both evangelical Christians and other born again Christians emerged as statistically on par with national norms […]. in other words, matters of faith played very little role in differentiating people’s technological habits”, further research is needed to study the “Catholic side” of web 2.0, ranging from meetup groups of Catholic singles, interested in finding some-one who shares their same deep values, to the several groups born in FaceBook (spadaro 2009) to support associations or specific issues (e.g.: the respect for human life), up to ad hoc Youtube video channels (an agreement has been signed with the Holy see to publish videos of the Pope). moreover, usages of blogs and wikis are to be studied in the framework of congregations or by single persons: who publish them? For whom? Why? Who uses them?

While the case of web 2.0 itself may deserve a version 2.0 of this book, it raises the issue of online communities, to which we need now to pay attention.

2.4.2. Online Communitiesthe topic of online communities has attracted a great attention

(Cantoni et al. 2009; tardini & Cantoni 2009) and religious commu-nication has been researched from that perspective (Campbell 2005), which has also guided – for instance – the analysis of online presence of islamic terrorist groups (sageman 2008).

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While there is not enough space in this “helicopter view” for a detailed analysis of this issue, a distinction should be made, which can help to better understand this book and to design future research: the distinction between paradigmatic and syntagmatic communities. the first ones are groups of people who share similar interests, goals, ap-proaches, values, etc.; think, for instance, to the communities of doc-tors, journalists, sisters, priests, and so on. syntagmatic communities entail that their members do interact with each other, giving birth to actual communications among themselves.

Every website is – according to the WCm – a paradigmatic com-munity, as long as all its visitors share similar interests, while it may serve a syntagmatic community provided its users interact and com-municate with each other. in fact, many websites support a movement from being paradigmatic communities to becoming syntagmatic ones, offering tools and features, which push their publics to start develop actual interactions: think, for instance, of forums, blogs, reviews, polls and other similar strategies.

While online communication is aimed at single users and com-munities – as we have seen, be they just paradigmatic or also syntag-matic communities – people who design and implement websites need to take into consideration, among their main addressees, also search engines. in fact, search engines are the most important starting points for users who do not know exactly which online resource can satisfy their needs, and yield an important percentage of a website’s visitors. Dealing with search engines requires that we move one step ahead in our journey, entering WCm fifth element: the context, relevant info-communication market.

2.5. The Context / Relevant Info-Communication Market

in this paragraph, (a) data about “religious surfers” are presented, and (b) the issue of search engines is briefly introduced.

While from a mere technical point of view the web is just a collec-tion of nodes and links (Cantoni & Paolini 2001), depending on the actual interest and traffic they get, different areas of the web are more or less prominent, yielding to a richer and three dimensional mapping of online communication.


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some studies have unveiled the fact that the religious web is not at all a niche for a few amateurs; on the contrary, it attracts huge numbers of interested visitors. in 2001, according to the Pew internet Project (Larsen 2001),

· 28 million Americans have used the internet to get religious and spiritual information and connect with others on their faith journeys. We call them “Religion surfers.”

· 25% of internet users have gotten religious or spiritual infor-mation online at one point or another.

· […]· For comparison’s sake, it is interesting to note that more

people have gotten religious or spiritual information online than have gambled online, used Web auction sites, traded stocks online, placed phone calls on the internet, done on-line banking, or used internet-based dating services (Larsen 2001, 2).

three years later, a follow-up research reported that

nearly two-thirds of the adults who use the internet in the united states have used the internet for faith-related matters. that represents nearly 82 million Americans (Hoover, scho-field Clark & Rainie 2004, i).

table 1 presents online activities done by “Religious surfers” as found in 2001 (Larsen 2001, 13):

Table 1. Activities of online Religion Surfers

The percentage of Religion Surfers who have ever …

Looked for information about their own faith 67%

Looked for information about another faith 50%

Emailed a prayer request 38%

Downloaded religious music 38%

Given spiritual guidance via email 37%

Bought religious items online 34%

Planned religious activities via email 29%

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The percentage of Religion Surfers who have ever …

Gotten idea for religious ceremonies online 28%

Subscribed to a religious listserv 27%

Downloaded sermons 25%

Gotten ideas for ways to celebrate religious holidays 22%

Sought spiritual guidance via email 21%

Gone online to find a new church 14%

Participated in religious chat rooms 10%

Played spiritual computer games 5%

Participated in online worship 4%

Taken an online religious course 3%

Used a faith-oriented matchmaking service 3%

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Religion Surfers Survey, July 24-August 15, 2001. N=500 and margin of error is ±4%

in 2004, activities done by religious surfers had slightly changed, as shown in table 2, which analyzes the spiritual uses of internet by the all 128 million American adults who browse the net. overall, 64% of internet users said they had done at least one of these activities (Hoover, schofield Clark & Rainie 2004, 4):

Table 2. Spiritual uses of internet by the all 128 million American adults

The percentage of Internet Surfers

Sent, received, or forwarded email with spiritual content 38%

Sent an online greeting card for a religious holiday such as Christmas, Hanukah, or Ramadan 35%

Read online news accounts about religious events/affairs 32%

Sought information on the Web about how to celebrate holidays or other significant religious events 21%

Searched for places in their communities where they could attend religious services 17%

Used email to plan a meeting for a religious group 14%

Downloaded or listened online to music with religious or spiritual themes 11%

Made or responded to a prayer request online 7%

Made a donation to a religious organization or charity 7%

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is ±3%


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the 2001 Report provides an interesting segmentation of “Reli-gion surfers”:

· the most active online Religion surfers (those who go on-line at least several times a week for spiritual material) are also the most active offline participants in their faiths.

· those who have converted from the religion in which they were raised are more likely than those who have not to be active Religion surfers (33% vs. 24%).

· Religious outsiders are particularly interested in using the internet to meet others of their own faith and share items of religious interest. outsiders are those who see themselves as a minority, who say they have few people of the same reli-gion in their local communities, or who say they have faced discrimination due to their beliefs.

For Religion surfers, the internet is a useful supplemental tool that enhances their already-deep commitment to their beliefs and their churches, synagogues, or mosques. use of the inter-net also seems to be especially helpful to those who feel they are not part of mainstream religious groups. About 27% of Re-ligion surfers attribute to the internet at least some improve-ment in their faith lives. Religion surfers are optimistic about the Web’s potential to improve the religious life of others, while at the same time they are fearful of the internet’s ability to do harm to others by making heretical or cult-inspired material so easily accessible (Larsen 2001, 3).

When it comes to differences between religions or denominations, the 2004 Report suggests that

When looking across the most prominent religious identifica-tion groups, we found a slight tendency for Protestants (both overall and the Evangelical subgroup) to be lighter internet users than Catholics or Jews. […] There does not seem to be a link between denomination and Internet use (Hoover, schofield Clark & Rainie 2004, 10).

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unfortunately, Religion is seldom considered as a category by companies doing extensive audience measurements on the web. When this is done, religious websites show an important share. For instance, according to Comscore media metrix, only in the month December 2007, Religion related websites attracted 22,886,000 unique visitors among total u.s. home, work and university internet users, showing a 20% increase if compared with December 2006, attracting much more users than categories like Politics (8,384,000) and Career – training and Education (10,279,000) (Comscore 2007).

As shown in graph 1, according to google insights for search (beta), in the period 01.2004 to 01.2009 the keyword “religion” has got more searches worldwide than “politics”, approaching the numbers of researches of “tourism”. the term “Jesus” has almost always outper-formed all the others.

Graph 1. Google Insights for Search (beta), Web Search Volume for the terms “religion”, “Jesus”,

“politics” and “tourism”, worldwide, for the period January 2004 – January 2009

touching the search engines topic, an important research area has to be indicated, concerned with issue management. in fact, also religious players are active in search engine optimization and market-ing (be it concerned with organic or paid ranking), in order to offer


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a religious perspective onto hot topics relevant to religion or ethics; consider, for example, issues like abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality etc. in other cases, the struggle for higher rankings on search engines is due to conflicting presentations of institutions or single personalities (introvigne 2006), let us think for instance of the online attacks re-ceived by the opus Dei or by the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, attacks done by ex-members or by other opponents.

2.6. The Case for Usability

the previous paragraphs have provided an itinerary through the many aspects of online Church communication, using the WCm as a compass in order not to loose direction, nor to leave aside relevant facets and issues. one more perspective could help showing how those aspects – the four pillars and the fifth element in WCm – do fit into a unique picture, and cannot stay separate: it is the point of view of us-ability (Cantoni & tardini 2006; nielsen 2000).

the international standard organization (iso) defines usability as being the “extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfac-tion in a specified context of use” (iso 1998: n. 11). this definition stresses six elements: (1) specified users; (2) their specific goals; (3) ef-fectiveness: goals can be reached; (4) efficiency: reaching the goals does not require unnecessary efforts; (5) satisfaction: the overall users’ per-ception of the application is good; and (6) in a specified context of use: different contexts could change the values to be assigned to elements 3-5. We can define usability with an even wider approach, mapping it onto WCm. Here, it is:

“the adequacy of contents/functionalities (pillar i) and acces-sibility tools (pillar ii), between themselves and with respect to the users (pillar iV) and the relevant context (world). However, this adequacy has to be measured taking into consideration the goals of people who commission, project, develop, promote and run the website (pillar iii)” (Cantoni et al. 2003: 7–8).this means 1) that accessibility tools are to be exactly what they are supposed to be; 2) that contents/functionalities and accessibility tools are to fit users’ requirements; 3) that in order to guarantee usability,

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the needs and goals, the expectations, the education and the previ-ous and similar experiences of both publishers and users are all to be considered (Cantoni & tardini 2006, 130).

the concept of usability – provided it is defined encompassing all the above-mentioned facets, and it is not reduced to just an interface issue – could be very useful to approach online Church communica-tion, taking into account all relevant aspects, and may become a bridge between a descriptive approach – the one adopted in this book – and a prescriptive one.

***As shakespeare reminds us, “there are more things in heaven and

earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Hamlet, i, 5, 166-167); no matter how precise a map is, it is just a map, a tool we can use to explore a territory, which is much wider, richer and interesting. in fact, this is the destiny of a map: in order to be useful, it has to sim-plify, reduce and omit, trying not to become misleading or false.

this chapter has offered indications on how to map online Church communication (as part of the territory of online religious communica-tion) as well as the growing corpus of research devoted to it, while at the same time suggesting further and new research directions, needed to better understand the issue and eventually to better design this com-munication itself.

now the map needs to give room to actual explorations.

Part II

In-dePth StudIeS

in this section, three in-depth studies are offered. the first one, by Daniel Arasa, deals with dioceses’ online

communication, and provides an extensive overview on the sub-ject.

the second chapter, by D. Arasa, analyzes approaches, expectations and evaluations of specialized journalists, when it comes to Church online communication.

the third chapter, by slawomir Zyga, studies how religious institutions have adopted and integrated the internet in their external and internal communication flows.

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CHAPtER 2

DioCEsAn WEBsitEs. WHAt CAn WE LEARn FRom tHE LARgEst DioCEsEs?

Daniel Arasa

the goal of this chapter is presenting the essential aspects of the websites of Catholic dioceses, which are the basic territorial organiza-tion of the Church. starting with a short introduction on the main Church’s activities of institutional communications, the need and the importance of websites for dioceses are presented (par. 1). then, each one of the WCM’s dimensions of diocesan websites is analyzed (par. 2-5). Finally, some conclusions are offered (par. 6).

the analysis is based onto the study of nine among the largest Catholic dioceses; their experience can be of great use to better un-derstand this area of online communication, and provides a relevant benchmark also for smaller entities.

1. Diocesan Websites as tools for institutional Communications

institutional communications can be defined as “the type of com-munications undertaken in an organized way by an institution or its representatives, and directed to the people or groups of the social area in which the institution acts. institutional communications has the goal of establishing quality relationships between an institution and its audiences, helping it to reach a level of social awareness and a public image according to its goals or activities” (La Porte, 2002, 292). As any other institution on Earth, the Church develops its own activi-

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ties of communication through the means at its hands. in this sense, the internet and the web have become essential instruments for the Church’s communication as a whole and for each one of its organiza-tions. today, the role of websites in diocesan communication is before everybody’s eyes, and their structure and performance can be very well explained through the Website Communication model.

1.1. Church’s Institutional Communications

internet communications are extremely important for today’s in-stitutions and imply new ways of communicating (Fidler 1997). in particular, the internet’s characteristics have modified the relationships that organizations have with the public and the mass media (salaver-ría & sádaba 2003). While the Church continues to be an object of the mass media’s attention, it is now in a position – through the use of the internet – to become a more active subject of communication. obviously, the Church is interested in reaching people and institu-tions throughout the world, but it is primarily interested in reaching her faithful, which amount to more than 1.1 billion people around the globe (17.3% of the global population).1

the Roman Catholic Church enjoys a high moral authority in the public sphere. However, it requires a constant effort on the part of the Church’s communicators to present the Church’s official view and teaching on critical issues like the defense of human rights, religious freedom and ecology, among others. in this sense, internet communi-cation has become very important for the Catholic Church and all its institutions.

Despite great differences among the Church’s organizations worldwide, the creation of Church communication offices to carry the weight of institutional communications is evidence that the Catholic Church has understood the importance of dealing with the mass me-

1 Catholics are 62.8% of the total population in America, 40% in Europe, 26.3% in oceania, 17.1% in Africa and 3% in Asia. Worldwide, the Catholic Church counts with 4,898 bishops; 407,262 priests; 34,520 permanent deacons; 55,107 lay men reli-gious; 753,400 professed religious women; 28,041 members of secular institutes; and 216,768 lay missionaries. Data retrieved from the Statistical Yearbook of the Church (2008).

Chapter 2. Diocesan Websites. What Can We Learn From the Largest Dioceses?

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dia. steps forward are also being taken to further integrate the internet into Church communications.

this chapter analyzes diocesan websites as tools for the Church’s institutional communications activities. the first logical question is to ask what the Catholic Church’s institutional communications ac-tivities are. As a matter of fact, almost any activity of communication carried out by the Church has an institutional dimension. Cateche-sis, preaching and liturgical celebrations are all Church’s institutional communication activities as well as diplomacy, artistic and cultural exhibitions, and ecumenical initiatives are. Following an accurate analysis of the official documents on communications, the Church’s institutional communications activities can be grouped in five main areas: 1) media promotion; 2) media relations; 3) media education; 4) pastoral care of media professionals; and 5) internal communications. For the sake of truth, the Church’s documents on communications do not present specifically this division. it responds to the communication activities described in those documents and carried out by responsible for Church communications at different organizational levels (interna-tional, national and local). Within these general activities, every Cath-olic organization develops autonomous institutional communications according to the peculiarities of its resources, charisma and internal organization.

in principle, the institutional communications activities carried out by diocesan websites should be consistent with the goals of the univer-sal Catholic Church; they are at the service of presenting the Church’s message to people and offering the faithful the means for their spiritual growth. However, the use of websites for institutional communications is not the same among Catholic dioceses in different parts of the world because of the specific circumstances of each diocese. While the five main activities of institutional communications are identical, differ-ent websites present their contents and services differently and, thus, the specific institutional communications activities vary. For example, dioceses with a minority of Catholics include features in their websites which are not present in other diocesan websites.

it is not possible to talk about high quality communication if there is not an understanding of one’s own identity (who we are) and objec-tives (with whom we want to speak, why and about what). that aware-

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ness is the basis for the agreement between what an institution is and what it says. Diocesan websites make their local churches present on the World Wide Web while trying to respect the human and divine nature of the institution worldwide. Certainly, the fact that the leaders know what the institution is and needs to say does not imply that they know how to say it. this is where this research may help.

1.2. Why Does a Diocese Need a Website?

Dioceses are the basic territorial organization of the Catholic Church and are the model for all other forms of territorial organiza-tions within the Church. in short, a diocese is limited to a definite territory so that it includes all the faithful living in it; its government is entrusted to a bishop and, according to Catholic theology, in each diocese is present the whole Catholic Church (Code of Canon Law, 1983). Although this last aspect goes beyond the boundaries of our study, it cannot be avoided because of the particular spiritual nature of the institution.

to say that a diocese must have a website may seem something exaggerated. Certainly, the presence or absence of a website does not change the existence of the institution, but may enormously impact its communication performance. in a world where the internet has be-come so diffused and the use of search engines (or better, “the search engine”, that is, google) so popular, it seems unthinkable for an in-stitution not to be reachable through the internet. Another matter is what kind of website each diocese should have, which contents and functionalities offer, etc. that will depend on the goals, the target au-diences and the resources, but being present in the internet should be something assumed today in any Church institution, like for an indi-vidual may be considered “normal” to have and use a cell phone.

A general analysis of the content of several Catholic diocesan sites around the world and how their contents are presented, allows us to provide a first evaluation and interpretation of why diocesan webmas-ters offer what they offer on their websites, and the way in which they offer it. in order to keep results universally valid, websites from nine major Catholic dioceses around the world were analyzed for this re-search. Websites chosen represented a proportional distribution of di-


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oceses by continent: three from Latin America, two from Europe, and one from north America, Africa, Asia and oceania. table 3 includes the name of the nine dioceses selected, the number of Catholic faithful and the uRL of their website.

Table 3. Number of Catholics and URL of the selected dioceses

Diocese (Country) Number of Faithful (2006) URL

Bogotá (Colombia) 3,525,716 www.arquidiocesisbogota.org.co

Johannesburg (South Africa) 704,000 www.catholic-johannesburg.org.za

Los Angeles (USA) 4,349,267 www.archdiocese.la

Madrid (Spain) 3,420,000 www.archimadrid.es

Manila (Philippines) 2,719,781 www.rcam.org

Melbourne (Australia) 1,029,256 www.melbourne.catholic.org.au

Mexico City (Mexico) 7,103,000 www.arzobispadomexico.org.mx

Milan (Italy) 4,844,138 www.chiesadimilano.it

São Paulo (Brazil) 5,154,347 www.arquidiocesedesaopaulo.org.br

Total 32,849,505

Source: Annuario Pontificio 2006

the process of analysis followed five steps: 1) observation of the websites over time (2004-2006); 2) exchange of information with their webmasters (understood as any person who runs a website and has control over it, regardless of technical qualifications); 3) establishment of a descriptive and comparative table of the websites; 4) interview with journalists using diocesan websites; 5) data analysis (for a detailed analysis of each single website, see Arasa 2008).

there is no claim that the websites selected are the best Catholic diocesan websites, but only examples from which useful insights could be drawn. in fact, the sample is very limited with respect to the total number of Catholic dioceses worldwide (more than 3,000), and only some of the world’s important languages are used on the websites ana-lyzed (English, spanish, Portuguese, and italian). moreover, like any other research, we were sometimes forced to make generalizations that unfortunately may not be entirely correct. Elements that may be con-sidered generally positive might not be so in some websites and, on the contrary, aspects that could be improved on a website might already be

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well presented on others. Another restriction in this type of studies is the need to limit the period of analysis of the websites, being the web a continuum with constant changes. However, although many aspects presented here will change in the future, the trends and categories pre-sented will probably keep their validity for a long time. in short, it is not our intention to propose the ideal diocesan website, since doing so makes no sense in an environment as variable as the internet. our analysis permits to present some useful instruments to analyze existing websites and some guidelines for the planning, creation and manage-ment of diocesan sites.

in spite of the differences among diocesan websites (technologi-cal, linguistic, financial, etc.), they also have many elements in com-mon. in general, diocesan websites have strongly unified, although not uniform, content. From an external point of view, the websites have a common, basic structure made up of four elements (pillars): contents and services; technological instruments; managers; and visitors. this basic structure will be used to facilitate our presentation.

Admitted the importance of the website, let us see some general elements related to the presentation and identification of diocesan websites. According to the webmasters, the profile of a diocesan web-site responds mainly to three goals: spreading the gospel; informing the public about the diocese and its activities; and facilitating commu-nication within the Catholic community (mainly, diocese-to-priests and diocese-to-faithful).

At the same time, it must be recognized that these goals are very general and their effectiveness needs to be verified in day-to-day op-erations. Conversions, increase in personal commitment to the faith, comprehension of Church doctrine are important realities for Church leaders that do not usually have an empirical result and, thus, much of the success of Church websites is impossible to quantify. However, it would be advisable to find criteria that explain the communicative effectiveness of the websites in order to get the best from these op-erations. the criteria will be more or less useful depending on their definition. some references might be found, for example, in increasing mass attendance, book sales, better-informed priests, etc.


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1.3. The WCM Applied to Diocesan Websites

From a researcher’s standpoint, an understanding of religious com-munication through the electronic media cannot be restricted either to the artifact (i.e. the site’s content and its technological elements), or to the number of visitors to the website. it also needs to consider other factors such as the objectives and organization behind the site, i.e. its managerial dimension (Cantoni & tardini 2006). the Website Communication Model (WCM) allows us to take into account all these factors. According to this model, websites need to be understood as multidimensional realities (martelli 2003). Websites are not just a mat-ter of combining software with content and services (Cantoni & Di Blas 2006). People are a key element and an essential “part” of any website operation. indeed, what a website is going to have and “do” will depend, among other aspects, on who run it and whom they plan to reach (Bolchini, Cantoni & Arasa 2004). thus, the WCM explains a website from four dimensions or pillars: contents and services (pillar i); technologies being used and the online medium itself (pillar ii); managers (pillar iii); and visitors (pillar iV). these four dimensions are presented both in the way they interact with each other and in rela-tion to the website context. this means, among other things, showing how relevant the contents and services are for different audiences and understanding the characteristics of communication between manag-ers and visitors (Cantoni, Di Blas & Bolchini 2003). Considering all these elements makes website communication more effective and, in the case of diocesan websites, transforms them into very helpful instru-ments at the service of the diocese’s mission.

in other words, the WCM allows understanding that a website is a communications enterprise, a tool that serves to communicate some-thing. it does not offer a “snapshot” of websites, but describes the static and permanent dimension of a website (i.e. as an instrument of com-munication) as well as its dynamic one (i.e. as a communicative action in actu). this model of analysis avoids reducing the complexity of the website to one dimension (e.g. technological, economical, social, etc.) and shows also how a website cannot be understood by disregarding such basic principles as the nature of the institution or its audience. in fact, institutional communications is not a matter of administration or information policy, but something closely related to the institutions’

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goals and identity. indeed, the four website elements have to be stud-ied in their mutual interactions because they are not autonomous but need each other to exist. moreover, the website needs to be studied as it relates to its surroundings because the website and its elements get meaning and value only in a given context (in our case, other Church and diocesan websites).

the WCM is a model for website analysis from which many dif-ferent approaches to website activities may be developed. Being com-prehensive, the WCM is a useful tool in evaluating the quality of a site’s communications and may also help to avoid misunderstandings between a website’s promoters and developers.

in order to see how the WCM applies to diocesan websites, let us start with the presentation of their main contents and services, that is, the pillar i of the model.

2. Contents and services (WCM’s Pillar i)

the quality of a website is, first of all, the quality of its content and services. Content and services are what visitors look for, what webmas-ters work for, and what technical instruments are employed for. And this is even clearer in the case of a Catholic institution as a diocese. the level of user’s satisfaction will be directly affected by the website’s content.

the description of content and services does not require a thor-ough examination of all the individual units of a website. in fact, many diocesan websites offer thousands of links and documents that would be impossible to proofread. moreover, many of them change constant-ly. in analyzing a website, it is more important to know the different types of content and services. Hence, the selection offered here comes from the observation and testing of different types of websites’ con-tents and services. it is based upon some existing sites and serves as an analysis of their current communication level, as well as a basis for future website projects. the contents and services of diocesan websites may be grouped in 20 main categories (presented here in alphabetical order): 1) Arts & Culture; 2) Bishop; 3) Books & Publications; 4) Ca-thedral; 5) Catholic Information Service (CIS): Permanent and Variable Information; 6) Copyright & Privacy; 7) Devotion, Liturgy & Prayers; 8)


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Email Service; 9) Employment; 10) External Links; 11) Forum & Guest-book; 12) Identity & History; 13) Intranet & Reserved Areas; 14) Lan-guages; 15) Marriage; 16) Mass Media; 17) Newsletter; 18) Search Form, Search Engine & Site Map; 19) Spiritual Assistance & Solidarity; and 20) Vocations & Seminary.

this list is certainly adaptable to many situations. in this case, it serves to understand some content and services that are usually present on diocesan websites, independent of their geographical and cultural environment. in the following paragraphs we will offer some reflec-tions on each one of these contents and services.

1. Arts & Culturethe Catholic Church is an institution with an enormous cultural

heritage. surprisingly, diocesan websites do not take advantage of it, and only some dioceses make an effort to transmit this cultural back-ground in their websites and use it for educating people in human and Christian values. Certainly, to have a diocesan website’s section on cul-tural issues is not always necessary. in fact, many artistic and cultural elements may be found in other sections of the websites (like those dedicated to the Cathedral or the Archives). moreover, with the in-creasing number of websites on the internet, major website specializa-tion is common and more sites dedicated to arts and culture that link to Catholic institutions might be found, easing the diocesan website’s need to provide this content itself.

still, observation of the sites suggests that there is enormous po-tential for promoting Catholic values through artistic and cultural ac-tivities. For example, the historical significance of Church properties and buildings is not always used to let people know how the Church established and integrated herself in the territory where it is located and operates. other possibilities, used by some diocesan websites, are the references to buildings (particularly important when promoting museums), the use of religious music or the publicity of local cultural itineraries (like, for example, the diocese of milan does).

2. BishopAll diocesan websites include a more or less extensive section devoted

to the main authority of the diocese, i.e. the bishop. in most cases, web-

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sites include many kinds of information (e.g. biography, photographs, speeches, homilies, etc). Along with the bishop, most of the websites provide information on the bishop’s entourage and collaborators (auxil-iary bishops, members of the curia [the offices in which the administra-tion of a diocese is organized], etc.) as well as his predecessors. Very few, however, include the bishop’s updated agenda: the great majority of the sites either do not mention it or include only past events.

the bishop’s section is particularly important on Catholic dioc-esan websites. indeed, it is always present on their home pages, and this presence reinforces the institutional character of the website. the inclusion of bishop’s words is a proof that webmasters want their web-sites to be an instrument for publicizing his teachings. At the same time, the website team needs to balance the centrality of the bishop with the rest of the institution’s departments and people. in any case, the website has to be an instrument to reinforce ties between the bish-op and his collaborators (internal communication) and the bishop and the faithful within the rest of civil society (external communication).

3. Books & PublicationsAlthough the publicity and diffusion of books would be an ef-

ficient way of making the doctrine and teachings of the magisterium of the Church known, most diocesan websites give little importance to the section on books and other publications. if well planned, this kind of service may attract sponsors (libraries, publishing companies, etc.) and offers and discounts to specific groups such as priests, students, teachers of Catholic schools or diocesan employees.

many dioceses cannot compete with other publishers and online booksellers, but their websites increase the possibility of diffusing the diocesan publishing company’s publications, with the consequent eco-nomic benefit and, most of all, the spread of Catholic doctrine. Con-tact information about how and where to buy the diocesan publications (offline or online) is especially important in this regard.

4. CathedralAs in the bishop’s section, most of the diocesan websites offer

great amounts of information on the cathedral. the cathedral is a sym-bolic building that identifies the diocese and, in fact, the cathedral’s


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icon is present on many home pages of diocesan websites. the ca-thedral section may become a way to present the cultural aspects of the Catholic faith. Religious art, sacred music, and images or repre-sentations in stained glass windows associated to the liturgical life of the cathedral are, in fact, natural instruments for evangelization and catechesis. some of the elements of the cathedral serve also to explain the history of the diocese. in this sense, the cleanness and tidiness that accompanies some of the cathedral’s presentations (pictures, graphics, etc.) is also a way of showing positive aspects of the care for the temple of god that characterizes the Catholic faith.

5. Catholic Information Services (CIS): Permanent and Variable Information

According to webmasters, diocesan sites attempt to offer useful information and services to visitors. these information services may be classified in two groups: those related to permanent or stable infor-mation of the diocese and its officials, and those related to variable or changing information.

a) Permanent information refers mainly to aspects such as internal organization, buildings and facilities, parishes and priests, education, archives and documentation, and other information services.

a.1.- organization of the Diocese:it is mainly related to information about the internal division of the diocese, whether administrative (internal departments) or territorial, and about the organizations connected to the diocese (religious institutions, foundations, etc.). the presen-tation of the diocesan organization is probably the strongest point of diocesan websites. it is also one of the most permanent sections of the websites.All of the websites have very complete and rich information re-lated to the internal organization of the diocese, though there are differences in the amount of information, its presentation, and the way that information is reached. the sections on the web-sites that contain information about the organization are named in different ways such as “Curia,” “About us,” “Agencies and organizations,” “government,” “Directory,” “Departments,”

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etc. it is generally easy to reach the different diocesan depart-ments, agencies and organizations’ data, though many websites only offer an index or list of the different departments without databases to facilitate searches. some dioceses make more use of departments’ external websites than others do. A few also pres-ent a map of the ecclesiastical organization of their territories.

a.2.- Buildings and other Facilities:other than the cathedral and the seminaries, it seems important to include in the websites data on the buildings where activi-ties related to the diocese happen as well as their significance and function. these data ranges from the bishop’s residence to sanctuaries and museums. Particularly important are also those facilities where charitable activities or other beneficial activi-ties for society take place (e.g. health centers, elderly or single mother’s facilities, etc.).Few websites offer pictures or abundant information on them; most of the websites just offer addresses, contact data and di-rections. indeed, the buildings themselves are considered sec-ondary information and serve to locate events organized in the diocese.

a.3.- Parishes (including mass times) and Clergy:if one of the goals of the local churches is to promote evangeli-zation, offering the schedules of religious services (particularly for the reception of the sacraments of the Eucharist and the Reconciliation) becomes a very important feature for Catholic diocesan websites. information on the clergy may also be of interest to the faithful since priests are directly responsible for the liturgy and care of the faithful.most webmasters are very interested in offering data on the parishes (and mass times) and priests. on some websites, the information may be found by itself while on other websites it is mixed with other kinds of information. nevertheless, webmas-ters recognize the problem of the inaccuracy of data because of updating problems (mass times, for example). the imple-mentation of data-driven, searchable databases of parishes and mass times that can be updated by external agents of the curia may be a partial solution to this problem.


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a.4.- Education:All the diocesan websites include references to Catholic educa-tion. While some websites focus more on theological studies (university level), other websites are more interested in pro-moting education for youth (Catholic schools).Education is an area of possible website improvement in which the local church can have a positive influence on society. three specific areas are: a) Religious education: catechesis, moral is-sues, etc.; b) Civil education: for example, through the diffu-sion of the Church’s social doctrine, which provides a back-ground for educating citizens about respecting and promoting the common good, respect for human life, defense of the environment, personal responsibility in the exercise of rights and duties and participation in public life (voting, etc.); and c) Professional education: without substituting other public and private entities, organizations related to the Church may assist professional education and training at many different levels (for example, basics of home economy like family budget, cooking, shopping, social assistance contracts, etc.). often these activi-ties will not be offered by the diocese itself, but by parishes, charities, ngos and other similar organizations, and can be promoted through the diocesan website.

a.5.- Archives and Documentation:there are great differences among sites regarding the sec-tions for the archives and other documentation. By their in-stitutional nature, diocesan websites are points of reference for doctrinal issues that interest Catholics and non-Catholics. it is very important that magisterial documents, theological texts and explanations of doctrinal issues be available to visitors in open archives. Webmasters may opt to include these kinds of documents under different sections (“Devotions”, “Vocations”, and “Archives”, for example) and consider the possibility of of-fering the files in different formats (html, PDF, rtf).

a.6.- other information services:there is an extensive variety and originality of other informa-tion services among the different diocesan websites accord-ing to their needs and, probably, their webmasters’ creativity.

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these information services may refer to internal administrative services (such as requests for Baptismal certificates) or to ex-ternal services offered by organizations related to the diocese (cemetery, etc.). some other examples are links including maps and directions, desktop wallpapers, reports accessible with a password for employees’ internal use or glossaries to facilitate comprehension of the diocesan website’s language. glossaries may also be a useful way to be reached by other potential visi-tors (through search engines) by offering simple explanations of Catholic terms and doctrine.

b) Variable information refers mainly to aspects such as news, cal-endar of activities, etc.

b.1.- news:many websites include current or past news as well as opinion articles, though there are large differences among them. un-fortunately, it is common to many the confusion between an-nouncements of events (ideally included in a calendar section) and summaries of such events.usually webmasters do not have the time to update the news or to archive old news. most websites almost exclusively rely on employees from different departments to fill the website’s content. With exceptions, in many cases this shows evidence of lacking trained personnel to write and upload news on their websites. the lack of professionals of communications makes that some “news” sections refer more to topics of interest for potential visitors than to real news. in spite of the difficulties, and depending on the human re-sources, diocesan websites can be a point of reference for Cath-olics and non-Catholics on news about the local and universal Church.

b.2.- Calendar:Very few diocesan websites have a clear and updated calendar; in most cases, they include similar features dispersed through-out many different areas. moreover, in many cases it is difficult to distinguish between news and calendar of activities.


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b.3. - other Variable information:it includes variable information on the activities of diocesan or-ganizations and officials and financial information related to the activities and operations of the diocese. Also, it refers to infor-mation about activities of the Catholic Church worldwide (such as campaigns against war and hunger) or at a local level.Regarding this sphere, information on financial issues requires particular attention. transparency on economic issues works on behalf of Church institutions and the diocesan website can be a perfect instrument for this. Financial transparency is important for two reasons: 1) From a communications’ standpoint, it may prevent criticisms based on stereotypes of excessive wealth or op-ulence; transparency implies explaining how financial resources are used and how savings are invested; 2) it not only may be a response to legal obligations, but also to take care of the image that the institution tries to project; fostering donations for social activities and participating in non-profit organizations requires a trustworthy image, and donors have the right to know how their money is used, so reports about the budget have to be detailed.

6. Copyright & Privacythe possibility of being copied does not concern diocesan web-

masters. the problem is usually the opposite: some webmasters copy other’s content (news, for example) without thinking of copyright in-fringement. it may be useful that diocesan websites could be interested in requiring citations when their information is used. this can become a way of facilitating the diffusion of their content and the identifica-tion of a Catholic institution as its source.

in general, diocesan websites offer services through subscription forms – to receive newsletters or updates, to participate in a forum, etc. However, few of the sites specify that the personal data collected will not be passed on to other entities. in delicate matters, like spiritual assistance through the internet, respect for privacy needs to be firmly clarified and guaranteed.

7. Devotion, Liturgy & Prayersthree main areas within this category are prayers, the calendar of

saints, and the gospel of the Day (or other readings from scripture).

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they are much related to the characteristics of each country’s Catho-lics: some websites are very devotional and not much doctrinal, while others give low importance to devotional aspects (praying the Rosary, etc.) and include many documents on doctrinal aspects and liturgical explanations.

the role of diocesan websites in promoting devotions is debated. some webmasters are of the opinion that dioceses can use external and non-official sites for that, since there are many initiatives dedicated to promoting devotional aspects among the faithful. What is clear is that it does not seem appropriate to collect devotional links without a previous analysis of their content and without proper organization within the website: as a way of example, websites could include di-rectories with Catholic links organized by topic – to avoid distracting visitors – and not only an endless list of links.

At the same time, presenting the meaning of religious feasts – sundays, the patron’s day, etc. – and the Christian sense of rest and entertainment seem proper to the role of diocesan websites. in a so-ciety where leisure plays a major role, promoting the importance of spending time with family and suggesting positive and useful ways to enjoy free time become crucial in forming people’s consciences.

8. Email Serviceused properly, the email service may save an organization’s time

and money. For dioceses, many announcements or other information could be sent to parish priests via email, saving postal fares as well as trips of the priests to the diocesan headquarters.

However, diocesan webmasters complain that parish priests do not follow the level of “internetization” of the diocese and recognize some reticence among parish priests towards the use of email (under-standable because of age, lack of time, resources, etc.). in this sense, dioceses may consider support parishes at two levels: supplying them with the minimal technical requirements and, most importantly, with training. in this case, the figure of “web animator” created by the ital-ian bishop’s conference is an outstanding example.


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9. Employmentmany regular visitors to diocesan websites are committed Catho-

lics. the diocese may take advantage of having this audience at hand to find people who could work for the diocese itself and, at the same time, understand and agree with its mission and goals. Diocesan web-sites could also put people in contact with organizations related to the diocese (schools, hospitals, social services, etc.) for employment pur-poses.

When announcing job positions in diocesan structures through the website (schools, parishes, ngos, etc.), it is very important to clarify the requirements that the candidates need to fulfill in order to obtain the job as well as the employer’s expectations.

10. External linksincluding a link to an external website can be interpreted as a rec-

ommendation to visit it. External links may be of religious nature or not, and can be more or less related to the organization. the type of ex-ternal websites that diocesan websites include help to define the world to which these sites try to belong. All of the sites focus almost exclu-sively on providing links to Catholic initiatives. most of them include links to their own national bishops’ conference and to the Vatican, giving a sense of unity and reinforcing their Catholic identity. they also include, within their website directories, links to initiatives related to the diocese (departments with external websites, for example) and the country’s institutions.

A moderate number of external links allows webmasters assure that they have no problem with accidentally linking to websites with harmful content or content opposed to the principles of the diocesan websites. However, some difficulties can be found in non-working links, or in the lack of criteria to structure and order the links.

11. Forum & Guestbookin general, diocesan websites do not include chat services and very

few offer forums or guestbooks. nevertheless, this does not mean that there is a lack of communication with visitors because much is done by email, telephone and regular mail.

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Participation in forums or similar services is far from the expecta-tions of most websites’ promoters. the reasons for such low participa-tion are not easily identifiable and might be different from one diocese to another: lack of experts to lead the forums, low website visitor’s rate, a lack of comprehension of their specific goal, an informative interest that ignores opinion features, existence of other websites bet-ter adapted for interaction like blogs or social networks (Facebook, for example). the low participation in the diocesan website’s forums can be also related to the fact that the faithful’s attachment to dio-cese (territorial ties) is far less intense than their attachment to other entities such as the parish, the religious community, the association, the movement or, in general, the community they belong to (personal ties). Whatever the reason, webmasters need to recognize that the presence of unused interactive features lowers the credibility and, thus, the quality, of a site.

12. Identity & Historymost of the websites have important sections presenting the his-

tory of the diocese and a presentation of the website’s goals (in sections like “About us”). Few websites synthesize their nature and goals in short mission statements, while most rely on long explanations about the history and mission of the diocese.

the presentation of a diocesan website is generally much related to other three elements: a) its Catholic identity: the adjective ‘Catho-lic’ needs to be accompanied by congenial content; b) its institutional identity: if it is a diocese or other organization, if it is official or not, etc.; and c) its geographic identity: name, city, country, etc. though this issue will be presented in chapter three, it is worthwhile to say now that the description that diocesan websites give is particularly impor-tant with regard to their impact on public opinion. if Church officials want their institution to be covered by the media, they need to make efforts to offer them complete and accurate information. in fact, dioce-san websites are main sources of information when journalists look for data on bishops, ecclesiastical personalities and other Church-related issues. At the same time, journalists do not stop their search at dioc-esan websites: other main sources used by media professionals in their Church stories are personal archives, archives of other Catholic and non-religious media, contact with diocesan media officers, and so on.


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though the identity of the sites is usually identifiable from the top Level Domain and the domain name, it can also be expressed by the institutional logo. three are the main logos or institutional images found on the home pages of diocesan websites: 1) the diocese’ shield; 2) the bishop’s coat of arms; and 3) other icons. the formal identity of a diocesan website needs to be accompanied by elements that support it. more effort should be undertaken to present the diocesan sites to non-Catholic and non-Christian visitors, who may find it difficult to distinguish between religious affiliations.

13. Intranet & Reserved Areasintranets and extranets may save time for parish priests and em-

ployees by removing the necessity of traveling to a central office to collect mail and communications from the Curia. intranets may also be used to promote the relationship between parish priests, religious, non-profit organizations and other institutions that carry out charitable activities, fostering the exchange of experiences and information (Zyga 2006). the access to the intranet through the public website is a mana-gerial decision: they can be integrated or divided for different reasons.

nonetheless, diocesan website teams need to remember that tech-nology alone does not make things work better. the implementation of these technological services requires training programs for employ-ees to make them conscious of their advantages and learn how to use them.

14. Languagesthere are mainly three categories of sites regarding language: a)

websites using a unique language; b) websites using a predominant language and a secondary language (or languages); c) websites using a main language with a sporadic use of other languages. in general, very little content is presented in the secondary languages.

Promoters of diocesan websites have their geographic environ-ment in mind. Websites are mostly written in the local language of the diocese, since their target, and most of their users, are local residents. nonetheless, translating some important contents into English seems advisable like, for example, the bishop’s biography, lists of Quick Facts and particular statements that may be of interest beyond the geograph-

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ical limits of the diocese. it may require additional effort and resources, but helping external visitors to consult information in a universal lan-guage could be profitable for both the diocese and the user. A general overlook of the back links also permits to find out that, besides the lo-cal language, English is the language used most by the websites linking to diocesan websites. in any case, non-English websites do not usually include significant information in English. Webmasters are not con-cerned about it, maybe because they are aware that most of the users are local visitors. What is probably true is that it might be unnecessary and burdensome for many dioceses to translate the entire site.

15. Marriagemany diocesan websites show a pastoral approach and offer useful

articles and other information for marriage preparation and material for the wedding ceremony (for example, the ‘Book of marriage’, with an explanation of the rite, by the website of milan, italy). other sites are certainly interested in explaining the doctrine of the Church regarding marriage and responding to administrative issues on marriage annul-ment; nevertheless, they provide so much information on the process of annulment of marriage that it might be interpreted as promoting it.

16. Mass Mediamost websites include references to printed diocesan media. some

sites also include links to other Catholic media, both national and in-ternational. in fact, the news agencies linked to or cited by the websites the most are Aciprensa (spanish speaking dioceses) and Zenit. Less importance is given to Catholic radio stations or to the Vatican’s news-paper, L’Osservatore Romano. small dioceses need to be careful not to miss the opportunity of presenting their uniqueness.

Almost none of the diocesan websites offer links to non-Catholic mass media. A possible explanation is that these websites try to offer a Catholic vision of the world events, and prefer not to include links to sites, which may distort this view.

17. Newslettermost websites do not offer newsletters, but those which do, show

high professional standards – frequency of publications, option to un-subscribe, etc.


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newsletters may be used for different reasons such as announcing updates or events. However, their main goal is making users faithful and fostering in them a sense of belonging to a community (Lepori, Cantoni & mazza 2002). the fact that few diocesan websites offer newsletters explains that the internet culture has not yet penetrated Church institutions. there is certainly an awareness of its importance and a gradual application of the internet’s potential, but few incor-porate “push” features like newsletters. in other words, few diocesan websites have incorporated a marketing mentality of attracting users.

it is also true that dioceses have scarce resources at hand, and the low financial cost of newsletters does not mean they cost nothing. Hu-man and technical resources need to be considered. A professional newsletter requires intense effort to maintain constant publication, of-fer all the working options to subscribe and unsubscribe (opt-in/opt-out), be well organized, attractive and not too long. there is not a unique formula for a quality newsletter. it will depend on the topic and the target, among other aspects. What is certainly common to all suc-cessful newsletters, that is, those with many subscriptions and a large audience, is regularity. When a newsletter does not arrive regularly, it may create the contrary effect, especially when information overload and spam are overspread.

18. Search Form, Search Engine & Site Mapmost websites have a search feature and a site map. it seems useful

for diocesan sites to strengthen the search options, not only for specific areas but for the whole website. in this regard, external services, like google, may facilitate the task. the presence of databases (and not only long files with names and addresses) is also essential for search options within the websites.

19. Spiritual Assistance & Solidaritythe range on information about spiritual issues in diocesan web-

sites is very broad: requesting prayers, spiritual exercises, spiritual assis-tance, etc. some websites offer also links or sections directed to people interested in becoming Catholics (like Los Angeles and melbourne). these online services fit very well into the goals of the dioceses and may become a useful and sometimes necessary, first step for personal contact (always necessary in the personal way of faith). the presence

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of a telephone number or email address may facilitate reaching people who otherwise would not be reached. the website can be a very use-ful instrument in cases when personal contact cannot occur because of geographical barriers (e.g., regions where snow impedes travels) or logistical limitations.

many are also the activities of solidarity (Caritas, etc.), but most of them are dispersed within the websites.

20. Vocations & Seminarymost diocesan websites include information on their seminaries.

in most cases, information about vocational issues is found under the section “office for Vocations” or “Department of Vocations.” Websites may help enormously in proposing a positive and realistic vision of the role of the priest. Diocesan websites may be also a means of making the faithful aware of missionary work in their dioceses (or by their dioceses), helping to understand the Catholicity of the Church and fostering a sense of responsibility in supporting these essential Church ministries with prayers, financial support, and so on.

After describing the main contents and services of diocesan web-sites, attention needs to be given to the technologies being used and the online medium itself (Pillar ii of the WCM).

3. technological instruments (WCM’s Pillar ii)

the contents and services of a website (pillar i) are accessed through technical instruments (pillar ii), which include such different aspects as hardware, software applications and representation elements (e.g. design, navigability, graphics and layout). A study based on web-sites as communication should focus on these elements as much as they affect the other dimensions (content and services, managers and visi-tors). the greater their influence, the greater their importance.

therefore, the present analysis of Pillar ii limits itself to present-ing six essential technological aspects (numbers follow the enumeration of the contents and services’ categories): 21) Audio, Video & Images; 22) Colors & Design; 23) File Formats & Technical Requirements; 24) Navi-gation; 25) Other Tools; and 26) Tags. these categories are not studied


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in-depth because technology changes too quickly for a general study like this one, and specific analysis on technological elements is more proper to a study on computer science than to a research on institu-tional communications. Certainly, many other elements related to this dimension could be analyzed like the internal coherence of a website’s content or the website’s external coherence (i.e., the homogeneity of the brand, logo and image with the institution’s mission). in our case, only some elements related to functional design (navigational tools, etc.) were taken into account because they are the most important from a communications point of view. moreover, it has to be considered that high quality technology in certain website’s areas may coexist with important gaps in other parts of the website.

21. Audio, Video & ImagesAll sites are plenty of images (photographs and icons) and some of

them also include scrolling images or words using JavaScript or simi-lar programs. However, differences are found among sites that focus more on written content, sites that prefer icons and paintings or sites that support mainly pictures. High quality images have an enormous potential to promote Catholic values and might be even more powerful instruments for spreading the gospel than sophisticated theological documents. Photo galleries of Christian paintings and Christian archi-tecture, accompanied by suitable catechetical references, may greatly help the task of evangelization. Audio, instead, is not much used in di-ocesan websites. Just some websites offer mp3 files and the possibility of streaming prayers (the rosary, for example), podcasting, etc. Video is even less used and almost exclusively through external links. Logically, the primary informative goal of diocesan websites makes their promot-ers less keen to include features that are not essential to that.

multimedia can enrich a website’s fruition: listening to gregorian chant is much better than just reading the score and lyrics; download-ing a prayer can be useful for traveling faithful; watching a bishop’s presentation may be more catching than reading a press release, and so on. moreover, the use of videos with testimonials is more powerful than just written texts. At the same time, multimedia implies some in-conveniences like the increase of download time, financial costs or the need for some kind of technical expertise. However, many of these ob-stacles can be easily overcome today and webmasters need to consider

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that future generations will be more attracted by these technologies. What is important is that multimedia features be appealing and do not make it difficult the fruition of the site, for example avoiding audio ef-fects not under the control of the user.

22. Colors & Designthere are no ideal criteria to judge the colors and design features

of websites. they depend much on the taste and good judgment of the webmasters, who are usually very intuitive and personal in design issues. nonetheless, minimal guidelines are required such as the read-ability (contrast between text and background or character’s size) or the use of adequate colors to increase its attractiveness. the specific characteristics also depend on the public (children, adults, etc.). in short, websites must prioritize simplicity and clarity in design elements and, for that, it is useful to learn from what other successful websites are doing (nielsen 2000).

23. File Formats & Technical Requirementsmany webmasters trust technical aspects of their websites to ex-

ternal companies, though most update software themselves. in order to serve a wide variety of users, webmasters try to ensure the acces-sibility of their sites from the most common technological platforms. there is also a generalized use of common software standards; indeed, many websites include downloading options for different content (word, PDF, rtf, excel, etc.) and warn users when particular software is required. some websites are also advanced including Rss feeds and files compatibles with cell phones and PDAs, which respond to today’s people mobility.

the criterion that should lead webmasters is the fact that the in-struments and technology are at the service of content and services and serve to further the website’s goals. so, software needs to combine target audience’s ability to access the site as well as the availability of the personnel and the technological facilities for maintaining the site. in this sense, websites should avoid software that may impair usability like very last software applications, requirement for broadband, etc. (Visciola 2000). Aside consideration should be made with those ele-ments that directly influence the communications ability of a site (such


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as browser compatibility or the presence of software adapted to dis-abled persons).

24. Navigationthe clearer a website’s navigation is, the more its content and ser-

vices can be used. the problems and virtues of diocesan websites in this area are very different. While almost all have links to the home page, it is common to find unnecessary repetition of links or links that do not work.

Adequate navigation is real when it helps visitors to orient them-selves within the site through clear navigation bars, consistency of pages, sections with self-evident labels, uniformity of menus, icons, page titles, uRLs, links, etc. making a website accessible and usable to local and foreign users at the same time requires paying attention to “international usability” (Pernice & nielsen 2001), that is, using ele-ments that can be identifiable to any user, independently from her/his geographical origin.

25. Other Toolsmany diocesan websites include features that facilitate usage

– Print friendly-format – and encourage the use and diffusion of its content – send to a friend; make this your home page; or Link to this site.

26. TagsAn essential element for the identification of a diocesan website

is the internet address or uniform Resource Locator (uRL). the website’s address allows us to ascertain the similarities between the institution (a specific ecclesiastical circumscription in our case) and its identification and presentation on the internet. in general, diocesan websites are easily identifiable through their internet address. the top Level Domain or tLD – such as .com, .net, .org, or .info – is not as important as the domain name, which facilitates the identification between the website and the real institution. Although there is an in-creasing comprehension of this factor and a higher use of real names in the institutional websites, there are still many Church institutions which have not put it into practice.

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nevertheless, the uRL is not enough to indicate the nature of a website. in this sense, a helpful element for identifying the nature of the site is the description offered by the website’s promoters through the html tags, that is, how the promoters of the website present them-selves before the world wide web community. two of the most signifi-cant descriptive tags are the Title, and the Description:

a) the Title tag is probably the most important element in the code language of a website, since it is one of the highest weighted el-ements in search engines’ ranking algorithms. search engines use title tags to present the results to users’ queries; therefore, the title given to a website (or web page) by its managers is the website’s first descriptive element, like the plaque on a company’s front door. A positive example may be the title tag of the website of Johan-nesburg’s archdiocese, www.catholic-johannesburg.org.za: “official website of the Catholic Archdiocese of Johannesburg, south Africa” (as of January 2, 2009). Conversely, the title of a major diocese from a Latin American country read “Home,” which made it com-pletely unidentifiable.

moreover, it is the title tag that browsers use to save the website as a bookmark. the high number of favorite websites registered on most computers suggests that they should be easily identifiable: vis-its to some websites may be conditioned by the visibility (i.e. sim-plicity and identification) of their titles.

in general, most of the diocesan websites include the name of the diocese in the home page’s title tag; however, this tag is not always filled in all the web pages of the website, where search engines can go directly without passing through the home page.

b) Description tag: similarly to title, the Description tag is used by search engines to present a short description of the results obtained by a search. After title, the description of the site is the second chance that webmasters have to present their site in the search engine’s ranking. the description, thus, is an excellent occasion to present synthetically the goals, scope, and coverage of the website.

the insistence on the use of tags has a direct impact on the vis-ibility and identification of diocesan websites, that is, how easily they


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can be found among the millions of websites on the world wide web. Visibility is not as much important regarding repeat visitors (already familiar with the website’s address or uRL) as with first-users. in fact, people who reach the website by directly typing the uRL (or using the bookmark feature of the browser) do not need the help of a search engine to find it. However, in order to reach new visitors, website managers need to concentrate their efforts on making their site easily accessible through search engines. search engines are becoming more effective and efficient and, thus, increase the possibilities that a website could be found by a first-time visitor. nonetheless, instruments that help websites to be ranked higher should be used as much as possible. managers need to ask themselves, “What is the word (or words) that identify me (or my website)?” or, even better, they should try to in-crease their visibility by thinking as the search engines’ users do and select words that respond to users’ interests. A significant example is the use of the word AiDs by the diocesan website of Johannesburg, which offers related information to this important issue in south Af-rica. moreover, webmasters need to consider the weight that different search engines give to title and Description tags, as well as to other elements such as back links, etc.

As explained, an in-depth analysis of website communication can-not limit to “things” (pillar i and ii), but needs to consider also the persons related to the website. in the following two paragraphs, atten-tion is given to the managers (promoters, creators, etc.) and visitors or users of diocesan websites.

4. managers (WCM’s Pillar iii)

4.1. Activities and Roles

in order to analyze the management of a specific institution, it is necessary to know the general traits and principles of the institution. in our case, it becomes essential to understand that the Catholic faith is very significant in shaping the goals of diocesan websites.

Who the managers behind a diocesan website are is not always easy to say. the bishop is certainly the final and highest responsible for the diocese and, thus, for its official website, but he has many col-

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laborators, who range from the webmaster to the responsible for the different sections or departments.

Referred to diocesan websites, the management includes all those activities related to running the website in its technical dimension, in its contents and services, and in relation with the users. in other words, it relates to all the activities that the website team is responsible for, from the planning and creation of the website, updating and promot-ing it, monitoring and evaluating its performance, to dealing with the audience of the website. though the list could be amplified, there are six important areas that affect much to the activities and roles of the website managers: 1) Work-force; 2) Work-flow; 3) Role of the Bishop; 4) Financial Resources, Advertising, Commercial Activities, and Donations; 5) Interaction with the Visitors; and 6) Promotion and Benchmarking.

1) Work-force: it responds to the number of people working at the website. many sites provide information about the website team in internal pages, though some include only anonymous email addresses. numbers usually fluctuate because of the presence of temporal and oc-casional workers, secretaries, etc. What is evident is that website teams with higher resources are able to produce contents of higher quality standards.

it is significant that most of the teams do not follow possible ste-reotypes of “clericalism” and “voluntarism”: first, because generally speaking, more lay people than priests work in the diocesan websites; and second, because these workers (especially laymen and women) have high professional preparation.

2) the Work-flow is the internal organization of the website team, that is, the dynamics of work – frequency of meetings, for example – and the specific duties – who is in charge of what and why. Like in any other enterprise, constant flow of information at a vertical and horizontal level is required to run a website. in general terms, manag-ers of diocesan websites work in close contact (email, phone or face-to-face meetings).

the role of webmasters is particularly important: they decide what content is going to be introduced, when to introduce it, what cor-rections need to be done and what external links should be included.


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Webmasters have almost total control over the site, though they con-sult their superiors when necessary. therefore, they need to undergo adequate training and formation because of the importance of their position. their responsibility includes the fact that they need to be ready to reply to any of the issues at stake, considering that for any given answer the ultimate authority for the content of the diocesan website is the bishop.

3) Bishop’s role: usually he is not directly involved the day-to-day activities of the website, but is informed through his collabora-tors (chancellor, secretary, etc.). only for major issues does the bishop make decisions. some big dioceses (for example, milan) have estab-lished distinct responsibilities within their institutional website like deciding goals, overseeing activities and contents, administrative roles or technical tasks.

Depending on bishop’s appreciation for communication aspects, dioceses will dedicate the necessary financial resources to promote the communications office and the website and, most of all, to select ad-equate personnel for these tasks.

4) Financial resources, advertising, commercial activities and dona-tions: although costs can be quite low, running a website is not a free activity. All diocesan websites are supported through the diocesan budget. three other financial resources are (or may be) present in di-ocesan websites:

a) Advertising and sponsorship: usually banners. Among the studied diocesan websites, none includes paid advertising. the only advertising accepted is that of “religious events” and “activities” related to diocesan organizations (pilgrim-ages, diocesan media, etc.). in other words, advertising is more a promotional tool than a profitable activity. the ad-vantages of this promotion are creating synergy among di-ocesan activities, reinforcing the image of the institution and saving money that might be spent advertising in ex-ternal media. most webmasters are not opposed to include advertising in the future in order to support financially the site, though adopt a prudent attitude. At most, they include

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links to companies that offer services or applications within the website (google search, map links, etc.). in spite of the managers’ complaints regarding the lack of money to run the website activities, nobody considers having sponsorship. Like in the case of advertising, webmasters are very prudent to avoid that a sponsor’s identity may conflict with the na-ture and values of their institutions.

b) Commercial activities: there are no sales online services in di-ocesan websites. An objection presented by some webmas-ters is that selling does not respond to the institution’s goals and can damage its image. Without forgetting these risks, diocesan officials need to know that, if well presented, sales and profits do not necessarily undermine the institution’s image. this activity of great potential will depend, however, on the commercial laws of each country. Professional dioce-san websites may produce (and already do) indirect financial effects through the promotion of music, books, pilgrimages, and so on.

c) Solidarity and donations: while dioceses may find it difficult to carry out selling activities, they have much possibilities to make fundraising. it can be fostered through the website by reminding donors about the tax advantages of their dona-tions and by making it possible and easy to make donations online for specific projects. the website’s cathedral section may be an excellent opportunity to raise money for the dio-cese through campaigns for material improvements of the temple, for the poor and for the needs of the diocese.

5) Interaction with visitors: falls mainly upon webmasters. interac-tivity is one of the strongest characteristics of online communication and, sometimes, one of their major flaws. Responses to enquiries are expected and if they do not arrive, user’s frustration and loss of visitors are direct consequences.

the first step to guarantee the quality of the interaction is making contact information easily available to the visitor (email, telephone, fax number and physical mailing address). this is generally well done in diocesan websites, though a problem is present in some websites regarding email contacts: too many emails to contact may confuse the


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visitor. A possible solution is simplifying the contact information, in-cluding a minimal distinction between a technical email and a general email. From an internal point of view, the email for technical matters is exclusively of interest to the webmaster, while the second email ad-dress has to be able to respond to different questions (doctrinal issues, administrative requests, or others). Forwarding messages to relevant parties within the diocese requires a thorough knowledge of the in-stitution’s internal organization and personnel, as well as being able to establish the correct criteria for sorting the emails (which requires not only technical skills, but organizational and managerial). in other words, the need for redistribution of the messages is an ad intra ques-tion for the organization and does not necessarily need an external manifestation for the visitor (the burden of re-routing these mails be-longs to the webmaster and cannot be put on the visitor). moreover, the webmaster is responsible for tracking the answers outcome, that is, guaranteeing that queries have been responded.

Finally, interaction requires rapid response to queries, which is not always the case. in order to be ready to reply emails, time and human resources need to be allocated. Website teams need to organize the feedback with the visitors and need to get help from other officials of the diocese.

6) Promotion & Benchmarking: most diocesan websites are pro-moted through the websites of different diocesan media (newspaper, radio, etc.). of course, many dioceses do also offline promotion in-cluding, for example, the website address in all the official letters and documentation of the diocese, etc. However, few of them organize formal promotional campaigns for the launching or renewing of their website.

the importance of promoting the websites to rank higher in search engines has already been explained. it does not always depend on the work of the webmasters, but they may influence the results. For example, promotion of diocesan websites can be greatly expanded through the exposure of the website on other, related websites (e.g. other Catholic dioceses and institutions, bishops’ conference websites, etc.). this kind of promotion may attract more visitors, make the site more visible and increase the number of back links, element employed

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by search engines to rank their responses. in any case, webmasters need to consider that word-of-mouth (which today is identical to viral and social networks) is one of the main means of website promotion.

Benchmarking means learning from other’s practices. it is a useful activity to discover successful strategies and failures from other inter-net operations, though it is rarely done by diocesan webmasters.

4.2. Challenges

the analysis of the activities and roles of the responsible for di-ocesan websites allows us to synthesize several challenges for website teams:

1) Quality website communication requires constant evaluation. Web-site communication is a process that needs to be constantly reevaluated with regard to its objectives, just like any other institutional communi-cations activity. only those communicators who self-evaluate and are used to criticism improve. At the same time, evaluation is an activity that should include external judgment. user feedback is very helpful for the improvement of communication. Evaluation makes managers recall who they are, what they want, who they want to reach, how they want to reach them and what the context of their communication is.

Although they update their websites often, Catholic diocesan webmasters’ overall planning is poor and they do not seem to evaluate their websites regularly. in many cases, the personal intuition of the webmaster is the main criterion for taking actions that may affect the general quality of the website and, therefore, of the institution’s com-munication. Although their decisions are often appropriate, a lack of planning creates confusion between principles, objectives and means. the necessity of evaluation and planning (orihuela & santos 2004), however, cannot be an alibi for not making decisions. Website com-munication has a dynamic that requires regular decisions and correc-tions while keeping in mind that “best” is the enemy of “good.” it is also true that website communication has much to do with geniality, creativity and intuition, like most business activities. in any case, both evaluation and intuition are factors that can work together to achieve high quality website communication.


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2) Professionalism of the website team. A significant common trait of the studied diocesan website teams is the presence of full-time, paid employees. in other words, when it comes to large dioceses, their web-sites are not run by volunteers with no experience, dedicating just their spare time. those directly responsible for website operations are often very competent and prepared for their professional duties. of course, this cannot be considered an excuse for not improving personal work and, at the same time, it does not diminish the help that volunteers offer to diocesan website teams. nonetheless, professionalism implies having enough time and preparation to manage websites, since tasks that require full-time workers cannot be left to part-time employees. the need for professionalism among website teams is related to three specific needs: a) the combination of the work of technicians and com-municators; b) a continuous education of the team members; and c) financial coverage.

a) Managing a website requires both technicians and communica-tors. some websites seem to lack communication objectives and appear as mere aggregations of content and software. there is often disunity among the different communications officials (webmasters and media officers) regarding the aims of the website, and this may affect website’s effectiveness. other times, website’s communication aims are far too gen-eral. Left in the hands of technicians alone, as can happen in small organizations that entrust their websites to volunteers with basic training in software design, diocesan websites may include unnecessary content or even content that is op-posed to the website’s communication goals. in fact, before including specific content, services, graphics or software fea-tures, website managers should consider if they are needed and whether they fit into the website’s goals. the question they need to ask before including or excluding anything on the site should not be “why not?” but “why?” or “for what purpose?” this reflective exercise is essential for someone trained in communications.

b) Continuous education and training of diocesan webmasters and media officers. there is a need for constant education and training in communication. the Christian faith provides the moral principles and criteria that guide the actions of the

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faithful, but it does not resolve them in their technical or practical application.

Although the webmaster’s role is mainly focused on tech-nical aspects, they have a crucial position over the whole website. in many cases, it is the webmaster who decides on a day-to-day basis what content to include, what correc-tions need to be made and what links are to be added or deleted. this responsibility implies that webmasters must receive proper training. First, webmasters need to keep up with technological developments in order to implement the best resources on their websites. second, and more impor-tant, webmasters must constantly improve their personal knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith. they are not communicating neutral content, and only a deep af-finity with their faith will allow them to present the nature of the institution they work for correctly. third, webmasters should have the desire to deepen their education in com-munications, not only from a technical perspective, but also from a theoretical point of view. this implies familiarity with trends in public opinion, interest in current affairs, a basic understanding of media dynamics and an awareness of internet usage tendencies.

the “weight” of personal education, however, does not fall on webmasters alone. other diocesan media officers should be also encouraged to prepare themselves more thoroughly. While media officers may be better prepared than webmas-ters in terms of their communications skills, they need to put more emphasis on improving their training in the areas of technology and Catholic doctrine. A basic understanding of technology will enable communicators to plan and pro-gram realistic website strategies, and will facilitate mutual understanding with the website team. Furthermore, a deep knowledge of the Catholic faith will enable them to be au-thoritative spokespersons for the diocese.

c) Financial coverage: website communication is not “free.” teams’ resources (personnel, professional qualifications, budget, material assets, etc.) condition the activities carried out through the diocesan website. Website managers need to understand, and make their superiors understand, that ef-


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fective website communication requires adequate resources, usually represented by an appropriate budget. However, the website cannot be seen as another outlet “to be supported,” but as an instrument to be integrated within the communi-cation structure of the diocese. Certainly, the website modi-fies established work practices (professional qualifications, timing, meetings) and positively influences the rest of the existing communication instruments (telephone, advertis-ing, traditional media, etc.).

neither training nor education is a “free” activity. they require effort and investment in time and financial resources. the personal qualifications of those responsible for a website can be partially resolved through crash courses, seminars, or intensive programs, but a more deep preparation is necessary for responsible and professional communicators. there are no magic solutions and to tackle the problem webmasters and media officials need to foster the training of collaborators and future successors to their positions. it may not always be possible for the bosses themselves to leave their day-to-day work in order to undergo required training. However, other people can be sent in their places to be trained at schools or programs in communications. that way, they can count on younger people being even better prepared than they are to continue their job. this strategy pays off in the long-term. in other words, those in charge of diocesan communications, whether at the media office or on the website, need to con-vince their superiors that setting aside a budget for training personnel is as important as, or even more important than, having one for material resources.

3) Website management also implies giving particular attention to the website’s audience. However, if interaction with website’s visitors is a priority, this springs from effective internal communication. interaction with users requires much time and is one of the main challenges for high quality website communication. Webmasters are conscious of the importance of replying properly to emails and forwarding messages to relevant parties within the diocese. nonetheless, this activity requires a complete knowledge of the internal organization and its personnel (La Porte 2003) as well as having good selection criteria. this is another

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reason why running a website does not imply only technical prepara-tion, but communication skills and management training.

4) Although the number of website visits is important, user qual-ity is more important. An accurate analysis of user statistics and other sites visited by users (related sites) are essential instruments in know-ing and improving the quality of visits. indeed, website statistics are a “thermometer,” a sign of the usage of the website. However, they are not necessarily an absolute indicator of the effectiveness of a website’s communications. this is the case in the transmission of Christian prin-ciples, which does not automatically result in increased website usage. moreover, diocesan websites might be visited by accident, curiosity or even animosity, and therefore not reach the desired target.

though the internet can help to foster active website visitors, it is a fact that the excess of media messages is making people more passive, unable to choose or participate in the communications arena. Church institutions face the same problem than other organizations: they have to fight to reach their desired audience and Catholics need “to be found” in the enormous communication jungle. therefore, besides efforts to create and manage diocesan websites, diocesan webmasters and media officers need to dedicate more time and resources to website marketing and promotion.

5) As explained, websites depend on their context. this should push managers to learn from other websites’ experiences, mainly through benchmarking and networking. it is precisely the difficulty of reaching the desired audience that should make diocesan webmasters aware of the successful activities that other websites undertake. Benchmarking, commonly present in other sectors, helps diocesan webmasters under-stand that financial resources may contribute to improving website communication, but they are not the only factor for successful com-munications. the keys are creativity (ideas) and professionalism.

Diocesan websites are the natural context of benchmarking for dioc-esan website teams. since they share the evangelizing goal, they cannot be considered as “competitors,” but natural allies. therefore, it seems convenient to create networks of responsible for diocesan websites in order to exchange experiences and learn from others’ good practices.


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5. Visitors (WCM’s Pillar iV)

5.1. Users

there are no methods to know exactly who the visitors to a web-site are. indeed, methods such as user registration, passwords, cookies and iP identification do not always guarantee the identity of the user. moreover, high usage statistics cannot be considered the only mea-surement of a website’s success, for the simple reason than visitors do not necessarily equal desired targets. the information provided by the log files are only collections of data that provide very useful informa-tion about users’ behavior (number of visitors, page views, periods and hours of the visits, geographical origin, words employed through the search engines to reach the site, etc.), but do not explain users’ motiva-tions, likes or dislikes. the effectiveness of website communication is beyond a mere statistical analysis. therefore, in order to complete the usage statistics analysis, managers need to consider their interaction with visitors: emails received (number and kinds of messages), topics on the chats and discussion forums, messages on the website’s guest-book, and other feedback from visitors. the combination of empirical instruments with other sources permits webmasters to make reason-able assumptions about the users’ interests, motivations, and identity (job, age, sex, etc.).

With few exceptions, diocesan websites do not make public the number of visitors. However, many webmasters make analyze usage statistics weekly or monthly for internal use. the fact is that these data are underutilized because many webmasters do not know what to do with them (lack of expertise) or lack the time necessary for a deep analysis of the statistics (Cantoni & Ceriani 2007). it also happens that an elevate number of dioceses never or seldom carry out this kind of analysis.

Free quality software may help improve webmasters’ analysis of statistics. nevertheless, this analysis cannot be reduced to the mere presentation of numbers and graphics, or to a verification of a grow-ing or decreasing number of visits, but needs to lead to concrete ac-tions and team work between webmasters and communication officers: webmasters can offer their technical expertise in presenting the results in a comprehensible way, while communications officers can develop

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communications strategies like buying most-searched words in search engines, change pages of high exit-rate, enrich a website’s section, dis-cover potential visitors from the analysis of back links, etc.

5.2. Target Users

Website visitors do not necessarily identify with target audience. While visitors are reflected in usage statistics, the target responds to the intended group. Finding out the correct addressee is one of the most important objectives when starting an institutional website, especially in a market with a tendency to audience fragmentation. ‘Who is the target’ or, at least, ‘who is the primary public’ are necessary questions to answer before creating a diocesan website. it would be naïve to think that everybody is an intended audience. the language and the contents and services of a website determine its target, and every group requires a specific approach in design, language, etc. most diocesan websites do not have specific targets mentioned, though webmasters are aware that regular visitors to diocesan websites are mainly local Catholics, since the contents and services are prepared principally for them. However, webmasters need to recall that Catholics are not necessarily literate in theological language, which implies avoiding technical, ecclesiastical language and, when necessary, help the users with glossaries or other tools.

An analysis of the websites linked to Catholic diocesan websites allows us to see that, with very few exceptions, diocesan websites are linked by a relative majority of Catholic websites. A possible objection about “Catholic” sites which do not respect Catholic doctrine (such as dissenting websites) might be raised here. However, this study is not the place to analyze the contents of each one of the websites that link to the diocesan websites. other few sites linked to diocesan websites belong to other religious or non-Catholic denominations. Knowing the surrounding environment may help webmasters to understand cur-rent and potential visitors to their websites and develop strategies to attract them to the diocesan website.

once communication with the target has been established, a fur-ther step is the evaluation of this communication. What does the tar-get think about the contents and services of the website? this question


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is not a trivial interest in the users’ likes or dislikes, but a question of what is really important or relevant to them.

the analysis presented above on Catholic diocesan websites, com-bined with the opinion of the webmasters, allows us to make some fi-nal observations regarding the use of diocesan websites as instruments for the Church’s institutional communications.

6. Conclusions

one of the most significant conclusions is that diocesan websites seem more like open intranets for Catholics than websites made for a general audience. they are not intranets of the kind that require regis-tration or password, but the activities carried out and the content and services offered through the websites are mainly targeted to a Catholic audience. the only “external” public group really targeted by diocesan websites, though not always and, at most, secondarily, is that of jour-nalists. this fact may explain why diocesan websites do not make pro-moting themselves a priority.

second, the study shows that there is no contradiction or opposition between information and evangelization in official diocesan websites. Catholic webmasters are imbued with a desire to spread the gospel. many cannot make up their minds between developing websites with a more ‘evangelizing’ approach (devotions, virtual communities, spiritual advice, etc.), or a more ‘informative’ approach (official information, press releases, documents, etc.). in our opinion, there is no real tension between information and evangelization. the best way for diocesan websites to contribute to the Church’s evangelizing mission is by offer-ing accurate, up-to-date and complete information. indeed, diocesan websites are indispensable points of reference for the institutions they represent and, thus, need to offer the essential, official information that anyone would require from the institution. the balance between evangelization and information is illustrated by the content of the ma-jority of diocesan websites: for example, offering the mass and con-fession schedules on a website means providing information directly related to the evangelizing mission of the Church. At the same time, Church communicators should remember that there is a logical func-

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tional diversity among Catholic websites: a diocesan website is not an electronic encyclopedia of Catholicism. other online initiatives carry out evangelizing activities like providing information on magisterial documents, fostering Catholic marriages and promoting spiritual de-votions.

third, diocesan websites appear as powerful means for doctrinal formation, especially of Catholics looking for doctrinal safety and cer-tainty in Church’s authorities. Diocesan websites may respond to these expectations in those aspects that most interest faithful Catholic’s lives (e.g. family, marriage and ethical issues). therefore, without neglect-ing basic administrative information, diocesan websites could dedicate more efforts to helping the faithful live their Christian life better. the publication of documents that respond to these questions is a ma-jor service to the faithful and other people interested in knowing the Church’s doctrine. Even if the internet does not substitute for personal communication, it can help foster it.

Fourth, the contents and services of diocesan websites show that websites are means and not ends in themselves. Diocesan websites are one more instrument the Church can use in its communications. in fact, the activities developed through diocesan websites must not be limited to ideas on a website, but must find their way in everyday life; if they do not, they are not worthwhile. the “real” effects (conversions, fos-tering of spiritual life, etc.) will not always be empirically proved, but these goals cannot be forgotten.

Fifth, website promotion may be improved. Webmasters generally do a good job taking the interests of the Catholics of their dioceses into account when providing information on their websites. High quality information about the bishop’s activities, for example, is a common trait in all diocesan websites. nonetheless, webmasters could put more effort in the online promotion of their websites and the figure of the bishop in particular, in order to become a necessary reference point on the internet for someone looking for that information. moreover, web-sites are means that do not substitute for other mass media, but change and improve the diocesan communications panorama. they need to be combined with other instruments of communication already present in the dioceses (e.g. newspapers, radio and tV stations).


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Finally, usability criteria need to be considered in the planning, implementation, running, and promotion of a website. the usability of a website is always connected to its goals. Webmasters and website promoters should be aware that paying attention to usability from the beginning of the website and making everyone involved in the website sensitive to usability issues is a strategy that avoids later, costly remakes of the site.

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CHAPtER 3

onLinE CHuRCH CommuniCAtions. LEssons FRom JouRnALists

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this chapter focuses on the relationship between journalists and Catholic diocesan websites. the centrality of dioceses within Church organization makes them major actors of Church’s media relations ac-tivities and its study allows us to extract many conclusions on what the Church institutions do online to deal with journalists. Chapter three is specifically focused on analyzing journalists’ view on the on-line communication activities carried out by the Church. the chapter deals with the fact that journalists are targets of Church online com-munication (par. 1), with their perception of the contents and services and technical instruments of diocesan websites (par. 2) and with their judgment in the online activities of diocesan media relations (par. 3). Lastly, the chapter offers some suggestions for Church communicators regarding the relationship with media professionals.

1. Journalists as target Audiences of Church online Communications

Religion is a determinant sphere of individuals and communities and, therefore, a main object of attention from the mass media. With more or less success, radio and television stations, magazines and news-papers and, of course, new media (blogs, information websites and so on) cover religion regularly. this fact raises the question of whether or not journalists are considered as target audiences of Catholic Church’s

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online communications. this quest needs to be answered from a dou-ble perspective: that of the responsible for Church online communica-tion and that of the media professionals. Let us start on the perspective of the diocesan webmasters and media officials, obtained through per-sonal and email interviews to responsible for communications of nine major Catholic dioceses (see the list in the previous chapter).

1.1. Diocesan Websites’ Approach to Media Professionals

there is general agreement among webmasters that the main tar-get of diocesan websites are the Catholic faithful of the diocesan ter-ritory (Arasa 2008). Responsible for Church websites do not exclude other possible audiences such as faithful from outside the diocese and god-seekers. For webmasters, journalists are only indirect targets and interesting inasmuch as they become indispensable channels to reach the public and, particularly, the faithful.

Although journalists are never the primary target of diocesan web-sites, most of the webmasters recognize the importance of the media in building public opinion and most diocesan websites include sections for the press. in any case, it can be affirmed that media relations is not the main activity of diocesan websites, but just one more institutional activity carried out within Church websites.

in general, media relations departments are integrated within di-ocesan structures and are present on the diocesan websites. most press offices present themselves as the channel for reaching the bishop (the main interest of the journalists) by offering an email address, a name and a telephone or a fax number. some dioceses have different offices for the website and the media relations activities, while others group both activities under the same department.

the names of the press sections in diocesan websites vary: press room, press office, delegation for the media, etc. there are also large differences among the press sections of diocesan websites according to their needs and resources. While some dioceses have highly devel-oped, complete sections with contact data, press releases, and monthly newspapers summaries (see, for example, the website of milan, www.chiesadimilano.it), others are quite simple and just include news or contact information.

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Church webmasters need to understand that including press con-tact information in their websites is essential but not always enough. As more and more journalists use the internet as their primary source of information and as a channel to get press releases and other data on Church institutions, managers of diocesan websites need to consider giving more importance to their press section. in this sense, a negative trend that affects websites’ press sections is the little contact between the press offices and the teams running the diocesan websites. Both the website and the press office work, or should work, for the same institu-tional goals and more collaboration is advisable in order to satisfy fair journalists’ requests.

in fact, though everyone among diocesan officials recognizes the importance of personal contact with journalists, it is opportune to equip the website as a tool for effective media relations. Among other banal potentialities, websites allow journalists to download informa-tion without the need to request or receive it by fax, email or phone call, and provide them with lots of background information, neces-sary for their pieces. Presumably, diocesan teams with more resources will pay major attention to media relations and, consequently, journal-ist satisfaction will be higher. However, because of the human factor, there are cases in which sites with poor press sections may deal very well with journalists while dioceses with large communications offices may be viewed negatively by journalists. Let us turn now our attention to them.

1.2. Journalists’ Approach to Diocesan Websites

Journalists’ perceptions were obtained through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 53 worldwide media professionals who regularly cover religion and, for that reason, use diocesan websites as a main source of information. interviewed journalists worked for me-dia of 15 different countries, of which 19 national newspapers, 10 na-tional and 5 international news agencies, 7 national and 2 international weeklies, 3 press offices, 2 international radio networks, 1 national ra-dio station, 1 national tV and 1 international tV news agency; 2 jour-nalists were free lancers. Among all the journalists, 57% worked for non-confessional media and 43% for Catholic media. moreover, data

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provided by studies on journalists’ internet usage and website usability for press relations (middleberg & Ross 1999, 1999b; Pernice Coyne & nielsen, 2001; nielsen norman group 2003, 2003b; iBm España, 2005) were analysed to provide a general background and guidelines for this study.

the vast majority of journalists agree with webmasters that faith-ful are always the primary target of diocesan websites. nevertheless, 70% of the media professionals also consider themselves as a secondary target of diocesan websites. the main arguments in favor of consider-ing also themselves as a target for diocesan websites and, in general, Church websites are, among others, the following:

- many people do not have access to internet or time to search for the information and receive it mediated through the mass media

- the mass media amplify the reach of the information offered by the dioceses

- the non-confessional mass media are those that create public opinion and have a higher influence than Catholic media

- many diocesan websites use an “intra-ecclesial” language, not accessible to everyone, and journalists translate it for the general public

A few journalists were opposed to consider themselves as targets of diocesan websites. We report here three contrary arguments in this regard:

- according to a mexican journalist working for a Catholic media, “the secular [non-Catholic] journalist is not a target. they deal with religious information from a sarcastic and ironic perspective. they cannot publish the objective in-formation they find in the diocesan websites because of the newspaper’s agenda [...]. it is useless to include a column for journalists in a diocesan website. they won’t go to consult it because of their prejudices”

- for a journalist of an international tV news agency, “dioc-esan websites are very reductive. they are the last place i’d go to look for news”


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- finally, a switzerland newspaper journalist assured that the internet just “makes direct communication between the bishop and his flock possible”

Before going into detail in what specific elements currently pres-ent in diocesan websites journalists value the most, it is useful to know the criteria they consider essential for a diocesan website to be use-ful in their daily work. Journalists coincide in considering richness of information the most important quality of a diocesan website. other important elements are the clarity and simplicity of the sites (Pernice Coyne & nielsen 2001), their navigability and the easiness to copy or download information (without additional formatting). these criteria are ranked much higher than other aspects such as an attractive design or quality of pictures, and are in line with the characteristics of the journalists’ work, that is, getting the most quality information possible in the least possible time (salaverría & sádaba 2003).

2. Journalists’ Perspective on Current Diocesan Websites

Journalists’ opinions are extremely useful to Church communica-tors for designing more effective websites in such important activities as media relations (Carroggio & La Porte 2002; Kairu 2003). We pres-ent now a summary of the perceptions journalists have on the different contents and services of Catholic diocesan websites. the point of de-parture is that most journalists are of the opinion that the first priority of diocesan websites must be “informing about the activities of the diocese,” and insist that information must be “updated” and “accurate.” At the same time, most of them recognize that they are biased by the requirements of their job and accept that diocesan websites may have also an evangelizing mission along with the informative one.

2.1. On Content and Services

We focus here on some categories of the contents and services of diocesan websites in which journalists have particular interest: the

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information about the bishop, the information services, the question of the languages and the newsletters. At the end of the paragraph, we of-fer some significant journalists’ comments on other categories of pillar i of the Website Communication Model.

a) Information on the Bishop:Logically, the interest that media professionals covering religion

have in the main authority of the diocese – the bishop – is very high. Above of all, journalists are interested in finding “biographical infor-mation on important officials of the diocese,” starting with the bishop. At the same time, journalists are very interested in the words of opin-ion leaders and, therefore, want direct access to them. For that rea-son, they request the presence of the bishop’s plan of activities on the website (obviously, in advance to those activities). several journalists were very clear in this regard. For example, some journalists proposed that the diocesan websites include the “schedule of the bishops for interviews” or the schedule of the bishop’s activities “at least 7-10 days in advance”. An American journalist working for a tV network was even more direct. “the websites should have a schedule of where the bishop is and what he does. that’s important for a journalist, because i want to know i can go to this church and find the bishop. And that’s useful. i don’t know if they don’t put it up because they don’t like to or they don’t want you to see it”. the convenience of including this in-formation should be decided by the communications director with the approval of the bishop and its effective application requires constant contact between the communications office and the webmaster.

moreover, it is a fact that dioceses count on many well-educated officials in many different fields (bioethics, canon law, environment, biotechnology, etc.), whom journalists do not know. they could be great resources for the media (Contreras 1998) and communication of-ficers should introduce them to journalists and make them available to the mass media, reserving the role of the bishop for specific interven-tions. in this sense, a journalist working in an international Catholic news agency said that “one of the best sources” for Church issues and contacts are people working at Catholic universities.

the possibility of including the bishop’s email (like some dioceses do) is very highly valued and considered useful by journalists. A Ca-


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nadian free-lance journalist affirmed, “i have found that there are a number of bishops that i can communicate with directly through email and often hear back within a few hours”. However, the majority of journalists recognizes that bishops will hardly have the time to check and reply emails to media people, but they would accept that someone from the bishop’s entourage responded to the email and would con-sider it an answer given by the bishop himself. Like in other website’s sections, if this feature is included, there needs to be a guarantee of its use. it would not make sense to offer an email when it is not possible to answer to requests.

b) Catholic Information Services (CIS):Catholic information services within diocesan websites group per-

manent elements such as internal organization, buildings and facilities, parishes and priests, education, archives and documentation, and more variable data such as news or calendar of activities.

Almost all interviewed journalists solicit websites to offer up-to-date information and current news. An italian journalist who works for a news agency proposed that diocesan websites include “information to 360 degrees,” that is, information “about the Church and about those things that happen outside the Church: the Church cannot act as if nothing else happens.” several journalists wanted websites to include public statements of the local Church regarding issues of interest in the diocese and in the country. At the same time, said a Colombian journalist, “a diocesan website cannot attempt too much: for example, there is no need to duplicate the information about the Pope that is already on tV, newspapers, radio or other websites [...]. the main mission of a diocesan website is to inform about the local environment in a very clear, simple and precise way”.

Also journalists believe that it is not enough for diocesan websites to offer complete Church documents. in their opinion, these docu-ments are too complex and call for “significant clarifications”, which, according to a mexican radio journalist, “could help to better under-stand the problems the Church faces” or, for an American journalist working in a national weekly, could be a “guidance on what the Church teaches”. in this sense, some journalists coincided in recognizing their

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lack of time to read long Church documents and suggested webmasters including a summary of each document.

From a practical point of view, journalists propose that websites send them the documents under embargo, before they are officially published, in order to facilitate their job by giving them more time to write about a topic.

c) The Language Issue:most diocesan websites are written just in one language. in the

journalists’ opinion, websites need to use a language “with a solid base in the diocese of reference”, considering also that “the major part of the journalists that will make news about the diocese is from the same country.” However, in some cases it may imply to use more than one language.

indeed, for many journalists the local language is not enough and they strongly support the use of English on diocesan websites, as well as the inclusion of other languages in multicultural areas. For those websites which are not written in English, the convenience of translat-ing the website (or parts of it) into English is understandable, since it has become the lingua franca in internet communication. translation into English facilitates the work of foreign correspondents and avoids unnecessary misrepresentation and misunderstandings. However, there are different needs for translation between small dioceses (with more local content) and major ones. in general, it seems unnecessary to translate the whole diocesan website, while some specific sections will need more than one language (biography of the bishop, diocese’s history, important public statements, etc.).

moreover, thinking of the promotion of the sites, the use of Eng-lish facilitates the access to the websites not only to media people but also to foreign faithful, academics, and other people, who may try to look for Church-related topics through international search engines.

d) Other issues:As explained, journalists are mainly interested in news and con-

tacts and do not care much about other sections of diocesan websites such as education or arts and culture. in spite of that, they have also


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some common opinions concerning the contents and services of dioc-esan websites, which can be useful to Church practitioners:

- Regarding the presence of forums: Conflict and confrontation are news values that journalists look for (Contreras 2004). in their opinion, diocesan websites, and Church sites in general, should allow more debate in public forums on different Church issues. some journalists from non-confessional media sug-gested that bishops write blogs. some Catholic bishops do it already like, for example, the Cardinal and archbishop of Bos-ton (usA), seán P. o’malley, or several Philippine’s bishops. other advanced initiatives may be found, like the Cardinal and bishop of naples (italy), Crescenzio sepe, who participates in the social network Facebook.

- Regarding devotional and spiritual issues: From the journalists’ perspective, diocesan websites are “too pious”. in their opinion, Church websites should be more informative than formative or, at least, include a clear distinction between these two aspects within websites. Certainly, website promoters need to con-sider always their target audience and realize that sections for Catholic visitors may include some devotional contents, while sections for journalists will be essentially informative. Because of their almost exclusively interest in news, most journalists are not aware that diocesan websites offer spiritual assistance to media professionals or are not interested at all. none of the interviewed journalists has ever looked for spiritual guidance in diocesan websites and the great majority does not consider it necessary or, at least, the most adequate space for it. in this sense, webmasters need to understand that in many cases they deal with journalists who may not share the same faith or may be non-believers.

- Regarding the use of newsletters (Lepori, Cantoni & mazza 2002): it seems enough to include an answer given by an ital-ian journalist working for a Catholic news agency: “obviously, receiving a telephone call from a press officer has a great im-pact because it means he wants to tell me something important for him or which is going to happen [...]. But the newsletter

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has an advantage from the sender’s point of view: it calls my attention in a direct way, when i’m checking my email, and so with a psychological active attitude. While other means like bulletins, phone calls, and so on, may arrive in a personally improper psychological moment, in which, for example, i have other problems on my mind, the newsletter has my particular attention because it is me who has decided to take a look at the mail.”

- Regarding the presence of search engines and site maps: Journal-ists prefer to use search engines over maps in order to find information within websites. in any case, all coincide affirm-ing that the essential is to find the information they look for, whatever the instruments are.

2.2. On Technical Instruments

As heavy users of the internet, journalists’ insights on the technical instruments (WCm - pillar ii) of Church websites are of high impor-tance for the creation and maintenance of such websites. significant are their comments on aspects like the use of multimedia features, de-sign and usability, and the use of different file formats.

a) Audio, Video and Images:Journalists do not usually use multimedia features. the main rea-

son is that they work under deadlines and cannot afford to dedicate much time to consult audio and video files which, frequently, slow the download of the pages. the highest interest in written texts derives also from their work environment: while journalists working for print media are obviously not much interested in multimedia, those working for audiovisual media need files of a quality that average websites can-not offer. Despite their current limited use, many journalists recognize that multimedia content may be useful in the coming future.

An aspect in which diocesan websites may help journalists is that of pictures. on the one hand, journalists are interested in seeing faces of people whom they may contact later personally (press office, direc-tor of a department, the bishop, etc.). on the other hand, websites may become an inexpensive channel for providing high quality pictures to


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the media. this option makes possible for the institution to offer the most appropriate and relevant images of its members and activities (be presented as you want to be presented).

b) Design and usability:For journalists, functionality comes first than beauty, and content

than design. nevertheless, many recognize the influence that layout and graphical aspects have on the accessibility of contents and services and in the navigability of the sites. not a few of the journalists insisted that simplicity, understood as easiness and rapidity to find contents, is the best way to facilitate their job.

c) File Formats:more than 60% of the journalists want that most of the informa-

tion present on a website could be copied or downloaded without the need to format it. the reason is again time constraints. the majority of journalists is not worried about the use of advanced software, since they have easy access to latest technologies and possess higher internet qualification than the average user.

3. Journalists and media Relations Activities through Diocesan Websites

Journalists’ answers regarding the activities of media relations through diocesan website can be grouped into two main areas: those related to the resources of the website’s press section, and those related to the attitude of the media officers. Before explaining these areas, let us present some general aspects on how websites can help diocesan media activities.

it is a fact that many journalists are not expert in Church’s doctrine and morals and not, as some Church officials assume, ill intentioned about the Christian faith, Catholics or the Church as an institution. moreover, most journalists lack time for reflection on complicated and profound religious issues. Church press offices can help journalists write accurate information about their institutions by offering them useful tools through official websites. For that, it is necessary to know what journalists are looking for (Holtz 2002; Chungan 2006).

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What journalists are mainly interested in finding within Church websites are chronologically ordered news, archives for background information, glossaries explaining theological and ecclesiastical terms (see, for example, the Johannesburg’s website, www.catholic-johan-nesburg.org.za), texts written from a journalistic perspective (not just homilies), press releases and Question and Answer sections. Previous studies on corporate websites show that most companies’ PR sections fail to support journalists in their quest for facts and information (Per-nice Coyne & nielsen 2001). Journalists work under tight deadlines and have no time to deep into the websites; thus, complex naviga-tion, distracting animations and irrelevant photos, obstacle their job. if journalists do not easily find the information, there is an impact in coverage of the company. these studies propose simple, well-orga-nized, clear and labeled press sections which, at the same time, require minimal download time. they also advice to include in the website links to external sources to increase the company’s credibility, since journalists generally mistrust official statements.

Although many are the common elements between media sec-tions of non-confessional and religious institutional websites, Church websites have some peculiarities with regard to their relationship with media professionals. since journalists are outsiders, websites should clarify the distinction between pastoral and informative aspects. While the first are almost exclusively directed towards an internal public, the latter are interesting to both the internal public and journalists.

When writing about Church issues, some journalists prefer to find all the information they need on the website without consulting other sources because “it is often difficult to get through to people and of-ten they do not have the information required” (an indian free lance), because “it’s faster just to use the website” and “i often get shuffled around disorganized diocesan offices as i try to find the correct person with whom to speak” (an American press journalist), or even because “i don’t necessarily want to let the diocese know i am looking into something” (a Canadian press journalist). other media professionals prefer just to consult the press office because they consider it “more elucidating” (a British press journalist), because “in most of cases, the website is not updated” (a Brazilian news agency journalist), or be-cause it allows “to get the main information as soon as possible” (a


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Hungarian news agency journalist). Yet, the great majority of journal-ists covering religion combine both the website and the media officer sources. For example, the consultation with the media officer serves to complete some information not provided in the website or to get some “fresh quotes” rather than getting a statement from a website or a news release.

in any case, the website can be a useful instrument for media rela-tions activities because, among others, facilitates reaching the infor-mation when the media officer may not be available (or even not ex-ist!) or, in many cases, avoids disturbing the media officer for getting secondary information (names and roles within the Curia, telephone numbers, email contacts, dates, etc.). As an American journalist work-ing for a Catholic media puts it, “a journalist should be able to access basic information at any hour of the day [...] and should not have to contact the communication office for that information.” nevertheless, the usefulness of the website cannot be an alibi to avoid personal con-tacts. it is just reinforcement for the media relations activities carried out in any Church organization.

3.1. Journalists’ Perspective on Press Resources

Close to 70% of the journalists who cover religion visit regularly diocesan websites (the great majority does it between once a week and once a month), while the rest visit them very occasionally or never. Journalists with low visit rates usually work for media firms that follow international news rather than national or local news.

While an 85% of the interviewed journalists consider useful or very useful the press sections within diocesan websites in general, many are critical about the press section of the websites of their dioceses. they say that not much of the official diocesan information is transmitted to the media through the website. the reasons for these criticisms vary from a lack of updating to a scarcity of information, or even because it does not exist such link.

Almost the totality of the journalists considers that the press link should be on the home page of the websites because of comfort and lack of time. in general, they are opposed to the idea that diocesan websites include information for journalists in restricted areas.

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Regarding specific elements of the press sections:1) Contact information provided by the websites is one of the first

elements appreciated or criticized by journalists. All kinds of personal contacts are important for journalists covering information about the diocese, particularly that of the heads of different ministries and de-partments. However, the most essential contact for them is the press officer, who is also the most trusted source of information to keep track of possible news coming from the diocese, over newsletters or diocesan media. Journalists generally agree that the website should in-clude email contacts, but prefer telephone contacts. Here are the an-swers of two American journalists working for international media, a commercial tV network and a Catholic radio, respectively:

- “A journalist tends to prefer personal contact. i would call the press officer before i would bother with the website. [...] A journalist, aside for checking a fact, a date, for example, does not check the website very much. there is no substitute for talking to the press office, or to the bishop himself. if i need some information, i don’t expect to find it on the dioc-esan website. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, i don’t know, but that’s the fact”.

- the important thing is to find “at least one good contact person you could deal with interview requests, etc.,” and “someone who answers the phone professionally and who knows what’s going on in the diocese”.

in this sense, some journalists complain that in some websites “contacts are buried in the website” (an American news agency jour-nalist), or that often the “first problem is to find a person, and after-wards, the one that you found doesn’t know anything” (a spanish news agency journalist). A suggestion coming from several journalists was including in the website the press officer’s cell phone and not just day-time work numbers, since office’s schedules do not coincide much with media timelines. Diocesan press officers should be aware that the most profitable media relations is being very clear and available. if the press officer is not available, journalists will search for their own contacts bypassing the bishop’s press officer.


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2) many journalists complain that some diocesan websites include an excessive amount of useless information, which make them not ap-pealing. in this sense, a spanish journalist said, “i would like the sites to be attractive, not old-fashioned or full of pious images. i’d like them to provide the essential information on the life of the local Church”, and a Colombian journalist requested that “they should offer clear, precise and non-rhetorical information”.

3) moreover, journalists disapprove the use that diocesan websites make of ecclesiastical language, many times “incomprehensible”, not available to the common faithful, and “written more for the bishop than for the common faithful”. in this sense, an italian journalist work-ing for a news agency ask them to explain “in a clear way the language of the Church, the rites, roles, liturgical functions, organization”.

in summary, the two main contents that press sections of diocesan websites should have, according to journalists and by order of impor-tance, are contact information of the staff members and press releases (official statements). moreover, all journalists are very interested in the biography of the bishop and in the history of the diocese. in this case, journalists do not usually want long texts, but prefer a basic fact-sheet of the diocese (population, churches, schools, clergy, religious institu-tions, etc.) as well as a timeline about the history of the diocese. other important elements that a complete press kit should include are:

- A FAQ section (frequently asked questions)- A glossary of liturgical words- A program of upcoming events and highlights from the dif-

ferent departments- interactive maps (like google) to get directions- Explanation of the role of diocesan offices- the history and presentation of the cathedral

3.2. Journalists’ Perspective on Webmasters’ Media Attitude

Journalists’ views on diocesan media relations change from one journalist to another. their comments may be grouped in four the-matic areas: a) differences among dioceses; b) conflictive relationship with the media; c) improvement in media relations of Church organi-zations; and d) journalists’ own faults.

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a) Differences among dioceses:many journalists point out that relationships with the media

greatly depend and vary according to the dioceses, up to the point that an irish journalist says that “for every good example, there is an equally bad example”.

A general assumption among media professionals is that large dio-ceses are usually more active in communications than small ones. A proof, said an italian journalist working in a Catholic news agency, is that dioceses with a stable and working communication office coin-cide with dioceses that have a good diocesan newspaper. indeed, the financial situation of the dioceses influences Catholic communication offices, especially regarding production. often, large dioceses have more possibilities for running professional websites because these “re-quire time, people and money” (spanish journalist working for a news agency).

nevertheless, taking care of the basic tasks of a diocesan website is not a financial problem but a matter of “sensibility,” since “it is not a big problem, even for a small diocese, to find someone who keeps the essential parts of the site updated” (italian journalist working for a non-confessional newspaper). in this sense, said a radio journalist, production aspects can be “worked around” because they are not a bur-den on the diocese but “an investment,” though it requires “balancing out the investments with the priorities”.

b) Conflictive relationships:Few journalists describe positively the attitude of press officers

towards the media. the great majority qualify the dioceses’ dealing with mass media as pretty poor. For example, an American journalist affirmed that “most (dioceses) do a pretty poor job, especially with the Catholic media [...]. in general, they tend to be uncooperative with the media, put them off, and act very coy when providing details”; and, according to an indian journalist, their media relations “remain at a minimal level”.

As a matter of fact, most of the journalists consider the relationship between diocesan press officers and the mass media as one of conflict. that view is more prevalent in journalists working for Catholic media, who put the blame on the media. A Brazilian journalist affirmed that


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the mass media “are generally ignorant, indifferent or partial with re-gard to Church information”, and an italian journalist assured that the few times that journalists search for information on diocesan websites is to search for a scandal or conflict, or for a curiosity. But there is no interest in listening to what the Church has to say”.

the reasons for that hostile relationship are, according to journal-ists, very different. they range from the effects that information on priests’ sexual scandals has had (as think several American journalists) to a common lack of transparency in the press offices, which makes them be “not completely trustworthy” (as says a spanish journalist).

However, journalists are overwhelmingly convinced that the main cause of mistrust is the Church officials’ lack of understanding of the journalistic profession. specifically, journalists consider that Church’s media people do not understand news values, are unfamiliar with me-dia constraints, see the media as a menace or an uncritical instrument to diffuse the message they want, are too protective of the Church and lack media training. Here are some clarifying examples of journalists’ opinions in this regard:

- A spanish journalist working for a national newspaper: “in general, Church people do not understand news values, among which negativity has an important component.” [...]. “Also, they do not understand media constraints” such as the fact that “the Church’s message is not easy to synthesize in journalistic texts,” or that a homily cannot be loaded several days after its delivery

- A mexican journalist working for a national news agency: “the journalist is seen as a menace, or sometimes as an un-critical instrument to diffuse the message they want”

- An Australian journalist working for an international Cath-olic radio: “in general i do not believe they deal with the media very well for a few main reasons. First, because they are ‘too’ Catholic and protective of the Church, i.e. scared of what the media might do; second, because they lack good media training, i.e. do not comprehend the needs, interest, timing or desire of the media”

- A British journalist working for a national newspaper: “i think they are a little nervous of us and have not yet, even in

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the modern era, understood how they can use us to get their message across”

- A Hungarian journalist working for a Catholic news agency: “Bishops and priests do not have good opinions about mass media and many times are afraid of it because of historical reasons”

- An American journalist working for a Catholic newspaper: “i think many dioceses are secretive, suspicious and occa-sionally have adversarial relationships with mass media”

According to an American journalist, this situation of permanent conflict and mistrust has negative consequences for the Church: “since journalists are naturally suspicious of people who put them off and tend to dig deeper when they feel like they are being shut down, it only makes it worse on a public relations stance when the press offices are uncooperative with the media”.

c) Improvement in Church organizations:in spite of the criticisms, many journalists realize that there is a

growing awareness and improvement among the Church’s press of-ficers with regard to the media.

- A spanish journalist working for a Catholic weekly: “From an initial mistrust, there is today a more efficacious coopera-tion with the mass media”

- A British journalist working for a Catholic news agency: “there is a greater awareness of the power and the impor-tance of the media for communicating their message. they realize that if somebody doesn’t talk to the media, the media in any case will write the story. so you have the option: either you talk and you try to ensure that your position is accurate and well reported, or you don’t talk and you miss the oppor-tunity for enlightening the journalist who, in any case, has probably got the right story with or without you. [...] Defini-tively, i feel that there is a growing consciousness of the need for making sure that your version of the facts is presented”

- An American journalist working for a Catholic newspaper: “i think they’re doing okay, but should be striving to in-crease transparency”


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- An American journalist working for a Catholic weekly: “Di-oceses have improved in this area over the last several years, but still have a long way to go to present a professional ap-proach to dealing with media”

the perception that journalists have regarding the effectiveness of email responses by diocesan officials is illuminating about their views of press officers’ attitudes and how these attitudes have improved. more than 55% of the interviewed journalists said they had emailed dioceses and almost all claimed to have received a reply. though a third of the journalists who had received a reply said that the answer arrived in two days and considered it too late because of the time-constraints of their journalistic work, they consider that the time response has improved notably in the last years.

the difficult and, at the same time, necessary relationships be-tween the diocesan press officers and the media urge journalists to make some recommendations to press officers to improve their pro-fessional bonds. specifically, journalists propose that Church media officers take better care of personal relationships with the counterparts of the non-confessional media, and select and communicate them only the messages that are worthwhile.

- A spanish journalist working for a Catholic weekly: “gener-ally, Catholic dioceses are not used to provide feedback and to ‘flatter’ journalists. By flattering journalists i do not mean to give in to all their petitions but taking care of the per-sonal relationships, call them to notify events, publications, and keep them informed. in sum, make the journalist feel that the institution is alive and interested in communicating itself, and not trying to sell smoke information [...]. many times dioceses do not do that not for bad will but because they do not realize [...]. other times the problem is just lack of education: if a journalist has called, one has to return that call, or reply an email, even if one cannot solve the prob-lem”

- An italian journalist working for a national newspaper: “An advice which can be given to all the responsible for the di-ocesan websites and press officers is to select very well the

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email messages to be sent, avoiding unnecessary communi-cations, especially when one of the problems for journalists is the amount of spam received in their inboxes. Diocesan press offices should only communicate when there is some-thing worthwhile to be communicated”

d) Journalists’ faults:some journalists recognize that part of the blame is on their side,

since many professionals do not have the necessary training to cover religion. sometimes, journalists write incorrectly about the Church because of laziness, prejudice or simply a lack of understanding of ec-clesial and ecclesiastical language. While many media require a deep preparation to work in sections like economics, politics, international affairs or even sports, they do not demand the same professional stan-dards for journalists covering religion. According to a spanish journal-ist working for a national newspaper, “there is a lack of knowledge [about religious issues] among journalists working in non-confessional outlets… some confound bishops with cardinals which, for Church people, sounds terrible.”

Another problem that diocesan press officers need to understand is the fact that journalists need to cover all kinds of events during week-ends, and young or inexperienced journalists must deal with complex issues that are not familiar with. Facing this situation, media officers should not distance themselves from media professionals, but should supply them the tools to help their reporting task.

4. Dealing with Journalists (for Church online Practitioners)

As it was explained in chapter two, if Church officials want their institution to be covered by the media, they need to make efforts to offer them complete and accurate information personally as well as in their institutional websites. the press offices and the websites’ sections dedicated to the media are inevitably influenced by the character and personality of their leadership, that is, the bishop. When the bishop is interested in keeping in touch with the media, he is also willing to give more support to media relations.


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Although media professionals crudely point out some of the defi-ciencies of diocesan websites, most of them recognize an improvement in the response to media requirements. the complaints and suggestions that journalists have regarding media relations on diocesan websites al-low us to synthesize four areas that website teams and Church practi-tioners may reinforce and improve: 1) a better understanding of media’s constraints; 2) supplying journalists more adequate tools to cover Church issues; 3) improving cooperation between media offices and website teams; and 4) making more online promotion of their websites.

1) Understanding journalists’ constraints.Relationships between the Church and the media are not always

easy. insofar as diocesan officials understand the constraints of media professionals, they will be able to develop a more fruitful relationship between the mass media and their own institution (Russell, mammos-er & maniscalco 1999). in this regard, three elements are particularly important in website communication when dealing with media profes-sionals: time, transparency and relevance.

- Time: Responding to media time constraints is not always possible or convenient for the institution. Reticence may be, sometimes, prudence. moreover, there are no two identical journalists and each one will need to be treated differently depending on the characteristics of his media outlet and his professional qualities. nevertheless, there is much room for improvement in Church communications, particularly among dioceses. Webmasters and media officers may to use all the means at their disposal for responding quickly to journalists’ reasonable requests. For example, online communiation can be very useful in distributing certain documents to journalists under embargo before there are publicly released (sending the documents by email, providing a password to access a reserved area, etc.). this activity facilitates the job of journalists, and responds to the fair request of informing the public as soon as possible. in this way, the institution helps journalists without losing control of the information. When a media outlet or a journalist does not respect the conditions of not publishing in-formation until it is publicly released, this shows that they are not trustworthy.

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- Transparency: there is no doubt that dioceses and Catholic institutions in general have to inform in the most transpar-ent way. the risk of lying is very grave, and when an institu-tion fails, it should rectify the situation immediately. How-ever, putting the institution in the situation of having to rectify mistakes is imprudent, and it becomes more imprudent as the seriousness of the situation increases. Constant rectifications do not necessarily indicate a higher level of professionalism because many rectifications mean that many errors have been committed. At the same time, transparency on the web has the same limits as in any other media: respect for the person, for the institution and for the common good. Journalists cannot expect diocesan officials to break the ethical principles that are required in any institution, not even during crises.

- Relevance: Diocesan websites are criticized by journalists for lacking of relevant information. nevertheless, diocesan offi-cials should keep in mind that what is relevant depends on both the sender and, most of all, the receiver. mass times may not be relevant to journalists, but they are very relevant to oth-er visitors.

the concept of news in an institution cannot be reduced to providing information that just happened or is happening, as some journalists would like. institutional news is also infor-mation that makes the institution known to the general pub-lic. Webmasters do not need to be concerned by the fact that journalists’ work does not coincide with the diocesan mission. Besides the appeal of the news in itself (conflict, originality, timeliness, etc.), the quality of the website’s news will depend on the unity between its content and the nature of the institu-tion. However, this is not contradictory to the fact that Church websites should make interesting what for them is important.

2) Supplying journalists with the necessary tools to cover diocesan in-formation.

Church officials often complain that non-confessional media pub-lish biased and partial information about the Church. many times this criticism is correct, but not always (Contreras 2004). Very significant was the answer of a journalist from a major newspaper in the uK who


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considered that Church officials “still seem a little lacking in direction at times and a bit shy of exploiting our willingness to write ‘good news’ about religion; something that has changed in the past decade but which all the churches have still not quite grasped”. Even excluding media outlets that are conditioned by ideological prejudices, many me-dia professionals lack the preparation and formation to cover religion. it goes beyond the objective of this study to analyze the causes of this deficiency, though it could be partially attributed to the secularization of modern culture, a trend from which journalists are not exempted. in any case, facing this situation, the reaction of diocesan media officers should not be to move away from the media and journalists but, on the contrary, to supply them with the necessary tools to overcome their lack of preparation, and help them in their reporting task. many possi-ble tools and actions are already offered by some diocesan media offices and websites. Keeping regular personal contact with journalists, being available to answer reasonable questions at any time, offering essential contact information and including glossaries of terms, for example, can complete and facilitate the comprehension of Church’s issues. these tools and activities are a useful service for journalists, which makes their job easier, helps them to be fairer, and results in increased insti-tutional communications effectiveness for the Church.

Among these tools, Church media officers should consider offer-ing a diversity of sources to the media. While the bishop is the main focus of attention for the media, communications activities of the di-ocese cannot be reduced to the communication skills of its bishop. not all bishops have the same communication qualities and there is a natural time limit to respond efficiently to all media queries. Dioc-esan communication offices should prepare spokespersons for different subject areas and train them to be able to respond to media requests of all kinds (interviews by email or telephone, interviews for radio and television, writing press releases, etc.).

3) Major collaboration between the website team and the communica-tions office is desirable for high quality media relations in Catholic dioceses.

Responsible for diocesan websites (webmasters) and directors of diocesan communication offices (PR or public affairs people, spokes-persons, etc.) often work apart from each other and have little contact between them. Certainly, both departments fulfill different commu-

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nication functions. While press offices are mainly concerned with re-sponding to media queries, webmasters focus on updating and main-taining the website. However, more communication between these two departments is advisable (Bel mallén 2004). many journalists begin their research from the internet, though they do not stop there, and it is necessary to offer them accurate information on the diocesan web-site, particularly through the press sections’ links.

Empowering both the website and the communications office with a higher degree of collaboration will improve the quality of their work. media officers may rely on the possibilities offered by the website team, which plays an essential role in making any information avail-able to press officers in appropriate formats (audio-video streaming, downloads, attractive graphic design, software requirements, etc.) and other aspects related to technology (e.g. online archives, background information in digital format, newsletters, etc.). Conversely, webmas-ters can take advantage of the input provided by the communication officers related to content and services (press dossiers, news and texts written in a short and attractive journalistic style) and to communica-tion strategies (goals, campaigns, “hot” topics, etc.).

the decision of unifying or separating the website department and the communications office will depend on the internal structure of the diocese, but the need for closer relationships demands regular and more comprehensive meetings at particular times of the year to plan future strategies and evaluate previous activities.

4) More online promotion of the website.the promotion of websites in other Catholic and religious web-

sites may highly elevate the visibility of the sites among journalists. in fact, journalists go to many website sources other than diocesan web-sites to talk about facts that affect the Church. 66% of the journalists said that they check Catholic websites other than diocesan websites “many times or frequently” to confirm information about the Catho-lic Church, and another 29% stated they do it “sometimes.” Among the most consulted Catholic websites by journalists are those of the Vatican, Catholic media (Zenit, Vatican Radio, National Catholic Re-porter, Fides, Asia News, etc.), bishop’s conferences, and other Catholic institutions. moreover, 27% said they consult religious non-Catholic


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websites “many times or frequently” when checking information on the Church, and 33% do it so “sometimes”. most significant is the fact that non-religious websites are consulted “many times or frequently” by 48% of the journalists and “sometimes” by another 41% of them. the main reason is, according to several media professionals, to gather “different” points of view and more complete information.

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CHAPtER 4

intERnEt CommuniCAtion in RELigious institutions

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Concrete, clear and comprehensive data, together with systematic studies of the internet use, which should not be limited only to – as it is often the case – descriptions of a few cases of “good practice”, are prerequisites to hold a systematic and constructive debate enabling one to reflect on the position of new information and communication technologies (iCt) in the Catholic Church. Among the first attempts to measure the use of the internet systematically in at least one of the significant institutional aspects of the activity of the Catholic Church were made by Zyga (2006) and Cantoni & Zyga (2007). the quantita-tive research conducted at that time comprised all institutes of conse-crated life in the Catholic Church and allowed to shed some light on behavior and attitude of the Catholic monastic institutes toward the internet as a tool for communication.

the aim of this chapter is to systematize those research results and to outline a panorama of internet use in institutes of consecrated life. one can define three factors describing the phenomenon: 1) degree of internet adoption and use (iAu); 2) kind of use; and 3) management and development. the author observes that it is slowly becoming clear for the majority of monastic institutes and convents that the question is not whether or not to implement the internet as a tool for commu-nication but how to organize communication exchanges with the use of the internet and which tools and services should be implemented in the process.

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1. the World studied: Where and How the Data Were gathered

the universe of research in this chapter are, thus, the institutes of Consecrated and Apostolic Life under papal law (further called mo-nastic institutes) and Autonomous Contemplative Convents (further called convents sui iuris) in the Catholic Church. We are, therefore, referring here to the Catholic monastic institutes, both (A; male) mo-nastic orders (266) and (B; female) convents (1,348), operating around the world that are not subordinated to the bishop of the diocese where their houses are based, but directly to the Vatican Congregation for institutes of Consecrated Life and Associations of Apostolic Life1. the universe also comprises all (C; female) autonomous contempla-tive convents (convents sui iuris) in the whole world (4,198), regardless of the degree of their autonomy with respect to other ecclesiastical institutions. Hence, we have a quite considerable institutional “area” of the Church, comprising 5,812 “organizational units”. For compari-son: there are “only” 2,670 dioceses in the world (Index Personarum Curiam Generalium 2003; Annuario Pontificio 2004). As far as monastic institutes under papal law are concerned (266 + 1,348 = 1,614), there are over one and a half thousand of such – to use words from the field of economy – “international companies”, which have their “branches” (monastic houses) often scattered around several continents. the or-ganizational complexity of some of the largest could be compared with important international bank networks. the society of Jesus (Jesuits), for instance, has over 1,750 houses all over the world, the salesians of Don Bosco (male) have 1,860 of them, and the salesian sisters of Don Bosco have over 1,540 houses. monastic institutes alone have over 12,000 houses (Annuario Pontificio 2007). For comparison: uni-Credit group, one of the largest European bank groups, has altogether around 10,300 branches2.

1 the institutes of Consecrated and Apostolic Life under papal law are directly and exclusively subordinated to the Holy see with respect to discipline and internal authorities of the institute; cf. canon 593 of the Code of Canon Law of the Latin Church (1983) and A. montana (2001, 184).

2 Data from: www.unicreditgroup.eu, 18.10.2008.

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to conduct a reliable and systematic quantitative study on such a large area, an adequate research method had to be designed. there existed, however, no reference point since no previous analysis with the same object and scope has ever been done. We shall not go into details of the methodology applied in our research, but at this point we would only like to mention that a method was designed, allowing (1) to reach every general house and every convent sui iuris in the world in posses-sion of at least an e-mail address, and (2) to verify the actual possibility to communicate with a particular monastic institute by means of this medium (e-mail), that is, 2,287 institutes and convents (A+B+C). the adopted strategy was statistical research using a questionnaire (sent exclusively via e-mail) as the main method to gather data.

the research questionnaire, translated in several languages and sent to all general houses of monastic institutes/convents and to au-tonomous convents (possessing e-mail account), consisted of 14 items. the first part was made of short multiple-choice questions whose pur-pose was to provide data on the level of advancement in internet use in a particular monastic environment. other items contained detailed questions to gather information about: 1) the management of the in-formation flow in the process of internet communication; 2) different usages of the internet; and 3) priorities of development of these means of communication in a particular monastic institute. specifically, the questionnaire comprised the following questions (problem areas):

1. Does your Congregation use the internet for communication?2. Do the members of your Congregation use the internet for private

purposes?3. For how long has the internet been used by your Congregation?

(information exchange between houses and/or members of the Congregation)

4. How many computers are connected to the internet?5. What kind of software do you use for the internet communica-

tion?6. Do you have your own web page?7. Do you have your own server?

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8. Do you have an intranet and/or extranet? (web page accessible for a limited group of people where every user has his/her own username and password)

9. Who manages the internet communication?10. What kind of activity do you perform using the internet?11. Do you use the internet in the official Congregational communica-

tion?12. to what kind of public do you address your internet communica-

tion?13. if your Congregation had to indicate the priority of the communi-

cation via the internet, what percentage of importance would you assign between: 1st letting know and presenting your Congregation for the general external public, 2nd developing internal communica-tion between the members of your Congregation

14. Data concerning your Congregation

the total efficiency of gathering data amounted to 19.1% answers, meaning 437 correctly filled-in four-page long questionnaires, which can be considered a very good result in this type of research (Cantoni & Zyga 2007, 294-295). the methodology used and the obtained re-sults allow us to deem the gathered data representative of the whole group of monastic institutes using the internet – even if only on the level of e-mail (data were consolidated by september 2004).

2. Cyberspace and the monastic World

the practices and attitudes of monastic congregations toward the use of internet space emerged to be so diversified that it is difficult to encapsulate them in a single one-sentence statement or to determine a clear-cut future trend of development of the medium in this environ-ment. this should, as a matter of fact, not be surprising as the monas-tic environment itself is not internally homogenous. in reality, each monastic institute differs from the others, even if only slightly, with respect to its own mission (charisma). if this was not the case there would not be as many of them. it would seem that what they all have in common are the vows, compatible with the three evangelical recom-mendations of poverty, obedience and chastity. the scope of activity


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to which they are devoted differs significantly among them. Hence the differences with respect to the relations with the outside world beyond their order or institute, which result in differing degree of internet adoption and use in their activity.

to systematize the results of the research and to outline a panora-ma of internet use in the environment of the institutes of consecrated life, one can define three factors describing the phenomenon and how the medium in question enters/finds acceptance in the monastic envi-ronment as a tool for communication in the Catholic Church. thus we distinguish between:

1. Degree of internet adoption and use: interest in a particular technology with no regard to its actual use

2. Kind of use: defining goals and fields of use of internet tech-nologies and frequency of their use. this is a criterion show-ing how and for what purpose particular internet services are used in monastic institutes

3. Management and development: priorities of development as well as people and factors having influence on the dynamics and use of the internet, also for communication manage-ment, in the studied environment

2.1. Inside or Outside the Internet: Degree of Internet Adoption and Use (IAU)

the first stage of iAu is having an e-mail account at one’s disposal. it is the first and most basic internet service. From this moment on we can talk about “being in” the net, although such presence in the internet is somewhat “temporary”. the net serves here as a kind of temporary deposit box for a message which should reach its addressee. once the message reaches its destination, it is, in most cases, deleted from the net. it takes only a couple of minutes to send or collect a message sent to one’s e-mail account, even if the message is of considerable size. Having an e-mail account at one’s disposal allows us, nonetheless, to talk about possibility of using the internet as a tool for communication.

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Figure 3. Possesion of an email adress

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Monastic orders

Convents

Convents sui iuris

87,2%

69,0%

26,7%

12,8%

31,0%

73,3%

Monastic ordersConventsConvents sui iuris

Having an e-mail 87,2%69,0%26,7%

without an e-mail 12,8%31,0%73,3%

Possession of an e-mail

Figure 3 shows that almost all monastic orders (A) have an e-mail account at their disposal. they use the internet at least in the form of institutional e-mail (87.2%). in case of convents (B), the vast major-ity (69.0%) also accept the internet as a tool for communication. the situation in convents sui iuris (C) is just the opposite. Almost three-fourths (73.3%) of contemplative orders do not use the internet as a channel of communication, not even on the level of e-mail.

the above-mentioned facts seem to justify the thesis that the in-ternet in the environment of contemplative convents sui iuris has not yet found acceptance not only as a tool for communication, but it is also rather coldly and distrustfully received, even if only limited to the form of an e-mail. moreover, from the answers to the question “Do the members of your congregation use the internet for private purposes?” it ap-pears that there are cases (5.3%) where the superior of an autonomous convent openly declares that it is forbidden (or only possible with the superior’s consent) to use the internet (limited to the form of an e-mail) for private purposes. such answers might imply that the internet in many contemplative convents (“closed” to the outside world) is sim-ply not accepted.


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in fact, on the one hand such reaction is understandable as con-templative life in its nature is characterized by separation from the world and all its hustle and bustle; it centers on prayer and contempla-tion of the gospel. on the other hand, convents maintain, even if lim-ited, necessary contact with the outside world. For instance, to receive intentions for masses from those who need spiritual support, or to sell the fruits of their labors, which are necessary as the source of their finances for living (working is deemed necessary and prescribed by the rule so the nuns produce different sorts of things, e.g. icons, liturgical vestments, altar bread, sweets or cheese). on its own website a convent can place a catalog of its products with an e-mail address without dis-turbing the silence of contemplation or daily routine.

it is a fact that the internet has entered the environment of con-vents sui iuris (C) relatively recently, later than other monastic insti-tutes (A+B), and that – on average – the beginning of its use can be dated around may 2000, which is why its limited use, as yet, can be considered justified. it is, moreover, worth noting that among the re-maining monastic institutes of a so-called active charisma which op-erate around the world (A+B) not all have an e-mail account at their disposal, and in the environment of convents (B) the field of absence amounts to 31%.

At this point it is worth adding that the internet has by no means been a recent innovation in the world of consecrated life in gener-al. the medium has been in use in monastic institutes and convents (A+B) since the year 1998.

Another interesting parameter of iAu, of presence inside the in-ternet, is the running of one’s own website. in case of this internet ser-vice the net serves as a permanent deposit box for pieces of information placed on one’s “own” server, available for a potential user 24 hours a day. it can, thus, be said that we are no longer dealing with temporary “being in” the internet but with permanent presence and availability of information via website.

Among religious institutes (monastic orders and convents, A+B) that have an e-mail account, those which have their own website or are thinking of having one constitute up to 90%. Convents sui iuris (C) are still a few steps behind, reaching the level of 58%.

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Figure 4. Possession of a website

0,0%

20,0%

40,0%

60,0%

80,0%

100,0%

Monastic orders Convents Convents sui iuris

78,7%

62,1%

15,5%

90,3% 90,0%

58,0%


all institutes in the world 78,7% 62,1% 15,5%

institutes having an e-mail 90,3% 90,0% 58,0%

Possession of a website

However, if we take all Catholic religious institutes as a point of reference – not only those that at least have an e-mail account – the percentage of those having a website changes substantially. Among all autonomous convents (convents sui iuris, C), those which have their own website constitute only 15.5%. this seems to support the thesis that the internet can hardly find acceptance in this environment. it is not hard to notice that the ratio of website owners, in particular groups of monastic institutes and convents worldwide, is quite similar to that of e-mail own-ers. the same values measured in relation only to institutes and convents using the internet (having at least e-mail at disposal) do not change the ranking established earlier. it can, thus, be said that in institutes where e-mail has already been “domesticated” new technologies connected with building and possession of websites also “move in”.

moving on to more advanced technologies requiring permanent technical service, one can notice a deceleration of the tendency for de-velopment. this is clearly visible with respect to intranet (meant as a site accessible only to authorized users and protected with a password) and to the question about possession of one’s own internet server. in such cases it seems more reasonable to show the level of disinterest in “being in” the net, which also seems to be a better reflection of reality. Even if an outright, explicit conclusion about disapproval of the internet might


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be unsubstantiated, one can definitely risk an opinion about general dis-interest in communication by means of this medium. information ex-change between institutes, houses or among the members of a particular congregation still seems to rely mainly on e-mail rather than on plac-ing relevant data on an intranet site accessible only to authorized users. the reason for the disinterest in having one’s own internet server can be the large number of internet providers offering very low and competi-tive prices (which is the case at least in Europe) for a range of services, including intranet, without the necessity of having one’s own server. the device can be leased with comprehensive service also provided. Consider-ing contemporary technological advancements, it is more convenient to leave the management of hardware with specialists and to devote oneself to the obligations resulting from the institute’s own mission (charisma).

the Figure 5 shows that the total of negative answers showing disinterest in intranet is very large; in the case of convents sui iuris (C) it is over 90% (almost the whole group). this fact is not particularly surprising as every convent sui iuris, being autonomous, has neither any obligation nor necessity to exchange information with other convents, even of the same rule, on a broad scale. moreover, if we take into con-sideration the fact of leading contemplative life and limiting contacts with the outside world, the disinterest in having an intranet or one’s own server seems its logical consequence.

Figure 5. Disinterest in possession of a server/an intranet

0,0%

20,0%

40,0%

60,0%

80,0%

100,0%


64,7%73,6%

91,5%

56,1%70,7%

96,5%


server 64,7% 73,6% 91,5%

intranet 56,1% 70,7% 96,5%

Disinterest in possession of a server/an intranet

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2.2. Inside the Internet (How, Where and Why?): Reflections on the Kind of Use

the very fact of existence in any reality requires further specifica-tion, that is to say an answer to a simple question: “how?”. the ques-tion is easier asked than answered. in reference to the physical reality that surrounds us we can talk about the so called “form of existence”. in reference to the virtual reality, which is of interest here (it is, after all, a very real part of our world – one of its, even if impalpable, dimen-sions allowing us to communicate with real people of flesh and blood), this “form of existence” is manifested by the use of various internet services and possibilities of the net. Let us now, therefore, examine how this “being”, the existence in the net translates into the use of such communication devices as e-mail, intranet and peer-to-peer software.

E-mail is most frequently used for fast flow of information and official announcements, the majority of which are urgent and impor-tant messages (over 85% of the answers). this medium, thus, serves as a kind of “emergency service” used when an important, urgent message has to be sent and the traditional means of communication are not fast enough. the medium is generally used both to communicate with the houses of an own institute/convent (over 88% of answers) and with other congregations (over 50% of answers). the further we go outside the world of consecrated life, the greater the distance, that is to say: the higher position of an institution in the administrative hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the rarer use of e-mail. E-mail is used to communicate with curias (congregation’s governments) only by 20%, congregation and with the offices of the Holy see by 10% of answers. this fact is actually easy to explain. in case of communication with the bishop or with the Holy see (we are talking about institutes under papal law here, which are, thus, highly independent of bishops) the gravity of cases usually requires documents of incontrovertible authen-ticity to be used. in the year 2004, when the research was conducted, hardly any of the above mentioned institutions was using a qualified electronic signature. the communication via e-mail, therefore, was limited to sending announcements, newsletters and materials concern-ing consecrated life in general, and so it remains.

Websites have, above all, the function of a shop window present-ing a particular institute in general. it seems that it is the main role


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of this mode of communication in almost half of the cases. it is very rare that a website has a form of an internet portal, which allows entry into virtual space on the subject of consecrated life or Christianity in general. interactive services such as chat (only 2 cases) or forum (only 13 cases: 4 in monastic orders, 7 in convents, 2 in convents sui iuris) are also rare, even though the latter – if well managed – could be an interesting form of communication, which would provide answers to concrete, precise problems and queries. since monastic environment generally does not use an intranet, public websites take over some of its functions as far as particular information pieces can be made public; for this reason such sites are a space for exchanging information and announcements addressed mainly to members of a certain institute or people closely connected to them, such as e.g. information about tak-ing holy orders, monastic vows or about deaths.

the interest in intranet, as mentioned earlier, is on a very low level, which is reflected in its rare use, occurring rather in monastic orders 20.7% (A) and convents, 9.5% (B), while convents sui iuris (C) are generally not at all interested in this technology (only 2.3%). the main activity for which an intranet is used is the access to documents and information restricted only to members of a particular congrega-tion (over 50% of those having an intranet). use of the intranet for educational purposes (e-learning) occurs in a few single cases: 3 cases among monastic orders (male, A), 3 among convents (female, B) and one among convents sui iuris (female, C). such poor interest can be connected with weak e-learning implementation in teaching theology and related disciplines. the only university with an approval of the Holy see to implement internet assisted theology teaching is the insti-tut superior de Ciències Religioses of Barcelona, spain. the institute received the accreditation by the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education to start the second cycle of teaching (master studies)3. We

3 “El día 2 de julio de 2003 la Congregación para la Educación Católica aprobó que el ISCREB (Instituto Superior de Ciencias Religiosas de Barcelona) pueda impartir los estu-dios de Ciencias Religiosas de forma mixta, alternando la enseñanza virtual con la presen-cial. [...] El 31 de enero de 2008 el ISCREB recibió la autorización para impartir estudios de segundo ciclo en la modalidad virtual con lo cual a partir del curso 2008-2009 empezamos a cursar los estudios de Màster en Ciencias Religiosas por Internet.” see www.iscreb.org/castellano/iscreb_virtual/iscreb_v_default.htm. Last access: 02.11.2008.

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can, thus, talk about a slow development of theological e-learning, which we wish to bear fruit and to promote the technology in the en-vironment of monastic institutes and convents. E-learning seems, as a matter of fact, particularly useful for this environment, especially for convents sui iuris (C) leading contemplative life and remaining within the confines of their buildings, as it makes theological professional formation possible without having to leave the place.

the last aspect of our reflections about the “mode of existence” of monastic institutes in the net refers to peer-to-peer software. the use of these means of communication occurs only in few cases. However, one has to notice that there are monastic institutes/convents which organize video (or audio) conferences among the general house and provincial houses (three cases among monastic orders and two among convents). these are, nonetheless, notable exceptions, whose extensive descriptions could distort the overall picture of the monastic environ-ment. Yet, taking into consideration the development in the use of the net in e.g. internet telephony and the technology called VoiP (Voice over internet Protocol) for mobile phones, one can expect higher de-gree of openness to the services connected with peer-to-peer com-munication.

summing up the afore-mentioned aspects of the “form of exis-tence” in the internet one can notice that more advanced technolo-gies, either from the side of hardware (own internet server) or software (use of the net to create an intranet for internal communication) enter the scope of interest of monastic institutes and convents quite slowly. the reason for such a state of affairs may be not so much the distrust with respect to such way of communication but the necessity to meet the technical requirements and skills required to create, animate, and permanently service the intranet and/or server. Quite frequently, mo-nastic institutes and convents do not have at their disposal own mem-bers who could manage technical duties and have to avail themselves of companies or people from the outside (as we shall observe in the course of this chapter), which requires additional financial resources.


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2.3. Inside the Internet (Animation Process): Management and Development

it is a truth universally acknowledged that “to have” is not identi-cal with “to use”, and certainly not with “to be able to use properly”. one can have a car but no driver’s license. one can even have a driv-er’s license but feel unsure behind the wheel. By the same token, one can have internet tools of communication (e.g. an e-mail account) or manifest one’s existence in the cyberspace (e.g. have an own website) but collect e-mail messages only once a month and update the website as “often” as every six months. it is, thus, reasonable to ask about the purpose of “being” inside the internet or, in other words, to ask who manages the tools of communication and what their priorities are.

With regard to the management of internet technologies, two is-sues were raised: (1) management and service of technical infrastructure and (2) management and animation of the communication process. the first issue did not cause any difficulty in answering. the tendency is that monastic institutes (A) are based generally on their own human resources (60.9%), while convents (B) require the help of specialists from the outside (commercial companies were used in 56.1% cases), and autonomous convents (C) use lay-helpers connected in some way with the convent (61.9%). the necessity of taking care of the techni-cal infrastructure – either from the side of hardware or software – is understandable, as long-term negligence in this field usually results in making any communication (via the infrastructure in question) impos-sible. one can say, using a parallel from the world of motorization, that it is possible to drive a car without servicing it regularly (diagnostic tests, oil change and change of other elements like spark plugs, filters or brake blocks) but one has to take into account the possibility of a rude awakening in the middle of a freeway when the car stalls. Fortu-nately, everyone in the world of consecrated life realizes this and takes care of the technical infrastructure connected with the internet.

the second aspect of internet communication management, namely the animation of the communication process, however, was not so obvious to the respondents. the issue of management or anima-tion of the process of communication as such caused quite a surprising lack of ability to give any answer. over one third of all respondent institutes ignored the question, a case that did not occur regarding the

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question about technical service. From the answers received on further requests to explain why there was no answer for this part of the ques-tion it follows that while the necessity to take care of the technical infrastructure seems indisputable, the necessity to manage the process of communication as well is not perceived. the term “animation of communication process” itself was unclear to many respondents. in about a third of cases there was no person responsible for animation of communication, which was left solely to those who manage the techni-cal infrastructure. it can be said that the environment of consecrated life does not realize that technology alone, without the human fac-tor, without promotion, without the right training and culture of use, cannot guarantee that communication exchanges take place (Bolchini, Cantoni & Arasa 2004; Cantoni & tardini, 2006; Cantoni & Zyga 2007, 304; Zyga 2008, 158). there always has to be a person in the background to take care of the process.

management of the communication process requires setting pri-orities for the use of the internet within a specified policy of develop-ment. setting these priorities is necessary to make the panorama of in-ternet communication in religious institutions outlined here complete. Consequently, respondents were asked about their developing interests in the possibilities of the net and virtual space. monastic institutes and convents had to declare if they were interested only in (1) building and developing their websites and thus in just beginning to exist in the net, or (2) if their main stress was put onto the use of this medium as a space for communication and on the use of technological features of the net for this purpose. in other words, what is meant here is a certain strategic vision: either passive – to exist in virtual reality of the net by hanging one’s own “door plate” in there – or active – virtual space of the net seen as a dynamic channel of communication, external and internal, within an institution. one cannot, of course, ignore a third possibility (3), that is to say about those “in between”, undecided, who either did not make a decision and declare to be “at the crossroads” (50/50%) or did not think about their priorities.

in our discussion about the priorities for use of the cyberspace for communication one should also not forget the possibility of limiting the communication only to the level of e-mail (4). it is, admittedly, quite a reduced mode of “being” in the net since it means making use of only one


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communication service. it is, however, a very important one, as it “lib-erates” the process of communication not only from spatial constraints (this can be done by means of ordinary telephone) but also from time constraints (a message “waits” until the addressee is able to read it).

Figure 6. Communicational priorities

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Monastic orders

Convents

Convents sui iuris

23,2%

20,0%

15,0%

20,7%

23,5%

14,8%

32,9%

16,7%

9,0%

15,9%

32,4%

54,2%

7,3%

7,4%

7,0%

Communicational priorities

visible (in the net) 50/50% tool for communication only e-mail without answer

the obtained results favor the use of the net as a tool for com-munication only in the group of monastic orders (A, one third of all answers), showing a large number of those undecided (50/50%) among all monastic institutes/convents, which have not yet defined their strat-egy concerning the internet and its use in their congregation. one can notice a clearly different tendency among convents sui iuris (C), which diverge substantially from the other monastic institutes and convents, declaring in more than 50% of cases their interest in using the internet only on the level of e-mail. this result confirms the above presented thesis that the internet in the environment of contemplative autono-mous convents has either not found acceptance as a tool for communi-cation or is often being limited only to the form of e-mail.

the reflection on management and development concerning the use of the internet, especially in monastic orders (A) and convents (B), presented in this paragraph has led us to the following conclusion: it

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is slowly becoming clear for the majority of monastic institutes and convents that the question is not whether or not to implement the inter-net as a tool for communication but how to organize communication exchanges with the use of the internet and which tools and services should be implemented in the process (Zyga 2006, 37-39).

3. invalidation of misconceptions

Quantitative studies are, by nature, bound to provide a very large amount of numerical data. Readers of this text, who have already fa-miliarized themselves with a lot of numbers on the topic presented here, have in fact seen only a small part of the data necessary to paint the picture with the title: internet communication in religious institutions. Among the “trees” called numbers and rates one can fail to see the “for-est” of relevant connections and interdependencies or, on the contrary, find some which do not actually exist. it is, therefore, useful – in order to avoid jumping to conclusions or overlooking important dependen-cies, and to verify widespread misconceptions – to verify if statistically significant correlations bind specific parameters, for instance to deter-mine whether the charisma (mission) or the area on which a congrega-tion operates influences the mean number of computers in its houses.

Among the most popular stereotypes or myths concerning the in-ternet are:

1) the age influences the use of the internet: younger people use the internet more often

2) Larger and more (geographically) widespread institutions (having many branches over large area) favor communication via the inter-net while smaller institutions do not

3) the internet is more often used by men, as they are more technically literate than women

taking into consideration the data about internet adoption and use, implementation of more advanced technologies, websites and their management or priorities for the development of the internet, one could conclude: female religious institutions (convents and convents sui iuris, B+C) are always a step (or even a few steps) behind monastic


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orders (male, A). this would seem to confirm the third stereotype by pointing out that male congregations find it easier to implement the internet for their needs and are more open to it than female congre-gations. A more detailed analysis, however, proves that the degree of internet implementation is not determined by gender.

Every religious institution has its charisma (own mission), i.e. a particular scope of activity – often even more than one – to which its members are devoted. these charismas define the identity of a given monastic institute/convent. they are, therefore, not just important but they determine the way of life of institute/convent members, their at-titude to work and to the outside world, and can, thus, be divided into (1) active and (2) contemplative. the latter are characterized by con-templative life subject to enclosure within the walls of a convent, where the nuns spend their time on prayer and work and are maximally sepa-rated from the outside world. this group of charismas is represented by convents sui iuris (C). Looking from this perspective, the reduction of necessary contacts with the outside world to absolute minimum by these convents is not surprising. therefore, communication via the in-ternet (should it be considered useful) will be dominated by e-mail, and a website (if existing) will be of purely informative nature, reflect-ing the physical reality of the convent in the virtual reality. thus, it can be said that the low degree of internet implementation in convents sui iuris is not primarily determined by the gender of their members but by their contemplative charisma.

Active charismas, vastly represented by both monastic orders (male, A) and convents (female, B), have diverse scopes of activity, e.g.: working with immigrants or emigrants, with the sick, the poor, in the field of education or evangelization (missionaries). members of such congregations often combine active life with contemplation.

the research on statistical correlations between charisma of par-ticular institutes and the degree of iAu shows relevant interdependen-cies. in cases of relationship between the charisma of working with poor and abandoned persons and the number of computers in one house the research shows clear negative values both in cases of male institutes and female convents (Zyga 2006; Cantoni & Zyga 2007). that means that it is not the gender of members but the charisma of a particular institute/convent which influences the attitude towards the

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internet. An even more detailed analysis of correlations in all charismas allows to go further and risk a statement that it is not the charisma itself which influences the iAu but the economic characteristics of the target group at which the activity of a monastic institute or convent is directed. in fact, after providing food for the hungry, clothes for the poor, or medicines for the sick, who can think of buying or upgrad-ing computer systems necessary to use the internet? Furthermore, if we assume that monastic institutes/convents of the afore-mentioned charisma mostly operate in developing countries, where the internet is not so easily available, the fact of placing the internet low on the list of priorities is understandable.

the above-mentioned arguments still do not fully answer the question why the data shows that convents (female) are a step behind monastic orders (male). the explanation for this state of affairs turns out to be quite simple. Looking at charismas declared by monastic or-ders and convents one notices that a large percentage (41.3%) of con-vents (B) declare working among sick persons, as well as with poor and abandoned persons (31.3%); much more often than monastic orders (A, respectively 12.2% and 20.7%). it is, thus, visible that members of convents work significantly more often in the socio-economic area which does not favor the use of the internet but ranks it as less impor-tant among other, more basic needs.

Figure 7. Missions of male and female institutes

0,0%

10,0%

20,0%

30,0%

40,0%

50,0%

60,0%

education missionary the poor the sick immigrants contemplation

58,5%

46,3%

20,7%

12,2%8,5%

18,3%

44,1%

58,7%

31,3%

41,3%

7,8%10,6%

Different mission of male institutes (A) and female ones (B)(more answer were allowed)

Monastic Orders (male) Convents (female)


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internet. An even more detailed analysis of correlations in all charismas allows to go further and risk a statement that it is not the charisma itself which influences the iAu but the economic characteristics of the target group at which the activity of a monastic institute or convent is directed. in fact, after providing food for the hungry, clothes for the poor, or medicines for the sick, who can think of buying or upgrad-ing computer systems necessary to use the internet? Furthermore, if we assume that monastic institutes/convents of the afore-mentioned charisma mostly operate in developing countries, where the internet is not so easily available, the fact of placing the internet low on the list of priorities is understandable.

the above-mentioned arguments still do not fully answer the question why the data shows that convents (female) are a step behind monastic orders (male). the explanation for this state of affairs turns out to be quite simple. Looking at charismas declared by monastic or-ders and convents one notices that a large percentage (41.3%) of con-vents (B) declare working among sick persons, as well as with poor and abandoned persons (31.3%); much more often than monastic orders (A, respectively 12.2% and 20.7%). it is, thus, visible that members of convents work significantly more often in the socio-economic area which does not favor the use of the internet but ranks it as less impor-tant among other, more basic needs.

Figure 7. Missions of male and female institutes

0,0%

10,0%

20,0%

30,0%

40,0%

50,0%

60,0%

education missionary the poor the sick immigrants contemplation

58,5%

46,3%

20,7%

12,2%8,5%

18,3%

44,1%

58,7%

31,3%

41,3%

7,8%10,6%

Different mission of male institutes (A) and female ones (B)(more answer were allowed)

Monastic Orders (male) Convents (female)

the hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that among the congre-gations which do not use the internet at all (i.e. do not even have an e-mail address), the charisma of working with poor and abandoned persons applies to 38% of monastic orders (male) and to as many as 65% of convents (female). moreover, many convents that are involved in educational or missionary activity do their activity with poor social groups.

With regard to the two remaining misconceptions that, 1) the age influences the use of the internet: younger people use the internet more often; and 2) larger and more (geographically) widespread institutions (having many branches over large areas) favor communication via the internet while smaller institutions do not, the explanation seems to be even simpler. many correlations between various parameters of iAu – such as possession of an e-mail account, a website, number of com-puters in one house, priorities for the development of the internet, etc. – and features like: the mean age of members, the size of the institute (the number of members and houses around the world), geographic distribution (the number of geographic areas where the institute oper-ates), were checked but none of them showed statistical relevance.

As far as the age of internet users (internet as a tool for commu-nication) is concerned, some cases of behavior opposite to the wide-spread stereotype are observed. it is the older, retired monks (the age of retirement is 75, according to the Code of Canon Law) who are truly willing to use e.g. e-mail to correspond with their fellow monks or with their friends from other institutes in which they used to work. they are, owing to their age, not always able to travel, and it is the internet that makes it possible for them to remain in touch with their friends and acquaintances, regardless of the distance between them (be it a neighboring city or other continent).

4. Conclusions and Future Perspectives

to sum up the panorama of internet use in institutes of conse-crated life outlined here, it can be stated that the environment is not far removed from the reality of the contemporary world with respect to the use of the medium. monastic institutes and convents are not a

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“white patch” on the internet map of the world but constitute a part of it, at the same time retaining the uniqueness of their own mission and way of life. their structure resembles a model of a “post-industrial” institution, even though their beginnings reach back to the first ages of Christianity and are, thus, older than the typology referred to here (Bates 2001, 58-65). if we consider a general house of a congregation to be a headquarters of an organization and compare provincial houses scattered around many continents, together with numerous ordinary houses subordinated to them, with regional branches of an organiza-tion, what we get is a structure of a modern international corporation.

in the organizational structure of monastic institutes/convents each house has its own particular character different from other houses. the conditions found on various continents and in various countries – de-termined by culture, climate, history or geography – make differentia-tion of requirements with respect to members of a particular congrega-tion necessary in order to enable them to carry out the congregation’s own mission (charisma). if we use economic terms here, we can talk about products personalized in accordance with specific needs of local markets. the congregation as a whole retains a uniform rule and cha-risma but its structure makes “professional flexibility” possible, as well as fast adjustment to the needs of the people where a particular local monastic house/convent operates. As far as exchange of information and fast, efficient communication between particular houses and the general house is concerned, the internet is used inasmuch as different conditions determined by the level of economic development in differ-ent regions of the world make the medium available. it is important to bear in mind that for monastic institutes/convents the development of communication via the internet is not a goal in itself but a tool used only when it helps to carry out the congregation’s own mission, which is always put highest in the hierarchy of the congregation’s values.

in our attempt to draw some clear conclusions and to sum up the panorama of internet communications in religious institutions, we risk a statement that there are basically two factors, which condition and structure the whole policy of internet use in the environment of con-secrated life and which allow to place it among other priorities for ac-tions and development:


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· the degree of openness/closeness to the outside world· the socio-economic conditions in which a particular cha-

risma of consecrated life is realized

the first factor is the degree of openness to contacts with the out-side world resulting from the institution’s own nature. it would, there-fore, be appropriate to divide the institutes into those operating an “open door” policy to the outside world, that is, active in a given local society, and those who operate “behind closed doors” having a contem-plative nature, whose members, in more or less rigorous (depending on the rule) isolation from society, devote themselves exclusively to prayer and contemplation, as it is the case of autonomous convents. such dis-tinction, between open and closed relationship with the outside world, can explain the differences in iAu between monastic institutes and convents (A+B) and convents sui iuris (C).

the second factor affecting development of communication via the internet – especially among the institutes operating an “open door” policy to the outside world (A+B) – depends on the economic condi-tions in which a particular charisma of consecrated life is realized. if one has to provide food for the hungry, clothes for the poor, or medi-cines for the sick, one does not think of buying or upgrading computer systems as a priority. the influence of economic characteristics of the target group at which the activity of a monastic institute or convent is directed would, therefore, have substantial meaning in creating a technological basis for this kind of communication – the basis that is a condition sine qua non for its existence. the large number of con-vents (B) operating among poor people could explain why these insti-tutes are generally a step behind monastic institutes (A), which are to a much higher degree involved in the field of missionary activity and evangelization.

Let us now try to anticipate what the future might bring with respect to the use of the internet in religious institutions. At the time when first studies of the state of internet communications in the envi-ronment of monastic institutes/convents were conducted only 26.7% of convents sui iuris (=houses) had an e-mail account, not to mention other possible ways of using the internet, such as an own website.

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According to data from the Pontifical Congregation for institutes of Consecrated Life, at the end of the year 2007 at least 46.1% of au-tonomous convents had an e-mail account at their disposal. this is an interesting sign for the future with regard to development of internet communication even among enclosed institutes, as well as a reason more to conduct further systematic comparative research.

Part III

CaSeS

in this section, fifteen cases are offered. the case approach is particularly interesting here because detailed and reliable data are still needed in order to build up more comprehensive theo-ries and models. All data have been checked by the beginning of 2009.

Cases have been selected to cover quite a wide area of ap-plications – both among ecclesiastical organizations and differ-ent Catholic media – and various geographical areas. naturally, also opportunity plaid a role in finalizing the list: while adding a few not previously planned cases and giving up when websites’ managers did not answer our requests or were not able to send their cases by the due date. needless to say, they are just a few exemplificative cases, among so many others equally interesting.

Almost all the cases have been written by communication directors or their close collaborators, and all of them have been approved by the concerned organization. Beside being a great advantage – case writers do disclose data which have not been published yet – this could be also a problem, due to a lack of distance between cases’ authors and their case. through at least two editorial exchanges, we tried to reduce that problem, asking the writers to add pieces of info, or to clarify some parts. in ad-dition, all cases had to follow the same – quite rigid – template, mapped onto the WCm, in order to cover all relevant aspects

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and to facilitate the reader in going through them and in comparing different cases.

in fact, different case writers have stressed some aspects, or did not provide extensive data on other areas: this may be due to different background cultures and experiences, levels of maturity when it comes to online communication, as well as to different policies on data dis-closure.

the structured list of cases can be found in the table of contents, while table 4 presents the case template submitted to web managers.

Table 4. Template for cases sent to web managers

Paragraph title Goal Max length

Contacts Name of the Institution, website address, case study’s author, his/her role/position and email

Abstract Summarizes the case, outlining its main characteristics and peculiarities Max 100 words

The institution Brief presentation of the entity behind the website.Please, present goals, history, hard facts and figures Max 400 words

Origins and goals of the website

Brief history and goals of the website, making it clear how it does fit into the overall organization’s goals and strategy Max 100 words

Contents and services

Essential outline of the website structure, contents and services available. Please, avoid technicalities and description of page layout

Max 500 words

Users and usages

Presentation of the key publics, and hard data about their actual usages of the website.Please, clearly distinguish between goals and results.Make it clear how figures have been obtained and calculated (e.g.: have internal accesses, or spider visits been filtered out?).One or two anecdotes can be offered if truly helpful to understand the website communication

Max 600 words

Up to three tables / graphics may be added, if clearly relevant

Who’s behind the website?

Presentation of the website team: its qualifications, organization and procedures of work, as well as its position within the wider organizational chart.Presentation of other resources (money, outsourcing, etc.)

Max 400 words

Future projects If possible, give a hint on future developments and trends Max 100 words

Bibliography If there are publications about the website, please list them

A. ECCLEsiAstiCAL oRgAniZAtions

A.1. the Holy seeA.1.1. The VaticanA.1.2. Congregation for the ClergyA.1.3. RIIAL - Information Network of the Church in Latin America

A.2. Bishops’ ConferencesA.2.1. CEI - Italian Bishops’ ConferenceA.2.2. CELAM - Latin American Episcopal Conference

A.3. Dioceses and PrelaturesA.3.1. Archdiocese of MadridA.3.2. Prelature of Opus Dei

A.4. Congregations and movementsA.4.1. Congregation of Missionaries of St. Charles - ScalabriniansA.4.2. Communion and Liberation

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A.1.1. tHE VAtiCAn

ContactName of the Institution: The VaticanWebsite address: www.vatican.vaCase’s author: Judith Zoebelein

Role/position: Founder, Director and New Projects Developer, 1995-2006

Abstract

the Holy see (Vatican) website was begun in 1995 when institu-tional Catholic websites were few and the idea of using the world wide web as a tool for evangelization was an emerging concept. Having the Holy Father John Paul ii take the lead by allowing himself and his words to be offered on the internet provided a model and in a sense a kind of approval for the Church to utilize the internet for the purpose of reaching Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

the Vatican website has become a means to promulgate the teach-ings of the Church by publishing the documents of the Holy Fathers and the magisterium. it also gives space for each Vatican office to include documents and other materials relative to their particular mis-sion and function in the Roman Curia.

over the years it grew to include a search engine modified to find Catholic themes, the daily Bulletin of the Press office as well as an under-embargo site for journalists, Vatican information service’s daily news summary, Vatican Radio programs, Vatican television Center’s direct coverage of Papal events in video streaming online, virtual vis-its to places within the Vatican and an early attempt at e-Learning.

the site maintains its multi-lingual capacity by providing naviga-tion in 7 languages and documents themselves in approximately 9 or 10 different languages including some in Arabic and Chinese.

the institution

the site www.vatican.va was named and registered by the Pon-tifical Council for social Communication and became the Holy see’s “virtual home” for internet users. Although the site includes the Vati-

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can City state, it was determined from the very beginning that it must represent the larger entity of the Holy see which includes the Holy Father and the magisterium and the teachings of the Church over the centuries and the Holy see’s presence throughout the world. the mis-sion to evangelization on the internet needs to be global in its design and execution. At the moment of the institution of the internet office of the Holy see the domain registration passed from the Pontifical Council for social Communications to the secretariat of state, who remains as the final authority for its content until today.

the site would never have happened except for the incredible vi-sion and foresight of Pope John Paul ii, who from the very beginning supported and promoted the use of the internet for evangelization, recognizing its power in the mission of the “new Evangelization” of those who had somehow left Christianity.

origins and goals of the Website

the initial goal was to present the more well-known speeches and messages of the Holy Father and thereby determine, by the reaction of internet users, what to place on the site based on which pages were being requested.

the history dates back to Christmas of 1995. it was determined that we would publish one picture of John Paul ii and at noon of Christmas Day, put his Urbi et Orbi message for Christmas online. it created a world-wide stir with articles in major newspapers around the globe marveling at the mix of the age-old institution of the Vatican brought together with the latest technology of the internet. in a large part, though, it was an interest in the Church and the Holy Father, coming from the local churches throughout the world. the Church is, and has been, an existing network in the world for centuries – an actual network. therefore, the opening of the Vatican site allowed Catholics to connect, virtually, out of their own actual home situation.

the idea for a website for the Vatican began in 1994 as most things begin: friends and colleagues talking together about ideas. in the early 90s a number of Vatican employees had begun to use email and to surf the internet, which at that time was much simpler. those

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of us who were working in technology and communications for the Holy see, collaborated to help get the message out, and with the dyna-mism of Pope John Paul ii, there was always a lot of news and requests to know what he was saying and doing. that coupled with the search for better ways to evangelize, especially among young people, led some of us wonder about creating a Vatican website.

needless-to-say, many within the Vatican, much like other large corporate institutions, knew little about internet and were themselves not using the technology. therefore the idea for a website, in order to be acceptable, had to be of necessity, simple and temporary: put up one page at Christmas with the Holy Father’s Urbi et Orbi Christmas Mes-sage. But it was Pope John Paul himself, given his astute vision of “new evangelization”, that approved – and pressed others to approve – the plan over any objections.

the site has grown over the years to over 500,000 documents and gets millions of hits each day. it has become the source for authentic Church documents in the various languages. it was even used by Pope John Paul ii to promulgate his document Ecclesia in Oceania in 2001, when he was not able to travel, by sending the document as an at-tachment to an email to the Bishops and Faithful in oceania after the synod.

to date it lacks any interactivity features and this is one of the greatest criticisms of the site itself.

users and usages

Part of the phenomena of the Christmas ’95 opening of the site was expressed in the many messages sent to John Paul ii. At that time there was also a mailbox for anyone who wanted to write to the Holy Father, and in that Christmas week thousands wrote to him as if he were their father or brother sitting in their living room chatting with them. People shared very personal things: birth and death, sickness and joy, tragedy and success, as if he could immediately respond to them with words of comfort and encouragement. in their local situ-ation as Catholics, they already felt connected to him as head of the Church; now they had a chance to express that connection through the


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internet. He responded by asking for a print-out of each message for his chapel so that he could pray over the requests there.

in the period January-December 2008, 340,402,868 pages were accessed in 271,111,140 user sessions by 17,080,938 different users. the most visited language section is the English one, followed by those in italian, spanish, german, Portuguese and French. When it comes to contents, the areas with the highest traffic are those of the Press office of the Holy see, the office of Papal Liturgical Celebra-tion, the Holy Father and the Vatican information service, followed by the multimedia archive of the Vatican television Center and the Catechism of the Catholic Church in spanish language. the nations, which generate most visits, are: spain, italy, united states, germany, Brazil, France, south Korea, mexico and Canada.


From almost the very beginning the website provided two func-tions, one as an information server and the other as a service provider to the Vatican Community offering them email, connectivity to the internet and space for their individual office homepage online.

While in its larger scope the personality behind the Vatican web-site was and is the Holy Father, nevertheless it was necessary to be consistent with and representative of the Vatican-Roman Curia’s sense of what was appropriate both in terms of content and visual design. the arrangement of the site presented a unique challenge in giving the world a way to “reach” a well-know figure, Pope John Paul ii and yet preserving an enormous sense of discretion, confidentiality and hierar-chy which is at the essence of the Roman Curia.

Regarding the navigation of the site, in order to win the approval of the “sponsoring corporate organization”, that is the Holy see as rep-resented by the Roman Curia, it seemed important to present a struc-ture that was actually familiar to those who worked in it and whom the site would be representing and to make it intuitively familiar to the different offices. the structure of the site thus became two major sec-tions, the Holy Father who was/is the main drawing card for the site and the Roman Curia structural re-creation of offices and services

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much like the classic Annuario Pontificio published each year, as the skeletal profile composing the Holy see.

the main “tabs” or navigational sections of the site were the fol-lowing: the Holy Father (with documents dating back to the late 1800s), the Roman Curia, news services, Vatican City state, Re-source Documents, search. this has since been modified to include also Liturgical Celebrations, once part of news services and Liturgical Year, which presents material based on the Liturgical season.

it was decided as well to use sacred art and symbols not only for their beauty and meaning, but also to represent and link to “deeper” ar-eas of the site and to create a kind of “sacred space” as represented by the site itself.

the navigation structure from the very beginning was available in six languages, reflecting in part the universality of the Catholic Church as represented by the Holy see. the languages are: English, italian, spanish, german, Portuguese, and French. Documents were also available in the beginning years in the additional languages of Pol-ish and Latin.

With the finalization of the site “look and feel” in 1997, a search engine was added which has since been modified and revised in order to meet the particular search needs of Church documents and themes.

Virtual visits were also added beginning with the Holy Father’s personal chapel, Redemptoris Mater, and followed by the Vatican mu-seums which opened a major section featuring tours of the world-re-nowned art and the sistine Chapel. the Vatican Library and the se-cret Archives also offer some possibility of visiting and viewing their materials. the Papal Basilicas are now being added as well.

Experiments have been made as well to include an e-Learning section as well as a streaming video archive.

Who’s Behind the Website?

the website began with just two persons, one assigned to con-tent presentation and the other to monitoring the technical including the telecommunication and the server technology. this expanded to


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a staff of technicians which includes those responsible for the con-nectivity, equipment, software development and security. the content staff expanded to include a graphic artist, a team of native language speakers to check and publish the material in the different languages, a documents coordinator to interface with the various Vatican offices, a projects developer and a Department Head to coordinate the entire operation.

Future Projects

Currently, the internet office of the Holy see is undergoing a major overhaul of the documents system due to the large number of document and users. the online material is still in HtmL and the updating software dates back to the late 90s, and recognizably inad-equate to the current volume of work. A new system is being sought. Likewise the section containing video streaming needs modernization in line with the new technologies.

the whole question of adding interactivity on the site has been debated for at least 5 years without a clear resolution as to whether to create new sections permitting password entrance and online sharing in a kind of extranet. this has been a much requested feature for the site, and in the days of social networking replacing real local commu-nity, it seems a very important consideration to address for the site. no decision has been made regarding a possibility in the near future. the site does not permit any linking, something which the opening of an interactive section or second related site could easily house.

it is hoped that the site will continue to grow in its universal mis-sion ad gentes and address the many languages and cultures who look to the Church and the Holy Father as the prime ethical and moral witness. At the same time, the site has the potential to be a point of exchange for the thousands of other sites of Catholic institutions and groups around the world who make up the local Church in relation to the universal Church.

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A.1.2. CongREgAtion FoR tHE CLERgY

ContactName of the Institution: Congregation for the Clergy

Website address: www.clerus.org / www.bibliaclerus.org Case’s author: Lucio Adrián RuizRole/position: System Manager

Abstract

the Congregation for the Clergy, arising from its task of promot-ing the ongoing formation of clerics (cf. art. 92 Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus of the 28th June 1988) has created an information system which contains many resources useful for the exercise of the priestly, diaconal and catechetical ministry in order to offer an easier access to the magisterial, doctrinal and theological patrimony of the Church. this system will assist ongoing study and a more attentive and worthy proclamation of the Word of god and a better preparation for teach-ing catechesis.

this information system, called “Clerus system,” is composed of a series of data transmission services (not only a web page), which are described below, and it has as a goal to reach the greatest amount of clergy possible, with assistance adapted to their diverse needs.

it has been a particular task to ensure that the resources can reach even those clerics who do not have access to original sources for their formation.

the institution

the Congregation for the Clergy is the denomination given by Paul Vi to the "sacred Congregation of the Council", through the Apostolic Constitution Regimini Ecclesiae Universae dated August 15, 1967. the history of this Congregation goes back to the Sacra Con-gregatio Cardinalium Concilii Tridentini interpretum, instituted by Pius iV through the Apostolic Constitution Alias Nos dated Aug. 2, 1564, to ensure a correct interpretation and the practical observance of the norms sanctioned by the Council of trent. gregory Xiii (1572-1585)


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increased its functions and sistus V entrusted to it the revision of the acts of provincial councils and, in general, the task of promoting the application of the reforms established by the Council of trent. sub-sequently, the task of interpreting the canons of the Council of trent ceased and the vast competence of this Dicastery was gradually trans-ferred to other Congregations which had been created in the meantime. However, the Dicastery has kept its historical name of "Congregation of the Council" until December 31, 1967. Before the new name and the new role established by Paul Vi in the above-mentioned Apostolic Constitution, the tasks of the Congregation were stated in can. 250 of the Code of Canon Law.

the competences of the Congregation for the Clergy are now in-dicated in ns. 93-104 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor bonus and are articulated in three offices:

1) Office One receives, suggests and promotes initiatives for the sanctity and the intellectual and pastoral updating of the Clergy (Di-ocesan Priests and Deacons); it watches over Cathedral Chapters, Pas-toral Councils, Priestly Councils, Parish Priests and Priests who carry out their pastoral ministry, etc., mass collections, pious Foundations, pious Legates, oratories, Churches, shrines, ecclesiastical archives and libraries; it also promotes a more adequate distribution of the Clergy all over the world.

2) Office Two looks after whatever concerns the preaching of the Word of god, apostolic works and the organization of catechesis; it promotes and approves pastoral and catechetical Directories, national and international catechetical Congresses; finally, it indicates appro-priate norms for the religious education of children, young people and adults.

3) Office Three is competent in matter of preservation and admin-istration of temporal goods of the Church: real estates, taxes, tributes and transfers. moreover, it takes care of what concerns the so-called state supplementation of the Priests’ income ("congrua"), of the social security of the Clergy (disablement, old age and medical care), etc.

Attached to the Congregation for the Clergy is the old Studio Pio, formally instituted by Benedict XV on oct. 29, 1919, to help young priests to improve their skill in the normal and regular dispatch of

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ecclesiastical affairs and especially in the application of Canon Law in administrative matters.

origin and goals of the Website

Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, who was, at that time (1998), Prefect of the Dicastery, always held a particular interest in using the means of social communication for the work of evangelisation. From this premise arose the initial idea to create a website which would offer to all the priests of the world the opportunity to consult and to have at their disposal documents, books, articles and a whole series of re-sources both for their own ongoing spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation and to facilitate the exercise of their ministry. A particular aim of the website was to meet the needs of those who were unable to study or to receive formation in Rome.

- thus, the 8th of December, 1998, the first services begun: the websites www.clerus.org, www.clerus.net (for the blind, satellite sys-tems and palm pilots), and wap.clerus.net (for cell phones). in 10 years of existence, these websites have experienced, together with the elec-tronic library, every December 8th, Feast of the immaculate Concep-tion, a renewed homepage repurposing the site and encouraging users to subscribe to the email list.

- the missio system was presented the 8th of December, 1999, enabling connection to the electronic library of www.clerus.org via email.

- on December 8th, 2000, the first version of the “smart CD” was released, enabling the entire library to be sent to those who did not have access to the internet. this CDRom has undergone various editions and updates. At present it is in a phase of reprogramming to adapt it to newer systems.

- theological teleconferences were inaugurated on the 29th of september, 2001, with participants on the five continents. these were held until the 31st of october, 2006, for a total of 50 international theological teleconferences, later compiled into an edition of two vol-umes.


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- on December 8th, 2003, the e-Learning system came online, consisting of the course of administrative practice of the Congrega-tion. this service rapidly came to a demise because of the lack of per-sonnel from the Dicastery to administer it.

- the first edition of the CD Bibliaclerus first saw light on the 8th of December, 2004 (but was not yet released on the internet).

- on December 8th, 2006, the site www.bibliaclerus.org was cre-ated.

- on December 8th, 2007 the initiative for Eucharistic Adoration and the spiritual maternity of Priests was presented to the Holy Fa-ther. this can be found at the website www.oremus.clerus.org

- Finally, on December 8th, 2008, the entire relaunch of the “Cle-rus system” was brought about, following new “missionary” guidelines from Cardinal Hummes, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy.


it must be made clear above all that Clerus is not simply an in-ternet site but a collection of interlocking projects which have taken account the necessities presented by Bishops during their Ad Limina visits and what emerge from personal contacts with both priests and Bishops.

the study of these necessities, of the cultural, economic and tech-nological facts, of the strategic possibility of the Holy see – and of the Congregation for the Clergy in particular – before the world, has allowed the development of these projects and services which have reached the five continents. this collection of projects and services of Clerus is composed of:

1. the internet site www.clerus.org / www.clerus.net / wap.clerus.net2. the “missio” project 3. “smart CD” 4. the internet site www.bibliaclerus.org5. the CD “Biblia Clerus” which makes www.bibliaclerus.org avail-

able on CDRom6. mailing List (Distribution list)

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7. teleconferences among the five continents8. newsgroups9. E-Learning (which makes the school “sacrum ministerium” avail-

able online)10. the internet site www.oremus.org, which promotes the initiative

of the sanctification of priests through Eucharistic adoration and spiritual motherhood

Another important matter to keep in mind is that the web pages of the Congregation, which are only one part of the project, are in-stitutional pages and are essentially addressed to priests, deacons and catechists for their ongoing formation and pastoral renewal. it is not, therefore, a general portal, even if it is open to everyone. its particular purpose is to be an electronic library. in order to facilitate those who do not have permanent access to the internet there is the possibility of downloading the documents in a consolidated format onto their own computer, and for those who do not have internet access at all the “smart CD ” and Bibliaclerus CD are sent with an integral copy of the internet site. 140,000 copies have already been sent throughout the world, especially where there is no internet access.

the Clerus system is an important tool, since it places carefully arranged and chosen material at the disposal of those who have no other means of consulting it. this is of great help for those unable to purchase books or teaching material.

the clerus.org website and the “smart CD” are composed of two parts. in the first part one finds the material of the Dicastery’s compe-tence: Papal allocutions, Prefect’s homilies, documents, activities of the Dicastery, accompanied by photographs; in the second part one finds a library for liturgy, law, hagiography, prayer, and homiletics, etc.

the Bibliaclerus website and CD contain the text of the Bible in various languages (twelve biblical versions free of copyright), en-riched by the complete works of eleven of the thirty-three doctors of the Church, from st. Augustine to st. therese of the Child Jesus. there correspondence of the biblical references of these doctors of the Church has been extracted in such a way as to manifest the unity and catholicity of the Church through a variety of viewpoints. since the project is directed towards preaching, one discovers in reference


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to each biblical extract the mystical, moral, dogmatic or sacramental commentaries discovered in some category of the four-part schema of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

users and usages

a. Websites

From september 2008 to February 2009 clerus.org was visited by 450,000 different users, with a total number of 2,390,000 pages vis-ited. this represents an average of 1,558 visits per day to bibliclerus.org, 1,514 visits to Clerus, with 5,100 documents a day read on Clerus.org alone. 32% of users remained for half an hour and the statistics show that each user consulted on average four documents. 10% of traf-fic was found on www.clerus.net, which is the text version (without graphics) of www.clerus.org prepared for older computers, handheld devices, and mobile phones.

to respond to user enquiries the following analysis has been made of the user data:

- 30.5% users utilise an English language computer but only 25.5% of visits are directed to the English language pages: this could mean that they have not found the desired material in their own language

- 26.49% users utilise an italian language computer while 30.5% users go to the italian homepage: this could mean that the italian content is found richer by other languages users

- 18.97% users utilise a spanish language computer and 18.1% refer to spanish language pages

- 8.37% users utilise a French language computer while the French language homepage accommodates 13.7% of requests: similar to italian, the French language material may be found useful by other languages users

- 7.89% users utilise a Portuguese language computer while 8% refer to the Portuguese language pages

- 3.59% users utilise a german language computer while 4% of visits go to the german homepage

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From an analysis of the visits, which are consistent, it emerges a sustained interest in the content of the site which. one must keep in mind that 140,000 CDs have been distributed with the entire con-tent of the website, containing the possibility to utilise them with new content. thus, those who have the Clerus smart CD are not normally users who have a need to visit our websites, even if they utilise them to download updates via the internet. it is notable that the users of the websites and of the CDs are from various continents: the CDs are used particularly in those territories under the competence of the Congrega-tion Propaganda Fide – mainly Asia and Africa – while the websites are frequented more by users from Europe and the Americas.

b. Mailing Lists

Distribution lists have been created with the aim of establishing contacts between priests, deacons and catechists who use our services. these lists are email addresses, divided according to language, to which users may subscribe to receive information.

this service foresees a monthly communication with a message from the Cardinal Prefect. the Congregation will also send other messages for special events (such as Christmas, Easter etc.)

the numbers of registered users are the following:

- mailing List for Priests/Deacons: 10,275 (out of 470,000 approx.)- mailing List for Bishops: 2,503 (out of 4,900 approx.)- mailing List for Dioceses and others: 2,544 (out of 5,800 approx.)- mailing Lists for Conferences of Bishops: 66 (out of 113)

Each list is divided according to language: italian, English, French, spanish and german.


internet sites are a project of the entire Congregation, which is to say that it is not merely the undertaking of the information office of


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the Congregation but involves the entire Dicastery and is part of its daily work.

the co-ordination of the various elements of the services is re-alised by the data analysis section of the Congregation, in which two officials work.

the superiors have given a number of officials the task of being responsible for the content of the websites for the various languages, but it remains the duty of the superiors to indicate the basic direction the sites have, both in general and for each particular language. in this way each language has its own life insofar as content is concerned, depending on the material available according to the rights of authors. therefore, the content is not always identical for the various languages, except for those fundamental matters taken from official translations, especially concerning documents issued by the Dicastery.

Data Entry is realised by the official responsible for each language through an appropriate programme which allows documents to be placed immediately in the electronic library.

the Cardinal Prefect has personally undertaken a programme of work to accompany priests throughout the world by a series of short messages which arrive them by email. this activity has created a posi-tive dynamic confirmed by the Bishops who visit the Congregation.

Contact with publishing houses, universities and the various au-thors who collaborate on the content of the sites is likewise the com-petence of the superiors in such a way as to bring about meetings and agreements to discover suitable quality material.

the planning and management of systems is achieved in the data analysis section, but the technical aspects (programming, hosting, security, etc.) are outsourced to avoid having unnecessary structures within the Congregation. graphic design is likewise outsourced to professionals who work to the direction of the Congregation arising from suggestions of the superiors and from the ordinary meetings of the Dicastery.

the entire clerus.org system, constituted by the sites, CDs and mailing lists, is made possible by the support of collaborators both through monetary resources and through their work. Projects are chosen with a determined scope so that funds can be collected to a

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determined end, which helps to organise the assistance given by our collaborators.

Future Projects

the particular interest of the current Prefect, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, is in the mission so that these sites, www.bibliaclerus.org and www.clerus.org, can reach the greatest possible number of priests, by placing a new dynamic within the content and presentation of the actual sites, in such a way as to revive and stimulate the missionary aspect within the priest, and by proposing and inviting priests to read, stay current and form themselves, and thus to undertake the mission anew. new projects are being sought to present the material already found on the sites in a fresh manner and making it available by a re-programmed CDRom, which carries the entire content of the site to those who do not have internet access.

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A.1.3. RiiAL – inFoRmAtion nEtWoRK oF tHE CHuRCH in LAtin AmERiCA

ContactName of the Institution: Information Network of the Church in Latin America

[Red Informática de la Iglesia en América Latina]Website address: www.riial.org

Case’s author: Leticia Soberón MaineroRole/position: General Coordinator

Abstract

RiiAL is a spanish acronym for Red informática de la iglesia en América Latina, which means “Computer network of the Church in Latin America”. it began in 1987, from a fruitful cooperation between the Pontifical Council for social Communications and the Latin Amer-ican Bishops’ Council (CELAm) to enhance the use of computers as means of communication in the Catholic Church in that continent. the presence of the Church in almost every angle of Latin America would also act as a bridge to avoid the digital divide, and RiiAL began to be a factor of human promotion and social development.

the important issue in RiiAL – which goes far beyond its mere website – is network growing in the communities in Latin America, which do not always create online services. RiiAL insists in the impor-tance of local and small networks to enhance communion and common services in every corner of the Church.

the institution

RiiAL is present in Bishops’ Conferences and Dioceses that as-sume the project and develop it according to the local needs and pos-sibilities. A continental coordination of goals and priorities, under the guidance of Pontifical Council for social Communications and CELAm, is reached by annual or biannual meetings in which the presence of members help growing mutual comprehension, collabora-tion and friendship. national networks grow and decide their concrete applications by organizing diocesan or national meetings on “Church

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and digital age”, which bring together people in charge of the com-puter services in the different ecclesiastical institutions. such meetings allow people to share their own achievements, to meet other pastoral operators of the same field, to learn the real needs of the users, enlarg-ing dialogue spaces and planning common services.

there are also institutions created to offer specific services to all members. For example, the Centro Guadalupe (santa Fe, Argentina) creates applications for the everyday life of Catholic institutions. A pack of software applications has been developed for the Bishops’ offices and Parishes’ pastoral work, especially designed for information and data sharing (www.riial.org/aplicativos). this Center is also a train-ing and Education institution, on both technical and ecclesiological issues. RiiAL’s Free servers for the Church is called tRimiLEnio (www.trimilenio.net), and offers as well support to create websites in a professional way.

From the very beginning an institution of consecrated women (Asociación de servidoras) was engaged to construct a Data Base of magisterial texts of the Church, which is available for free (www.ser-vidoras.org.ar). in order to keep in touch with the new technologies being developed, RiiAL has also created a permanent observatory service on the internet and a provider of free-servers for Church insti-tutions (www.observatoriodigital.net).

the general Coordination of those different institutions is lo-cated in Rome, in the Pontifical Council for social Communications, in close collaboration with CELAm.


twenty years ago in Latin America computers were used only in big companies, universities and research centers. Just a few offices of the Church had one, and some people could think that the world would continue communicating through ordinary mail or through the – at that time – revolutionary fax.

But it became clear that computers would multiply as in other areas of the world, and furthermore, that they could be used as “tools for communication” through telematics. At that time, msgr. Enrique


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Planas was an officer of the Pontifical Council for social Communica-tions and bishop Darío Castrillón Hoyos was general secretary of the Latin American Bishops’ Council (CELAm). With a wide vision both felt that Church in Latin America could receive enormous advantages from those technical achievements, in particular due do the dimensions of the continent. As long as Latin-American societies were starting a “natural” process of introducing computers in their everyday work, the Church should not stay outside that process. it was important, then, to favor that development making sure to hold at the same time compat-ibility and solidarity.

RiiAL took its first concrete steps in 1990. those did not consist in supplying hardware, but in looking for Bishops interested in using computers and ready to begin a pilot phase. the next step was training. A group of technicians, sent by the Dioceses and the Bishops’ Confer-ences involved in the pilot phase, participated in a high-level course, which allowed the Church to have reliable and highly qualified people. there was no lack of doubting voices, calling it an inadequate project for a poor continent. time has shown that a poor continent, in fact, can particularly benefit from such a process.

in 1993, in Argentina, the first Diocesan communication model was developed by Fr. Lucio Adrian Ruiz in santa Fe – since then the leader of the technological study group of RiiAL. that system worked before the development of the web itself. through a phone line and with a simple computer programmed as a mail server, Bishop’s offices and par-ishes – one of them being 200 km distant from the center – could send and receive documents, letters and messages. in the same year mrs. Rosa Ramón de Veramendi, designated by the Peruvian Bishops to be in charge of the national RiiAL project, began by introducing comput-ers in a Diocese in the Amazon jungle, with neither telephone lines nor electric power. Computers were linked through a radio-bridge, getting power from a battery, and the users began exchanging messages.


Connectivity and networking. RiiAL has motivated a great move-ment of connecting people by multiplying e-mail users throughout the

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Church in the continent, especially in poor communities and isolated parishes, which lack other means to reach the richness of Catholic re-sources and culture. this is a task to be done by each Diocese, to make communication easier between the Bishops and the parishes, religious congregations, associations of lay people, schools, universities, etc. All the services to be shared can reach as far as the extension of the net-work allows it. that is why starting RiiAL in a Diocese means con-sidering concrete needs and pastoral objectives, and – over fascination for “the newest” – analyzing technological resources available in each place, making a connection with human, social, economic and cultural aspects. it is possible, then, to choose the most appropriate solution. it requires discernment and a work of synthesis, as well as intensive training and educational support for technicians.

Education and training. RiiAL has enhanced education of opera-tors in this pastoral area, not only training them in technological is-sues, but also in the field of team working, spirituality and ecclesial un-derstanding of communication. the multi-disciplinary approach has helped more than 2,000 pastoral operators in the continent to answer professionally to real needs in their Dioceses and Bishops’ Confer-ences. RiiAL, by offering both face-to-face and online courses and workshops, reaches many persons in many parts of Latin America.

Enhancing a network culture of service. many institutions, even with plenty of computers and technology, have not began to take advantage of them by sharing resources, data bases, agendas, software, etc. RiiAL begins normally by promoting that kind of “network culture” in which everybody gets richer by giving what they have and receiving from oth-ers at local, national and continental level. that means that technology is not always enough. it is necessary a network culture of service.

An ‘inclusive’ spirituality. During the years, members of RiiAL have elaborated a corpus of documents, reflections, insights and culture regarding information and communication technologies in the Church in a way that human being does not remain ignored or dominated by them. RiiAL has much to offer both in the experience and in the theo-retical fields of Church, technology and digital culture. solidarity is in the center of its spirituality, which is not a marginal or added issue, but a central core of the everyday life in RiiAL.


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users and usages

Along the years the number of RiiAL members has increased. most of the Bishops’ Conferences of Latin America and also Dioceses, Church institutions, press agencies, seminaries and others belong to the project. Bishops’ Conferences from spain, italy and Portugal are involved in this project and contribute with their own reflections, re-sources and people. Each one of the specific services or geographic areas has its own users, and it is very difficult to measure all of them as a whole.

users of RiiAL services are not always visible online. internet is now widely present in Latin America, both in big cities and in many small towns. nonetheless, online technology cannot be considered as the only broadcast means for documents and messages. An unequal infrastructure of telecommunications along the continent, high phone charges in many countries and frequently modest and old hardware mean that the internet cannot be used as the only solution by the Church in Latin America. As mentioned before, concrete solutions are to be found for each single case.

that is why RiiAL uses many offline technologies. that means, for instance, attaching documents to e-mail messages, coded in simple formats, which can be opened in every kind of computer. Also diskettes and CD are used to distribute content, and in the last two years it has been assumed that mobile phones are “the poor people computers” for many aspects. For instance, the Lectionautas project, offering the Lectio divina every week by e-mail, reaches much more persons in nicaragua through the mobile phones than through computers. in a certain way, it means going at the speed of the one at the end of the line, without neglecting those richer in technology resources.

the priority of RiiAL continues to be acting as a “bridge” for digital inclusion, using all the technologies available in each moment. RiiAL

· is present in 18 Bishops’ Conferences and more than 250 Dioceses

· has built connectivity and facilitated information channels in isolated and poor communities in 8 countries (Perú, Ar-

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gentina, méxico, República Dominicana, Panamá, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia)

· has trained more than 1,500 specialists in technology for solidarity. this number grows by 100 persons annually

· counts with more than 2,700 technicians enhancing net-working in their parishes and dioceses

· has created a software being used for free in more than 150 Dioceses in Latin America

· hosts more than 2,000 Catholic websites

the following tables present some statistics on the growth of users (Centro guadalupe):

Table 5. Evolution of active members/users of the Centro Guadalupe’s website (2003-2007)

Year Users

2003 800

2005 1,300

2007 2,100

Table 6. Evolution of subscribers of the Bulletin

“EnRedDándonos” (2004-2007)

Year Subscribers

2004 3,000

2005 5,000

2007 12,000

Table 7. Number of downloads of Eclesial (parish and

bishops’ office software) (2003-2007)

Year Downloads

2003 30,000

2005 40,000

2007 50,000


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Table 8. Email queries from users (2003-2007)

Year Email Queries

2003 500

2005 1,000

2007 1,300

Future projects

At this point, it can be said that RiiAL has accomplished its first goal: a large part of the Church in the continent has adopted and uses computers as normal tools for its own work.

Among the future activities, a priority will be given to interactive videogames, video-clips, brief and concise messages with music and images, especially addressed to young people (see www.h2onews.org, inspired by RiiAL criteria of sharing).

A large effort will be done by RiiAL in the training of operators at all levels in the Catholic Church in the field of new technologies and their pastoral uses: ranging from a master for priests on Digital Era, to workshops for Parish technicians on hardware solutions for com-munities in need.

the Pontifical Council is studying, as requested by Pope John Paul ii, the ways to promote a similar project in Africa, respecting the great differences between those two continents.

in collaboration with some Religious Congregations in the field of education, RiiAL will begin a pilot phase, using the Xo computer of the one Laptop Per Child Project.

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A.2.1. CEi - itALiAn BisHoPs’ ConFEREnCE

Contact Name of the Institution: CEI – Italian Bishops’ Conference

[Conferenza Episcopale Italiana]Website address: www.chiesacattolica.it

Case’s author: Domenico PompiliRole/position: Director of the Social Communications Office

Abstract

the study stresses:- the institutional nature of the website, in conformity with the nature of the Bishops’ Conference, which does not con-duct pastoral activities itself, but supports all pastoral agencies, activities and operators in italy; the website is a kind of “direc-tory” or handbook of italian ecclesial activities, in particular those of the dioceses- that the website is a point of reference, aggregation and pro-motion of the experiences of the various pastoral agents of the Church in italy; around the website sprang up initiatives of education and training, animation, sharing of resources, expe-riences and contents useful for all the bodies of the Church in their access to internet resources

the institution

As it is described in its Statutes, the italian Bishops’ Conference (CEi) is the permanent union of the Bishops of the Churches in italy, who – to promote the life of the Church, support her evangelizing mission and develop her service for the good of the country – jointly exercise pastoral functions and, in accordance with the canon law, as-sume legislative deliberations.

With the paramount aim of promoting the good of the Church and her service in italy, the Conference fosters the collegial solidarity, brotherly communion and permanent formation of the Bishops. it also stimulates united actions and collaboration between all the particular Churches, to enable them to better perform their mission.


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the Conference, therefore, through the unanimous profession of faith and attention to the signs of the times, in communion with and in respect for the fields of competence of the diocesan Bishops:

a) offers contributions at the doctrinal level and guidance in the pasto-ral field

b) carries out legislative activities in accordance with canon lawc) studies and regulates initiatives to promote evangelization, liturgical

life, the witness of charity, and ecumenical and missionary activityd) encourages and devotes particular care to the permanent education

and training of priests and deacons and to the exercise of their min-istry

e) favours consecrated life and promotes the concrete forms for the necessary collaboration between Bishops and superiors major of the various institutes, in compliance with universal canon law

f) stimulates the co-responsible participation of the laity in the life and apostolate of the Church, promoting the discernment of charismas, the optimising of ministries and cooperation with the hierarchical aposto-late, according to canon law and the needs of the Church in italy


2008 marks the twelfth year of the presence of the italian Bishops’ Conference on the internet: from the pioneering versions in the age of web 1.0 in 1996 to the innovations also deriving from the strong “so-cial” pressures of so-called web 2.0 in more recent months.

the website, which has by now consolidated its own mission of institutional information and communication, support to pastoral ac-tivities and contact with operators and surfers, is now aiming at the specialization and optimization of its organization to be able to reach its target audiences with greater ease and efficiency.

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www.chiesacattolica.it is now a fully-fledged website, which pro-vides continuous updates on the activities of the CEi in its day-to-day activity of being at the service of the 226 dioceses and approximately 25,000 parishes present in italy. the surfer is offered with informa-tion, documentation and announcements of events published directly by the general secretariat of the CEi and its offices and agencies, can consult the documents of the bishops, and easily find direct links to the web pages directly managed by the dioceses and by the Catholic media.

since 2000, to simplify the process of information publishing, the sections of the various offices and services of the CEi, often orga-nized as mini-sites, have been edited and updated directly by their own personnel, under the responsibility of their directors and without any further editing/approval process. this facilitates a more streamlined, immediate and dynamic presence.

to further facilitate the work of this enlarged editorial process, and make the information provided to surfers ever more reliable, a decision was also taken to activate a common, centralized and certified database of all the bodies and persons with a role in the offices and agencies of the CEi or those linked to it.

this activity of continuous registration and updating of institu-tional data now permits that the main references to structures and per-sons, organs and offices of the italian Church, complete with their institutional addresses, can be drawn from a single reliable source and in an automatic way.

the search for information is a basic objective that invests the in-ternet as a whole: the more the offered contents and services grow, the greater is the need for effective instruments for navigation, as, in our case, the subdivision into thematic and search areas.

For this reason, in the course of 2006, www.chiesacattolica.it was boosted with a new search engine, faster in its responses and more ac-curate in its results. it enables surfers to find in a matter of seconds the document or the webpage they seek among the tens of thousands that now form the archive of this website.


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the search engine works on all the contents of the site, including documents attached, or those produced by the dioceses; it also works on other websites promoted by the offices of the CEi. using the ad-vanced search function it is possible to access the web archives of other agencies linked to the CEi, such as the siR Press Agency and the Datafilm of the national Commission for Film Evaluation.

this will soon be complemented with a more generalized search engine able to operate on wider (and perhaps less institutional) informa-tion generated by the various expressions of the Catholic world: linked sites, sites of dioceses and parishes, weeklies and other Catholic media.

www.chiesacattolica.it can also be used to access numerous internet projects promoted by the offices of the CEi itself or by institutions and agencies connected with it. in some cases, the websites are born from the same editorial platform, while their layout and provision of services are geared to the specific target audiences they are intended to reach.

users and usages

the website www.chiesacattolica.it is aimed at addressing the fol-lowing users in particular:

a) Pastoral workers active in the dioceses, parishes and other Church-run agencies and associations

b) general internet users searching for documents, statements and in-formation on topics and themes tackled by the Bishops’ Conference, and by the offices and services of the general secretariat

c) users who wish to avail themselves of a privileged point of access to web resources compiled and updated by institutions of the italian Catholic Church

the quantitative and qualitative data on access to the website and its various sections, confirm that:

a) the main interest of users is in the “institutional contents” of the website; for example yearbooks and the official documents of the CEi and of the diocesan bishops


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b) users however appreciate the availability of services, such as data-bases, search engines and calendars of events, which allow for easy access to contents with immediate pastoral aims including those contained on linked websites

the growth of access, both in terms of pages visited and of num-bers of users, is continuous. With reference to “CEi and associated websites” (chiesacattolica.it + some news and information websites linked to the CEi + some diocesan sites that share the CEi’s document databases), the growth registered over the last 12 months fluctuates between + 50 percent and + 100 percent over the corresponding period of the previous year.


the website www.chiesacattolica.it is the result of the coordinated work of many offices and personnel.

A dedicated editorial staff of four persons belonging to the CEi’s social communications office and it service exists; they have the task to assist and train people in the offices of the CEi secretariat in the construction and maintenance of the sections that are under their par-ticular responsibility. they also liaise closely with the general secre-tariat in proposing and implementing the strategic decisions or guide-lines that should underpin and inspire all the activities associated with the website, both ordinary and extraordinary.

An enlarged consultation group is also involved from time to time, with the task of gathering opinions and impressions that arise also from the experiences of other websites and other projects.

thanks to its Content management system, adopted in 1996, the editorial management of the website is always widely distributed: each office is independent in the formulation and publication of the con-tents that fall under its particular responsibility, and also in its obser-vance of the above-cited guidelines issued by the general secretariat through its dedicated staff.

the hosting of the website and its implementation and mainte-nance in its technological aspects are outsourced to a specialized ser-


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vice company. this outsourcing decision was made necessary by the complexity and flexibility in time of the components involved, by the opportunity/need for constant updates in response to a rapidly chang-ing market, and by the simultaneous provision of similar, and strongly integrated, services to many dioceses and other ecclesiastical agencies, as well as to the media of the CEi itself.

the CEi and the individual dioceses closely share and coordi-nate the technological and organizational resources, and also particular contents of their respective websites.

the challenge of communication through the internet is undoubt-edly more efficiently tackled if Church’s institutions liaise closely and share the same it methods. this also permits the achievement of par-ticular critical masses and economies of scale.

Future Projects

As for the future, the website will continue to develop and confirm its institutional nature, with ever growing attention to the quality, reli-ability and updating of the data and information, which more specially fall within its responsibility.

At the same time, it will emphasize its role as a source of promo-tion and stimulus for the use of the web by all the institutional and pastoral bodies of the italian Catholic Church, to help them express themselves in forms ever more attentive to the needs and interests of their users, who now wish to be active protagonists, and not just users of contents formulated and provided by others.

the website’s dedicated staff will continue to study the rapid dif-fusion of such phenomena as google, Youtube, Wikipedia, and others, which characterize the “social network”. the website www.chiesacat-tolica.it intends to promote forms of cooperation and participation, but with the necessary attention to quality of content, the essential prerequisite for its goal of “formation” and “evangelization”.

this process of renewal, already begun in 2006, will soon lead to important structural and aesthetic variations, which will help further simplify surfing among the website’s institutional contents on the one

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A.2.2. CELAm – LAtin AmERiCAn EPisCoPAL ConFEREnCE

ContactName of the institution: CELAM - Latin American Episcopal Conference

[Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano]Website address: www.celam.org

Case’s author: David GutiérrezRole/position: Director of the Press Office

Abstract

We are introducing the system of portals of CELAm – the in-stitution that coordinates the pastoral actions of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean. it is a system with internal pages that correspond to each one of the centers and institutes, in which a corpo-rative image of the organization is maintained. Being a website dedi-cated to the Latin American bishops’ work, we are also showing the web solution implemented for the complete process of the 5th general Conference of Bishops (may 2007), and we stress the solutions giv-en to guarantee the participation and interactivity of the Continent’s faithful. CELAm has been in existence for 54 years and has pioneered the use of it in pastoral activity, as well as promoting the Church’s computing networking in Latin America, RiiAL.

the institution

the Latin American Episcopal Council was created in 1955 as an organ of collegiality of the bishops of Latin America and the Carib-bean, and its mission is to coordinate pastoral actions for the benefit of the parishioners in the countries of the area. At present, it is organized in a general secretariat based in Bogotá, Colombia, and it is made up of 6 departments, 3 pastoral centers, and a theological institute. the Directiva (President and other authorities) is chosen every 4 years by the general assembly of Bishops’ Conferences presidents and delegates, and the global plan that directs the actions of the institution is also ap-proved for its application in each four-year term.


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the CELAm website, www.celam.org, was created as an element of the institution’s information broadcasting structure, and also as an ele-ment of visibility in the growing web world. the central idea is that those who are interested in the work of the Church in Latin America may find directories of the Church, documents on meetings and encounters, as well as the daily activity of the institution, all in one place. With that purpose, the portal evolved into a system of portals which allows opera-tional user-friendliness and the differentiation of contents of each area of CELAm. At present, there are 5 websites linked to the portal.

the contents and services of the page are aimed at offering infor-mation on CELAm and its activities, which are carried out both by its general secretariat and by the departments and centers. it was designed as a flexible portal so that when having to deal with extraordinary ac-tivities or special events, the computer resource may also be used. that was how, on the occasion of the 5th general Conference of the Bish-ops of Latin American and the Caribbean, a system was designed that served as an essential element of communication in the run up, during, and after the event.


in the run up, the conference page – identified as www.celam.info – contained the working instruments and the synopsis of the con-tributions so that all those who were interested (not only the delegates to the general) could have access to those documents. At the same time, a system of participation was set up, in which Episcopal Confer-ences, dioceses, parishes, and even groups could socialize and share their contributions. this system worked online as well as offline, tak-ing into account countries like Cuba which have no free access to in-ternet. the design was suggested by those responsible for the RiiAL guadalupe Center (Argentina), and implemented by the technicians of VEMultimedios of Peru, who were the ones in charge of elaborating all the computer solutions.

As the preparation process of the 5th Conference was over, the moment of its implementation arrived, in may 2007. At this stage, the web of the 5th Conference multiplied its services, because through it


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were sent contents written in daily bulletins, and an access system was created – restricted to journalists and communicators who registered. more than 1,000 communicators registered. Journalists who entered the restricted area were able to obtain documents and papers under embargo, including the Pope’s speeches during his visit to the Confer-ence. simultaneously, and in association with the portal terra.com.br, there was a transmission of audio and video contents, which were very much appreciated by many followers of the general Conference and the media. it was also transmitted via satellite. the contents remained stored and could be downloaded on demand.

Besides these services, there was a follow-up adding documents and talks, which were the object of much downloading. At the con-clusion of the general Conference, and after the approval of the final document with the conclusions, the portal was useful for the circulation of those contents. now it has changed to help promote the Continen-tal mission, publishing all the documents produced by CELAm and serving also as a channel for the dissemination of information about the mission in each Bishops’ Conference and diocese.

users and usages

the CELAm page has been designed to be visited by any person with interest in the institution, and – as we pointed out – it is a system of portals. in its first page one finds the main information and the tabs which link to the other areas of the institution: itEPAL, CEBiPAL, oBsERVAtoRio and the Centro de Publicaciones, as well as the Continental mission page. Also in this first page there are accesses to databases of documents and the ecclesiastical guide, which are visited very often in order to obtain data about bishops and their sees. there are also links to other pages of Catholic interest. According to the in-formation we have, at least about 3.000 pages are linked to ours. the level of monthly visits is around 10.000.

on the other hand, the page dedicated to the 5th Conference was designed for two types of users. in the first place, the community in general, so that they could enter and obtain relevant information on how the conference was proceeding and what was happening. sec-ondly, other specialized users who, as time went by, varied gradually in the following way: during the preparation process, with the implemen-


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tation of the participation system, users were those responsible for the Bishops’ Conferences in the area of the 5th Conference, who enabled users in the dioceses, parishes, and groups, to enter the system. this methodology continued during the conference itself. And while the Conference unfolded, another specialized group of users was created, namely the journalists with their specific system.

together with these mechanisms, another form of participation was that of the bishops themselves who – through electronic mails and chats – consulted theologians and specialists in their countries. the 5th Conference system counted also with chat and forum spaces, but they were neither used nor activated. it must be highlighted as a most significant fact that, at the time of making a break for the July 2007 management report, the conference web had received more than one million visits. it must be highlighted also that two subpages were made of this 5th Conference web, one in Portuguese and the other in Eng-lish. the data are in the annex, just as other data of the Conference’s main web. the following tables present the statistics from the website of the 5th Conference as of June 2007.

Table 9. Visits to www.celam.info

Total visits from September 2005 to June 2007* 1,094,001

Visits from January 2007 to June 2007 439,445

Number of different visits 376,658

Pages visited from January 2007 to June 2007 3,674,530

* Countries that most visited the page: USA, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela

Table 10. www.celam.info’s activity in May 2007

(month of the General Conference in Aparecida)


Number of visits 214,463

Number of pages visited 2,032,754

Average number of visits per day during the month 6,918

Number of visits during the Conference 150,763

Average number of visits per day during the Conference 7,935

Number of visits in May 14 (day with highest visits) 11,399

Average connections per hour during the Conference 670


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Table 11. Statistics of the page in Portuguese: http://br.celam.info

(page launched in January 2007)

Total visits (January – June 2007) 103,601


Pages visited 717,743

Number of visits during the month of May 2007 54,085

Average visits during the month of May 2007 1,745


Average visits per day during the Conference 2,116

Table 12. Statistics of the page in English: http://en.celam.info

(page launched on May 7, 2007)

Total visits (May – June 2007) 3,453


Pages visited 30,605


Average visits per day during the Conference 108

the following tables present the downloading of material from the website:

Table 13.1. Downloads of the Document of Participation

Document in Portuguese 2,491

Document in English 1,457

Total 3,948

Document in Word (Spanish) 15,880

Document in pdf (Spanish) 16,792

Document in hypertext (Spanish) 18,433

Total in Spanish 51,105

Total downloads 55,053


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Table 13.2. Download of Records

Downloads Record 0 11,820

Downloads Records 1 to 15 65,762

Downloads Record 16 (Consecrated Life) 5,077

Downloads Record 17 (priests) 3,777

Downloads Record 18 (bishops) 2,920

Downloads Record 19 (deacons) 2,712

Total Records Downloads 92,068

Average Downloads per Record 4,384

Table 13.3. Download of the Summary Document

Summary in Spanish 25,738

Summary in English 847

Total Downloads 26,585

Table 13.4. Other downloads

List of Participants to the 5th Conference 6,199

Summary of the Document of Conclusions 72

Documents under embargo* 3,018

Public videos 4,944

Videos On Demand 1,860

* 54 documents, from Pope’s talks to other documents produced during the Conference


the CELAm website was designed and implemented by Era-interactive of Bogotá, which followed the guidelines given both by the general secretariat and the Communication Department of CELAm. they carried out the implementation using free software and free tools. Having finished the contract with the company, now the option cho-sen has been to contract a systems engineer who maintains the page and carries out the necessary modifications according to the require-ments of CELAm.


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the 5th Conference web was a collective work that began with the collaboration of the Centro Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe of Argen-tina, the technical center of the RiiAL. With this team a study was made of the possibilities of use of interactive tools, and also the pos-sibilities of enriching the page with mechanisms of participation and exchange. this study took place in 2005. For the creation of the spe-cific page, and the implementation of the suggestions offered by the Centro Guadalupe, contact was made with the team of VEMultimedios of Peru, consisting of Catholic professionals who look after pages of other Church institutions. the job was very professionally done: pages in spanish, Portuguese, and English were created, and solutions for interactivity as well as participation in the phases of the 5th Confer-ence were implemented. this team also designed and implemented the participation system both on-line and off-line, and helped with its distribution. in addition, they created the system for the use of the participation document with search systems and internal links. in the process of the 5th Conference, the team of VEMultimedios carried out the work of audio and video adjustment, which was transmitted as streaming through the www.terra.com.br portal.

Work with VEMultimedios continued until the middle of 2008, when the www.celam.info web was incorporated to the system of por-tals of CELAm and we took over its general administration, trans-forming it into the Continental mission page.

Future Projects

one project that has already started being implemented is that of using the system of portals – especially the pages of itEPAL and CEBiPAL – with tools of distance learning, that is e-Learning. trial courses have already taken place, and as soon as we will have the op-erational system with telefónica – which will provide the connectivity services – a massive implementation of distance learning will be carried out. Another project which is being consolidated is the use of the Pub-lications Center page as a virtual shop. in which orders and payments will be processed. We are planning to maintain the pages of CELAm operational with the new techniques that will be emerging, and im-prove the operational capacity and friendliness of the page.

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A.3.1. ARCHDioCEsE oF mADRiD

ContactName of the Institution: Archdiocese of Madrid

[Arzobispado de Madrid]Website Address: www.archimadrid.es

Case’s author: Juan Pedro Ortuño MorenteRole/position: Director of the Internet Department and Episcopal

Delegate for Social Communications

Abstract

this is the official home page of the Arzobispado de madrid, which offers basic services; among which: location of parishes, con-sultations, schedule of masses… other contents/services are offered in collaboration with RiiAL (Computer network of the Church in Latin America), for instance: “spiritual advice”, “Pray in the internet”…). others are specifically devoted to the media: Infomadrid – news about weekly events in the diocese –, Alfa y Omega – spanish Catholic week-ly, distributed with the ABC newspaper –, Análisis Digital – Website to participate in public debate with editorials and articles about general religious topics, etc.

the institution

madrid is the capital of spain. in the past madrid belonged to the Diocese of toledo; in 1885 it became a dependent diocese with the name “Diócesis de madrid-Alcalá”, and in 1964 it was made indepen-dent as the “Arzobispado de madrid-Alcalá”. in 1991, it was divided into three dioceses: madrid, getafe and Alcalá de Henares.

madrid Capital has around four million people, and the Catholic practice is about 25%. Cardinal Antonio maría Rouco Varela has been archbishop of madrid since 1994. He has been a great supporter of the internet Department and a main driving force of this Project.

A.3. Dioceses and Prelatures

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the website started in the parish of san miguel de Fuencarral (madrid) in 1995, where the first website was created by the parish youth. Fr. Juan Pedro ortuño was in charge of this project.

Later on, the internet Department was officially started in may 1997, at the offices of the Arzobispado de madrid in calle Bailén. in fact, the archbishop, msgr. Antonio maría Rouco, wanted to increase the role of mass media for the Diocese.

At the same time, in 1997, the website of the Arzobispado de madrid was incorporated to the RiiAL (refer to the dedicated case study in this same volume), where Fr. Juan Pedro ortuño was named internet Coordinator. since then, the internet Department has col-laborated and assisted in all international meetings of RiiAL.


Among the main contents: Cardinal’s Voice (allocutions, lessons, homilies, sermons, conferences, etc.), Pope online (main lessons and homilies of the Pope with comments from a theologian), spiritual ad-vice (done by parish priests), official bulletin of the diocese, commen-tary of the mass readings (three priests comment on the mass readings everyday), bibliography, Daily saints, “Esglesia” and “Prius” research (two different ways to search anywhere for Catholic contents; while “Esglesia” is a thematic search, “Prius” searches for words), press kit, institutions, departments and commissions of the diocese.

users and usages

Data about the origin of users show that while 50.9% are unknown, 10.7% come from the usA (but it could mean that they access from a .com domain), 8.0% from spain, 4.2% from mexico, 3.9% from Peru, 3.8% from Argentina, 2.6% from Chile, 2.4% from Colombia, 2.3% from italy, 2.2% from Portugal, 1.8% from the Dominican Republic, 1.4% from Costa Rica, and 1.1% from uruguay.


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in a week, in september 2008, 326,442 different document pages were accessed. the main sections could be ranked as follows, depending on the accesses they get: Commentary of the mass readings, spiritual advising, Análisis Digital, Cardinal’s Voice, Pope online, Press kit. Figure 8 shows page views numbers between December 2007-2008.

Figure 8. Page views between December 2007-2008


internet Department Director: Fr. Juan Pedro ortuño morente (B.s. Business Administration, B.s. Philosophy, B.s. theology, doc-toral student in theology). He is also the “Delegado Episcopal para la Pastoral de medios de Comunicación social” for the Archdiocese of madrid, Delegate adviser of Popular TV Madrid, adviser of Popular TV Spain, secretary of the García Morente foundation (Análisis Digital) and secretary of the San Agustín foundation (Alfa y Omega). He takes the final decisions about contents to publish in the website.

technicians of the internet Department (full-time employees): Angel Luis López Jimenez (coordinator), industrial Engineer with a master in information technology; and Joaquín Herrera, Agriculture Engineer, Apple certified technician, master in information technol-ogy. these people work on the design of the website and update the content on a daily basis with information provided from other institu-


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tions belonging to diocese of madrid. the office provides consulting to all parishes in madrid for their website requirements and needs.

secretary of the internet Department: Blanca Jiménez (master in accounting and computer programs). she reviews some website con-tents and manages the office budget.

Collaborators (part-time): Raúl salazar, B.s. in theology, B.s. in information technology (in charge of the process of the new in-tranet, communication between parishes and Curia of the Diocese de madrid); Carmen Vecina, B.s. in theology (reviews some website contents); maría Dolores gamazo, director of the information office (relation with mass media), reads spanish papers and selects articles containing religious content which are sent to the internet Depart-ment for publication in the website.

Future Projects

Among the future projects, the building of a diocesan intranet, the redesign of the website home page, a documental database (news, parishes, bishop’s publications and documents, researching websites for information in general), and the inclusion of contents for all the online communication and services needed for the World Youth Day 2011, which will take place in madrid.

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A.3.2. PRELAtuRE oF oPus DEi

ContactName of the Institution: Prelature of Opus Dei

Website address: www.opusdei.orgCase’s author: Juan Narbona

Role/position: Worldwide web editor

Abstract

opus Dei contributes to the evangelizing mission of the Church by helping people turn their work and daily activities into occasions for growing closer to god, serving others, and improving society. it is established in 65 countries. in order to serve as a useful tool in each of these countries, its website is run with a flexible administration system, which enables it to have 68 local sites in 32 different languages.

this website faces the challenge of addressing several very dif-ferent audiences at the same time: members and friends of opus Dei, journalists, and the general public, especially at times like st. Jose-maría’s Canonization (2002), opus Dei’s 80th anniversary (2008), and The Da Vinci Code book and movie (2003-6).

the institution

the Prelature of opus Dei is a Catholic institution founded by saint Josemaría Escrivá in 1928. it was definitively approved by the Holy see in 1950. since 1982, opus Dei’s institutional form with-in the Church has been that of a Personal Prelature. on 6th october 2002, John Paul ii canonized the founder.

the goal of opus Dei is to contribute to the evangelizing mission of the Church, by promoting among Christians of all social classes a life fully consistent with their faith, in the middle of their daily ordi-nary circumstances and especially through the sanctification of their work.

in the Founder’s words, “the main activity of opus Dei is offer-ing its members, and other people, the spiritual means they need to live as good Christians in the midst of the world. it helps them to


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learn Christ’s doctrine and the Church’s teachings.” (Conversations with Monsignor Escrivá de Balaguer, 1993, 27). the Prelature comple-ments the work of local churches by offering classes, talks, retreats and pastoral care, which help people develop their personal spiritual life and apostolate. in opus Dei personal testimony is always the most important apostolate; it is an apostolate of witness, of specific and ef-fective help given to others, at work and in the other circumstances of one’s daily life.

the Prelature of opus Dei has about 87,000 members, both men and women; 98% are lay people, most of whom are married. the re-maining 2% are priests, drawn from the Prelature’s lay faithful. there are not different categories of members in opus Dei. there are simply different ways of living the same Christian vocation, according to each person’s particular circumstances: men and women, clergy and laity, old and young, celibate and married, university men and women, in-dustrial and agricultural workers, clerks, members of the professions, people who work in official institutions, and so on. After joining opus Dei, people continue to live in the same social settings as before. the Prelature’s faithful do not live apart from the world. instead, they view their work and social relationships as ways to grow closer to god and to help others do likewise.

“it is in the midst of the most material things of the earth that we must sanctify ourselves, serving god and all mankind” (Conversations with Monsignor Escrivá de Balaguer, 1993), said st. Josemaría. the family, marriage, work – all our activities – are opportunities for deal-ing with and imitating Jesus Christ, trying to practice charity, patience, humility, diligence, integrity, cheerfulness and all the other human and Christian virtues.

According to canon law and its own statutes, the Personal Prela-ture is governed by a Prelate appointed by the Pope. the current Prel-ate is Bishop Javier Echevarría (madrid, 1932). in 1994 he succeeded Bishop Álvaro del Portillo, who had taken over the government of opus Dei following st. Josemaría’s death in 1975.


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origin and goals of the Website

the official website went online for the first time in 1996 in four languages (English, French, italian, and spanish). through three re-designs (1996, 1998 and 2006) the website has constantly increased the number of texts and multimedia contents, presently in 32 different languages. the goals of the website are mainly three:

1) spreading the ideal of holiness in the middle of the world;2) providing information about opus Dei; and3) making available Christian writings for people interested in Catho-

lic teachings and in the message of st. Josemaría.


the website is structured by sections. the sections are composed of subsections, and these comprise articles (i.e. section: From the Prel-ate – subsection: Questions & Answers – article: “A World thirsting for Peace”). on the homepage, the sections are disposed in three groups, in order of interest to our users:· main sections, displayed on the top horizontal bar: What is Opus

Dei?, From the Prelate, News, Press Room; and FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

· secondary sections, displayed on the left hand column (sections giv-ing more information about the institution): Personal testimonies, Canonization causes, Social initiatives, Related documents, Growing in faith, Multimedia, Opus Dei in the country

· other sections, displayed on the right hand column (about the Founder): Biography, Prayer card, Short Videos of the Founder and Message (texts of st. Josemaría). Another website (www.josemari-aescriva.info), provides more in-depth information about st. Jose-maría

the articles within the different sections can be classified into two different types: timeless and timely. the timeless contents are articles explaining the basics of opus Dei and are not linked to the calendar


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(e.g., “message”, “Biography of the Founder” or “Joining opus Dei”). these contents are aimed at people who do not know the Prelature and are positioned in the main space of the homepage, in order to facilitate access for new visitors. the most successful sections in that area are “What is opus Dei?” and “opus Dei in (country).” this latter section provides some local information about the history and present situation of the Prelature in that particular country: the name of the Regional Vicar (a priest elected by the Prelate to govern the Prelature in one or more countries), cities where activities of spiritual formation are organized, and other local information.

the timely articles are contents with a short life on the homepage: events, special anniversaries, doctrinal texts, etc. After some days on the homepage, new articles are published and the old ones are stored in the archive. these timely contents are accessible to everybody, but the most frequent readers are people who live the spirit of opus Dei.

Among the timely articles, the most read are: a monthly pastoral letter from the Prelate to the faithful and cooperators of opus Dei; selections of texts from the homilies of the Holy Father; testimonies about member’s daily life; short videos of the Founder’s preaching; re-ports about social initiatives run by opus Dei’s members; and news of events (the presentation of books, Prelate’s pastoral trips, etc.). these articles are displayed in a secondary position on the homepage. the Press Room section (top bar) is aimed at a concrete target, and so it offers a specific content, chiefly press releases, documents for back-ground, multimedia material, and personal contact information.

the services offered by www.opusdei.org are: a newsletter with the new articles (62,900 subscribers), with a variable periodicity accord-ing to every country; a daily or weekly mail delivery of short spiritual texts of saint Josemaría (10,800 subscribers); Rss; high-quality photo-graphs and videos for journalists; a downloadable version for PDA and a send-to-a-friend form for of all the text articles of the website; the prayer card of the Founder on PDF version for all the 32 languages; a contact form; and a search tool.


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users and usages

A website is a useful tool for giving information about an institu-tion in very different situations and to many kinds of users. through it, the institution has a “voice” that is always ready to speak. the audience of opus Dei’s website can be divided into three general groups:

a) First group: first contact

An important group of website users are people who visit it as a first source of information, perhaps after having heard about opus Dei in a tV show, film or newspaper, or by meeting a person already fa-miliar with it. such situations trigger their curiosity to visit opus Dei’s website and learn more about it.

spring 2006: The Da Vinci Code movie’s description of opus Dei generated great interest in the real institution. the movie was released in may 2006. From march to July the website received an exceptional number of visits. the big wave of visitors started one month before and lasted one month after the crisis − for example, in January 2006, the visits were 397.102, while in may reached 1.349.058 (+ 340%). in the website’s statistics, this period is reflected as follows:

Table 14. Unique visitors, visits and accessed pages to www.opusdei.org (2006)

Month Unique visitors Visits Pages

January 270,229 397,102 1,419,483

February 305,615 429,937 1,446,175

March 350,251 501,555 1,773,176

April 438,197 626,998 2,329,362

May 976,461 1,349,058 5,063,015

June 441,898 631,509 2,291,987

July 239,795 363,064 1,340,277

August 201,422 311,203 1,080,639

September 195,855 317,752 1,275,944

October 217,773 351,838 1,414,404

November 230,291 364,100 1,274,826

December 205,632 330,134 1,139,569

Total 4,073,419 5,974,250 21,848,857


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Graph 2. Monthly evolution of visits to www.opusdei.org (in thousands) during 2006

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ayJu

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August

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that was a “global crisis” of communication and the website was useful as a “global tool” to cover the need of information that the film had generated in almost every country of the world.

the same phenomenon happens in a local event. table 15 shows a peak on the statistics of the italian website after an interview of a member of opus Dei on tg2, an italian Evening news television program (september 22, 2008). People were interested because opus Dei was celebrating its 80th anniversary. in that case, the visits increased for two days. While the number of visits was 1,216 on september 19, it reached 5,629 on september 23 (+ 462%).

Table 15. Statistics of www.opusdei.it (Italian version) during the week 20-27,

September 2008 (including the crisis of September 22)

Date Visits Pages

20 921 2,979

21 932 4,363

22 4,890 15,296

23 5,629 18,434

24 2,561 8,411

25 1,901 7,039

26 1,606 6,018

27 1,276 3,934


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Graph 3. Weekly evolution of visits to www.opusdei.it (Italian version) during the week

20-27, September 2008 (including the crisis of September 22)

0

1.000

2.000

3.000

4.000

5.000

6.000

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

the previous examples (The Da Vinci Code and the italian inter-view) are extreme cases. the statistics show that, month after month and in almost every country, the most solicited contents are those ex-plaining the basics of opus Dei’s spirit.

b) Second group: people close to the institution

26th June 2008. in Ho Chi ming, capital of Vietnam, a group of opus Dei’s cooperators were speaking with a priest of the Prelature who had traveled there to celebrate a mass on the feast of saint Jose-maría. “if opus Dei can’t come here yet,” they said to the priest, “we want to have the website in our language. in that way, we will be able to read the spiritual texts and learn the spirit of the Work.” in less than a month they themselves translated all the texts needed for the website. this story serves to introduce a second group of users: members and cooperators of opus Dei, who use the website as a source of Christian formation and information. the website is actually a very good tool for facilitating their access to spiritual texts and pastoral material.

in this sense, internet, as a global media, is an effective tool for an institution that is spread around the world and whose members, united by a common spirit, live their faith in very different circumstances. For example, the letter addressed every month by the Prelate to the faithful of the Prelature is always among the most read articles on the site. this letter is published in more than 25 languages and can easily be printed by any user. Before, it used to take a long time for these letters to be


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read by all the members. now, there are many more readers and they can read the letter much sooner.

c) Third group: journalists

the third group of users is journalists, who can find on the site the necessary background to present information about opus Dei. Partic-ularly useful for the media are the news items about the activities of the Prelature and the initiatives run by its members, the testimonies of the faithful of the Prelature, and the publication of the pastoral letters.

together, these audiences are steadily increasing their use of the website. these are the statistics of www.opusdei.org (non-human ac-cesses have been filtered out):

Table 16. Statistics of www.opusdei.org (2003-2008)

Year Visitors Visits

2003 915,866 1,457,144

2004 1,970,417 2,941,416

2005 2,996,458 4,384,482

2006 4,073,419 5,974,250

2007 2,692,396 4,527,176

2008 3,203,615 5,491,033

the increase between 2004 and 2006 is very sharp because of The Da Vinci Code book (2004-2005) and movie (2006). However, the sta-tistics show that in 2007 – without the film – the website has reached a higher number of visitors than in 2003.

Who’s Behind the Website

opus Dei’s website has 68 local versions for 57 countries (Canada, Belgium, China, spain and switzerland offer multiple websites in dif-ferent languages). the design and some contents are the same, while news and some local information differ from site to site. this combi-nation of unity and variety is intentional, because it shows the reality of


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this institution of the Church: a universal spirit, personified in people of diverse environments and cultures.

the website administration is structured to promote this unity and variety. A local administrator can feed content to his own web-site (e.g., india, Kenya, italia, new Zealand, etc.). in addition, every language has a lead administrator in charge of supplying interesting content for all the websites of that language (e.g., usA is the lead administrator for all the English sites: united Kingdom, india, south Africa, etc.). Finally, there is a general administrator who coordinates the work of all the lead administrators and offers them content of general interest.

Figure 9. Organizational chart

1

General Administrator (Rome, Italy)

Language Leader Administrator (some examples)

English (USA) | French (France) | Spanish (Spain)

Local administrators

India

South Africa

Ireland

Philippines

Great Britain

Canada

Australia

New Zealand


Canada

Belgium

Switzerland


Colombia

Peru

Mexico

Ecuador

Venezuela

Panama

Uruguay

Paraguay

Chile

Argentina

in this way, all the sites are being fed periodically with new con-tent, thanks to the work of the general administrator and the language leaders. this approach guarantees that any site can have local content that reflects the apostolic work of opus Dei in that country. the con-tent appearing on all the websites is supplied by the opus Dei infor-mation office.

Hence, the content management is the responsibility of each country, with help in coordination from the general Administrator in Rome. the technical support (domain name registration, server main-tenance, redesign, etc.) is handled by the information office of spain. While those in charge in Rome and madrid have degrees in Journal-


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ism and Computer Engineering, no special training or knowledge is needed to manage a local website.

the administration tool was developed by the information of-fice of opus Dei. it is easy to use and requires no special abilities to manage it. it permits local administrators to add new articles to their website, to study their statistics, to send out their newsletters, and to manage their subscriptions.

only two tasks have been outsourced to external firms: the orig-inal design of the website and the production of some videos (e.g., concerning the Holy Father’s activity). the majority of the videos are produced in the different opus Dei information offices.

Communication among the team of 57 administrators who man-age the website is carried out by ordinary e-mail or phone calls us-ing skype. in addition, the information office has an intranet, which facilitates the coordination and exchange of materials (press releases, photographs, B-roll, etc.).

Future Projects

some future projects for the website include writing a book of style for all the languages, adding flash presentations to the site; offering a newsletter only for journalists, adding more short videos explaining the basics of opus Dei, and increasing the number of podcasts with texts of the Founder.

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A.4.1. CongREgAtion oF missionARiEs oF st. CHARLEs – sCALABRiniAns

ContactName of the Institution: Congregation of Missionaries of St. Charles - Scalabrinians

[Congregazione dei Missionari di S. Carlo - Scalabriniani]Website address: www.scalabrini.org

Case’s author: Slawomir ZygaRole/position: External researcher (Director of Communications,

Archdiocese Szczecin – Kamień, Poland)

Abstract

the chapter is a case study of a web portal created by the congre-gation of scalabrinians. it begins with a description of the institution. the author subsequently moves on to describe the portal itself in detail. it is observed that the congregation of scalabrinians – a rather small one in comparison with some other monastic congregations in the world – has been quite successful in creating a simple internet portal, which presents their activity in different regions of the world. the portal has attracted quite a number of visitors “connected” by common interest in the issues presented there. What is more, within this public portal accessible to anyone the scalabrinians also created a space (intranet) where pieces of information for members of the congregation only can be found. it allows for information to flow in three directions:

1) Vertical communication, i.e. between general authorities and indi-vidual members or/and organizational units; this facilitates prompt exchange of information and documents

2) Horizontal communication, i.e. the information flow between par-ticular members of the congregation or between organizational units about their current activity and joint projects

3) Communication between individual members of the scalabrinians scattered over various institutes in the whole world, which enables them to find valid contact data

A.4. Congregations and movements

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the institution

the official name of the monastic order whose portal is to be ana-lyzed in this chapter is Congregation of st. Charles missionaries (Lat-in: Congregatio Missionariorum a S. Carolo). the order is also known as scalabrinians – the name goes back to the founder of the congregation, John Baptist scalabrini (1839 – 1905). the congregation was founded in the year 1887 and approved by the Holy see in 1888. the charisma of the congregation was defined as pastoral care of immigrants. this rather small monastic order, which has 246 houses and 773 members (Annuario Pontificio 2008), operates practically all around the world with the exception of the middle East and post-soviet Asia. its web-site address is www.scalabrini.org.

Previous analysis of the scalabrinians’ portal was conducted as a part of the first systematic study of internet use by Catholic congrega-tions in the years 2004/5 (see chapter four in this book).


the congregation of scalabrinians declared as early as in the year 2005 that they had at least one computer with internet access in each monastic house. it is also worth mentioning that the internet has been used by the congregation as a tool of communication since 1995, which, taking into consideration that the “mean” beginning of internet use by Catholic congregations is dated at 1999-2000, makes scalabrinians trail blazers of the use of this medium in the world of consecrated life. the general House of the congregation has its own server for the website and the e-mail domain @scalabrini.org owned by the congregation. With regard to security, the server has a firewall installed, as well as an antivirus program and anti-spam filter, which are systematically updated.

the website itself is very simple, not to say crude, with regard to its structure. it should, however, be pointed out that this “crudeness” is to be considered an asset of the site. it is true that the portal was not created with the use of any advanced and sophisticated tool and that it is a simple, static web page which has not been changed with respect


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to its technological aspect (the graphic layout has been changed) since the year 2005. to understand why this is an asset one should look at the issue not with the eyes of an inhabitant of “technologized” Europe or north America but with the eyes of a scalabrinian missionary living somewhere in the provinces of e.g. Argentina or in an African village where electricity is supplied for only a couple of hours a day, and where the internet can be accessed only via mobile or satellite phone. in such circumstances the website should load quickly to enable swift search for relevant information/documents making one able to download them onto one’s own computer as fast as possible. if a website, especially in-tranet, is to be used for communication efficiently, one has to take the technologically weakest “links in the chain” into consideration, which is exactly what those in charge of the scalabrinians’ website did.


the home page is divided into three vertical sections. the central section contains topical issues, most important of which is situated on the top of the page with other important titles scrolling beneath it, and yet another highlighted titles underneath.

the right-hand section contains banners informing about events organized by scalabrinians, either by their general House or by par-ticular provincial houses scattered over the whole world. the section starts with a calendar where all the most important events and an-niversaries, as well as special dates connected with the patron of the congregation are highlighted.

the left-hand section provides information about the congrega-tion: about its structure and authorities as well as some historical data. Here we can also find the congregation’s yearbook with personal regis-ter (ordered by administrative units) but in order to access it one needs to log in. in this section there is also a module “links scalabriniani”, which contains internet addresses of the sites ran by particular orga-nizational units (provinces, regions, monastic houses) connected with the congregation. this module includes 98 links.

At the bottom of the page one can find three functional icons which serve to promote the portal: 1) set as main page, 2) add to Fa-vorites, 3) send link to a friend.


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the home page of the congregation’s portal was originally written in italian. Yet the language policy connected with the page has changed at least once since the beginning of the website. the 2005 home page had, besides the one in italian, three other language versions: English, spanish and Portuguese (Zyga 2006, 161-170). Currently the only language of the page is italian. it, thus, seems that scalabrinians de-cided to run the page only in the congregation’s main language and not to devise other language sections, which were never to be seen as exact translation of the whole portal but contained basic information only. other languages than italian, however, have not been entirely aban-doned. the home page is linked to a section devoted to the secular institute of the scalabrinian missionary Women which has as many as seven language versions: italian, English, Polish, French, german, spanish and Portuguese (www.scala-mss.net, accessed 7 Dec. 2008). All these language versions are in principle faithful translations of the main one with the exception of the Polish language version, which has not yet been fully translated and is partially written in English.

Via the home page one can access two important services ad-dressed to members of the congregation only: 1) the intranet, 2) the site for accessing e-mail accounts of the domain @scalabrini.org.

Intranet (Area Riservata) is the part of the internet service to be accessed only by members of the congregation. in this section one can find contact data from all members of the institute, using the electronic personal register (Annuario Scalabriniano 2008). it is also here that the monks can find contact data of all the institutions in the world run by scalabrinians and can, thus, e.g. verify their credibility. Besides all the structural-personal information, the section also includes documents issued by the general superior of the congregation, as well as by the joint authorities governing the institute, such as the general Chapter or Assembly of superiors. Last but not least, the intranet section of-fers access to the electronic version of official Bulletin and to iCs (information of the scalabrinians’ Congregation). the latter – includ-ing archival issues from January 2006 onwards – is available in italian, English, spanish and Portuguese.

the portal scalabrini.org leaves its – even accidental – visitors with no doubts where they have just arrived. moreover, it is clearly visible that the portal has a non-profit character and consequently noting is


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promoted there, except for the events organized by the congregation. it is also beyond doubt that the scalabrinians themselves have created the portal. the only flaw is that there is no way to contact the webmas-ter or the editorial team. it is easier to reach the general superior than the it specialist in charge of the website.

navigation on the website is easy. one has no difficulties return-ing to the home page as all the links and services open a separate new window. the site loads faultlessly regardless the browser one uses1.

users and usages

Even the most sophisticated website, with the most interesting content, offering the most advanced services is useless and unimport-ant if nobody visits it. in such a case it resembles a “coffee bar” with anything you could possibly want on offer but with no clients visiting it. Here after, data on the visits to the website in the year 2008.

Table 17. Statistical data on www.scalabrini.org (2008)

Visits to the Website – Monthly Traffic Trafficdaily max 15 - 19

standard 3,180 daily min 02 - 07

biggest January 3,383 weekly max Mon – Fri

smallest August 2,629 weekly min Sat – Sun

Origin Visits Search Enginedirect 70.1% Google 88.3%

search engines 15.7% Search.msn 4.8%

different websites 13.6% Yahoo 2.4%

Browser Operating SystemExplorer 92.6% Windows2 95.9%

Mozilla / Firefox 3.6% Mac OS 1.6%

Netscape / Safari 1.1% Linux 1.2%

1 the site was tested on December 8, 2008 using internet Explorer, Firefox, safari, mozilla, opera and Avant Browser.

2 the operating systems used were Windows XP (75.5%) and Vista (20.4%).


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Table 18. Visits to the site by geographical area (2008)

Country 2008

Italy 42,1%

North America (USA and Canada) 14,5%

Latin America 16,8%

Switzerland 10,6%

Germany 3,8%

Spain 1,3%

Philippines 2,6%

Australia and Oceania 2,4%

Comparison of the data enables one to draw some interesting con-clusions:

– the traffic on the website between 2005 and 2008 has remained at the same level, which may suggest existence of a large constant group of people interested in the site

– Visitors from italy constitute the largest group, which is most evi-dent in August when the holiday season in this country reaches its peak. there is a dramatic decrease in the number of visits from italy in this time of year: from 42% to 30%

– the dominance of microsoft software – among both browsers and operating systems of the website visitors – has remained unassailable

– the website is most often found by means of google search engine, showing the importance of this source of visits

the data presented above seem to justify the thesis that the con-gregation of scalabrinians has been quite successful in creating a simple internet portal which presents their activity in different regions of the world. the portal has, moreover, attracted quite a number of “faithful” visitors.


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the question “Who’s behind it?” has two aspects with respect to website which should be taken into consideration. the first aspect concerns technical maintenance service, which is entrusted with a pro-fessional it specialist from the outside who takes systematic care of the website with respect to both hardware and software.

the second aspect of website functioning concerns moderation of communication processes via the website. this task has been entrusted to the secretary general by the general Authorities of the congrega-tion. the scope of his responsibility includes monitoring portal func-tioning as well as systematic updating and archiving its content. the laborious task of entering data, however, belongs to the general Au-thorities of the congregation.

it is obvious that the wide range of contents put on the website is not homogenous and has to be entrusted to separate teams, e.g. the iCs bulletin. some of the contents, e.g. the letters of the general su-perior, are translated into various languages by professional translators. it does not, however, change the fact that everything is practically un-der the supervision of two people: the it specialist/webmaster and the secretary general, and that the whole portal is financed by the budget of the general house of the congregation.

Future Projects

the congregation of scalabrinians has created a simple, easy to use portal allowing a visitor to enter the world of the monastic order and learn about its activity. it is a portal useful not only to those seek-ing information about the congregation but also to those already con-nected with the congregation in some respect, and for the members of the congregation as the space for vertical and horizontal communica-tion. the technical simplicity caters for effectiveness of communica-tion process, even in the geographical areas where internet access is difficult. the most important fact, however – which is proven by the data – is that this tool of communication truly works. the general policy of technical simplicity adopted by the congregation does not


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exclude the existence of highly advanced websites created by individual branches of the congregation, which operate in technologically devel-oped geographical areas, such as e.g. north America. the main func-tion of the central portal is to create a place in the net holding all the projects run by the congregation together, as well as to provide easy access to necessary information and communication for those lacking access to sophisticated technologies.

the scalabrinians are fully aware of the need to update their por-tal. For this reason they are currently working intensely on a new ver-sion of their website. the main priorities concerning communication, which were described earlier in the text, are not to be changed. the layout of the site, however, is to be changed, as well as its graphics with respect to the choice of colors. moreover, the website will be avail-able in six language versions: italian (which is to be the main version), spanish, Portuguese, English, French and german. the search engine on the site shall also be a welcome novelty. the main asset of the site – namely its technical simplicity – is anyway to be retained.

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A.4.2. Communion AnD LiBERAtion

ContactName of the Institution: Communion and Liberation

[Comunione e Liberazione]Website address: www.clonline.org

Case’s author: Stefania RagusaRole/position: Editor

Abstract

www.clonline.org is the official website of Communion and Lib-eration, the ecclesial movement founded by Fr. Luigi giussani in 1954, and now present in approximately 80 countries. there is an of-ficial, international section (available in italian, English and spanish) and a section dedicated to national groups. it offers a complete, up-dated panorama of the movement, both from the institutional point of view and regarding initiatives and events concerning it. A search engine makes it possible to access a large archive of documents dating from 1996.

the institution

Communion and Liberation is an ecclesial movement whose aim is the mature Christian education of its members and collaboration in the Church’s mission in all ambits of contemporary society. it began in 1954, when Fr. giussani gave origin in the Berchet High school, milan, to a Christian presence called “gioventù studentesca” (student Youth). the name used today, Communion and Liberation (CL), ap-peared for the first time in 1969. it sums up the conviction that the Christian Event, lived in communion, is the foundation for man’s genuine liberation.

During the 1960s, the movement testified to its missionary na-ture, in the departure of the first gs members for Brazil, in Belo Hori-zonte. Apart from the immediate geographical spread, what is striking is the growing presence of members of CL in all social and ecclesial ambits—schools of every type and grade, university, the work envi-ronment, charity work, culture and politics. Pontifical recognition was


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granted, in 1982, to the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, and, in 1988, to the Ecclesial Association “memores Domini” made up of members of the movement who have made a choice of total dedication to god.

on march 24, 2007, on the 25th anniversary of the Pontifical rec-ognition of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, Benedict XVi received 100,000 members of the movement from all over the world in st. Peter’s square.

Luigi giussani was born in 1922, in Desio, in the province of milan, italy. At the age of 11, he entered the archdiocesan seminary of milan, where he went on to complete his studies at the theological Faculty of Venegono. He died on February 22, 2005 at his home in milan. the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger presided at his funeral in milan Cathedral, as Pope John Paul ii’s personal envoy and preached the homily before a congregation of 40,000. A tireless educator, Fr. giussani published numerous books and essays, which have been translated into a score of languages and have formed many generations of his followers.

Fr. giussani’s successor as leader of the movement is Fr. Julián Carrón, born in 1950 at navaconcejo (Cáceres, spain), and ordained priest in 1975. in september 2004, he moved to milan, called by Fr. giussani to share the responsibility for leading the movement. Fol-lowing Fr. giussani’s death, the Central Diaconia of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation nominated him as President of the Fra-ternity, a mandate that was then renewed in 2008.


the first CL website appeared in 1996 (www.comunionelibera-zione.org). it was chiefly a missionary vehicle for promoting texts of the founder and other instruments in italy and throughout the world. in 2001, it was completely restructured (www.clonline.org). the new international site was enriched with many texts and a search engine. the contents concerned the founder, the nature and the history of the movement and associated initiatives. national sites were also set up.


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the intention is to offer everyone the opportunity to meet the authen-tic CL experience as a whole.


the website www.clonline.org gives access to the pages of the official international site (available in English, italian and spanish) and to the 22 national pages (italy, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, France, germany, Hungary, ireland, mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, spain, united Kingdom, usA, Venezuela).

From the home page it is possible to access the official texts relat-ing to the movement (What is CL, worldwide addresses, the official magazine Traces, documents in image and video format, books and music, mailing lists, Archive and Links). it also offers a central section divided into blocks: one on news about CL, the Church and the world; one on Fr. giussani and Fr. Julián Carrón; one for a news review; and finally two sections devoted to books and CDs proposed by the move-ment.

From time to time, special events are dealt with having a common theme involving the movement as a whole. For example, the public presentations of the school of Community books (the catechesis pro-posed publicly by CL to members and friends), or the anniversary of the Pontifical recognition of the Fraternity of Communion and Lib-eration, or the anniversary of the death of the founder.

As for books and CDs, Fr. giussani’s whole bibliography is avail-able, divided according to language (English, French, spanish, Portu-guese, Brazilian, Czech, Croat, german, Russian, Lithuanian, Polish, Rumanian, slovakian, slovenian, Hungarian, greek, Arabic, Albanian and Japanese), all the books (about 80, with relative presentations) of the series I Libri dello Spirito Cristiano, and all the CDs (about 50) of the series Spirto Gentil, both founded by Fr. giussani. All these can be ordered online, by connecting to a website dealing with production and distribution of cultural instruments.

the search engine makes it possible to find material published on the site over the years. Consultation is free of charge and available


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to everyone. the Advanced search makes it possible to search within the various sections and to pre-compile fields. the search results list chronologically all the documents in which the keywords appear.

in addition to the institutional sites of general interest, the Link section offers an overall view of realities that, though remaining auton-omous, gravitate around the experience of the movement. subscrip-tion to the mailing List makes it possible to be informed of ongoing changes.

users and usages

When the website was set up, no objectives were set as regards numbers or the kind of visitors it was intended to attract to the site.

the website counts an average of 60,000 unique visitors per month, with 200,000 visits (excluding spiders) for a total of 1,000,000 page-views. in november 2008, unique visitors were 93,931. total visits were 219,554 with a daily average of 7,318. the numbers are growing every year. 70% of the visitors make one visit per month. the number of visits during the week is constant. no detailed data are available as to the geographical distribution of the visitors.

in the classification of the top pages, 60% of the visits are to the home page and this is in line with the structure of the site which offers documents in PDF on the home page. the monthly classification of the documents most downloaded reports a total of 50,000 for a score of different documents.

the website offers a subscription to a newsletter, up to now is has 14,644 subscribers.

Who’s Behind the website?

Fabio Previdi set up the data base and took on the job of DBA Administrator. Lorenzo Pansera took charge of the installation of the system and acts as system Administrator. the Web Designers are Da-vide Cestari and Daniela Belloni. in addition, they are responsible for organizing and uploading the online content.


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Alberto savorana, journalist and formerly editor of the magazine Traces, is the official spokesman for the movement of Communion and Liberation, in charge of the press office and external relations, as well as in charge of communications and all the contents published on the website. stefania Ragusa, journalist, takes care of the editing and day-to-day updating of the website.

Future Projects

in the following months the website will switch from the use of asp/html language to a platform based on a Cms, which will make it possible to coordinate it with the national websites and simplify the updating. the search engine will be renewed and a dynamic map of the site will be provided enabling the user to find what s/he is looking for easily and visually. A new newsletter service will also be activated.

B. mEDiA

B.1. Vatican Radio

B.2. Eternal Word television network (EWtn)

B.3. the southern Cross – newspaper

B.4. Zenit – news Agency

B.5. our sunday Visitor – Publishing Company

B.6. Catholic.net - internet Portal

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B.1. VAtiCAn RADio

ContactsName of the Institution: Vatican Radio

Website address: www.radiovaticana.orgCase’s authors and role/position:

Fr. Federico Lombardi: General Director Pietro Cocco: Webteam Director

Abstract

the Vatican Radio website has been present on the internet since the end of the 1990’s and today speaks 38 languages. it provides up-to-date information on the activities of Pope Benedict XVi, the Holy see, and the life of the Church, as well as news regarding churches in various parts of the world, and coverage of the main issues of today. one of the main objectives of Vatican Radio is to intensify collabora-tion and synergy with radio stations, websites, production centres, in the Catholic world especially, but not exclusively, to make its service as much available as possible.

the institution

Vatican Radio is the radio station of the Holy see. Founded in 1931, Vatican Radio produces programmes in many different languag-es, providing information on the activities and teachings of the Holy Father and on the life of the universal Church. until the early 1990’s, most of the broadcasts were via short wave, oriented toward specific areas of the globe, and via medium wave, for Europe and those areas closer to Rome. the Fm service is limited to the Rome area.

During the 1990’s, satellite transmissions were introduced and the digital system of radio production replaced the analogical one. All the language sections of Vatican Radio use the netia digital editing sys-tem. the internet era also began in the 1990’s.

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initially, the use of internet was limited to information about Vat-ican Radio, to publishing broadcast schedules, and to the web-casting of radio broadcasts. soon Vatican Radio began experimenting with the publication of information on the website in the form of written texts, supported by sound clips, photos and video clips. today the internet is another important way for Vatican Radio to achieve its objectives and carry out its work, which goes beyond that of the traditional radio station.

the main advantages derived from the development of the web-site are: potential access from every part of the Earth (short wave was directional only), information remains available long after the broad-cast (through the publication of written texts and the archiving of writ-ten materials and audio and video clips, as well as through the on-de-mand service for audio programmes), the multimedia service (support of written texts, audio and video clips).

the Vatican Radio website has been present on the internet at www.radiovaticana.org since the end of the 1990’s and today speaks 38 languages (with 47 editorial units online). it provides up-to-date information on the activities of Pope Benedict XVi, the Holy see, and the life of the Church, as well as news regarding churches in various parts of the world, and coverage of the main issues of today.

From the start, the idea was that Vatican Radio’s use of the in-ternet would go beyond that of being a mere showcase. the objective was to best utilize the characteristics of the internet, with its global outreach, to better serve our listeners and to channel multimedia con-tent. to do this, a new editorial process had to be created, which could work alongside the traditional ones and could maintain the set-up of the linguistic programmes and enhance our identity as a radio. A sys-tem that could be managed both internally and for publishing content in multimedia and multilingual format (texts, audio and video clips, photos, audio and written text archives on the net).

thus, the “oecumene” project, a new system to manage produc-tion, was born. it brought together the technical experience of our technical Department and the professional editorial experience of journalists working in our Programming Department. the project

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went beyond identifying technical solutions aimed at responding to editorial necessities. it developed a working procedure that provided analysis-planning and production quality assurance, in which the tech-nical and editorial components interact, each from its own area of re-sponsibility and experience. this new production procedure no longer distinguishes between journalistic and technical aspects: the Program-ming Department is responsible for the written content and sound, and the technical Department is responsible for archiving, publishing and distributing the contents. together they constitute a single work-ing group known as the Webteam.


the “oecumene” system includes a series of processes and tech-nologies used to support the entire life-cycle of digital information produced and managed by Vatican Radio’s editorial units with an ap-plication called Cm-Contentmaker.

the production goes from writing up a single article to its inter-nal archiving with audio clip, photo and/or videoclip, up to its exter-nal publication on the webpage and distribution via e-mail, podcast, Rss, and an area dedicated to radio stations that rebroadcast our pro-grammes called “Radio4-Radio”. the combination of these functions forms a single process.

All articles are published with a reference to 14 theme-categories, which, along with archiving in chronological order, allow for each ar-ticle to be contextualized at the moment of publication. the goal is to avoid a fragmentation of information by building and maintaining a live memory on the web (not only of the historical archive) related to events and interventions regarding the magisterium of the Church, avoiding a style of reporting that can tend to over-simplify.

As of october 2008 essential figures about the website are:· 47 editorial units which use Contentmaker· 231,020 articles archived internally· 186,857 articles archived in the website· 315 articles published daily· 130,116 audio clips archived internally

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· 69,362 audio clips archived in the website· 2,885 high quality audio clips on the website · 5,523 high quality podcast audio files· 122 audio clips published daily· Publications in 38 different languages, with a dedicated home page

and surfing areas, drawn up by the separate language units, with original news production, reports and in-depth programmes pub-lished in text, audio and photos

· An advanced full text search engine in all languages, which facili-tates finding news and related audio clips

· more than 80 on-demand broadcasts in 39 languages available in two modalities: a) for individual users via internet, b) for radio sta-tions that have requested rebroadcast rights

· the possibility to listen live to all radio programmes on the 5 inter-net channels in Real-Audio and Windows media Player formats

· Rss (in 17 languages), which automatically feed the indexes of the articles published by Vatican Radio in the various languages, used by individual users and other websites

· Podcasts on 17 language channels (plus one reserved for recordings of the voice of the Holy Father)

· Also a podcast channel of every Vatican Radio programme, for a total of 85 daily podcasts in all the broadcast languages of Vatican Radio

· Distribution of information newsletters via e-mail, by subscription via web to the automatic mailing list. in these newsletters the single language units collect and dispatch the main news items of the day or the week

· Video clips of the Pope’s activities, available on demand, produced by the Vatican television Centre (CtV)

· Live video transmissions by CtV-VR, of all Vatican events trans-mitted live by CtV. this is the groundwork for the launching of a real WebtV of Vatican Radio, still in a pilot stage. Worthy of note is that that VR and CtV have launched the experimental transmis-sions in t-DmB over the Rome area and the same programming appears also in WebtV form on the Vatican Radio site

· A complete schedule of Vatican Radio broadcasts is available, in-cluding information relating to transmission in Fm, medium wave, short wave, via satellite and internet

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users and usages

Articles on the Vatican Radio website are frequently indicated as references regarding issues discussed on the web, even if they were published a long time before citation. one of the strategies behind the website is to guarantee the authority of Vatican Radio as an in-formation source. giving online permanence to all that is published, effectively allows Vatican Radio to be referred to as a source. this also allows content to be efficiently reused, with the source directly indi-cated and not simply duplicated.

Vatican Radio’s choice to rely on content, with growing attention to production, distribution and network-sharing, fosters an increase in the rebroadcasting of material, whether written or audio, on the part of other radio stations and a growing number of newspapers.


A total of 47 editorial language units are behind the website. they produce the daily information, which is broadcast via radio and publish it directly on their webpages. they are headed by the Programming Department of Vatican Radio. the web-team’s activity embraces more than the publication of web pages and is a combination of tasks and as-sessments of a single “service of content management”, whose respon-sibility is thus subdivided:

· A technical content management section, directly under the respon-sibility of the technical Director (the development and maintenance of the content management service falls under the responsibility of this section)

· An editorial content management section, directly under the re-sponsibility of the Programming Department

the two sections constitute a single “Content management ser-vice” under the policy guidelines of the general Director for their spe-cific fields of competence.

the web-team is also in charge of a series of procedures and tech-nologies, which support the entire life-cycle of digital information

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(from the writing of a single article, its internal archiving with audio clip, photo and/or video clip, up to its external publication on the web page, and its distribution via e-mail, podcast, Rss, mobile telephone, etc.). they make up a single process in which the topical moment and the highly urgent phase is constituted by the notification of the updat-ing (in the writing phase, archiving, publication, distribution).

Vatican Radio’s it unit also has a team, headed by the technical Department, which deals with webcasting, distributing the audio sig-nal via live streaming, and distributing audio clips for individual listen-ers and in high quality for rebroadcasting by other radio stations.

Future Projects

Future objectives include the development of an audio-video con-tribution management (platform), an externally structured sharing of these contributions (for example the Catholic television agency H20), the management of audio-video contents on the t-DmB channel with relative repetition on a web channel of Vatican Radio. to meet the re-quirements of this integration, the web-team created an infrastructure and platform with specific connectors: Vatican Radio website – out-side distribution centres (like H20) – mobile distribution – t-DmB platform distribution. the connecting structure makes it possible to integrate new platforms of distribution, like “Youtube”, for example.

it’s important to develop the area of the website devoted to ra-dio stations that rebroadcast Vatican Radio, called “Radio-4-Radios”. over the last few years Vatican Radio has undergone a transformation from Broadcaster with its own palimpsest (organized with scheduled appointments of correspondents of language programmes for certain geographical areas), to Broadcaster that provides editorial reports and multimedia contents for linguistic and geographical areas. the goal is to go from simply re-broadcasting of programmes to sharing resources (peer-to-peer strategy, journalistic coverage of events, etc.) for an ever more detailed co-distribution of contents produced.

Vatican Radio’s strategy is to intensify collaboration and synergy with radio stations, websites, production centres, in the Catholic world especially, but not exclusively, in such a way as to render its service (and that of CtV) as much available as possible.

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B.2. EWtn – EtERnAL WoRD tELEVision nEtWoRK

ContactsName of Institution: EWTN - Eternal Word Television Network

Website address: www.ewtn.comCase’s authors, role/position:

Jeff Burson: Senior Web Developer / Web Manager Michelle Johnson: Director of Communications

Abstract

Ewtn.com is the second most visited Catholic website in the world, surpassed only by the Holy see, according to Alexa, the web information company. the website supports Eternal Word television network inc., which was founded by a cloistered Poor Clare nun on Aug. 15, 1981. today, EWtn is seen 24 hours a day in over 148 mil-lion television households in more than 140 countries and territories. With its direct broadcast satellite television and radio services, Am & Fm radio networks, worldwide short-wave radio station, internet web-site and publishing arm, EWtn is the largest religious media network in the world.

the institution

When Eternal Word television network (EWtn) was launched on Aug. 15, 1981, many felt there would be little demand for a Catho-lic network. in fact, when mother m. Angelica, a cloistered nun, ful-filled a promise to our Lord in the early 1960s by founding our Lady of Angels monastery in irondale, Ala., she had no idea she would one day found the largest religious media network in the world. However, evangelization was always her top priority. mother began by writing “mini-books,” short teachings on a variety of religious themes. As the popularity of these books grew, her nuns obtained a printing press and began duplicating and distributing them worldwide.

soon, mother began receiving speaking requests from around the world. However, on a seven-day trip to a Baptist-run television station

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in Chicago in march 1978, mother realized she could reach millions without ever leaving the monastery grounds. the Poor Clare nun, who knew little of the world of technology and communication, would eventually build her own tV studio on monastery property in irondale. What began as a garage-turned-tV-studio is now a state-of-the-art media complex funded totally by gifts from individuals and groups.

today, EWtn airs family and religious programming from a Catholic point of view in English, spanish and german. Providing more than 80% original programming, EWtn offers inspiring talk shows, entertaining children’s animation, exclusive teaching series, live coverage of Church events, and thought-provoking documentaries.


in 1996, EWtn acquired Catholic Resource network (CRnEt), a dial-in computer service with the internet’s largest collection of Catholic documents and an “expert forum” providing answers to the public’s questions. CRnEt became ewtn.com, the service was moved from manassas, Va. to irondale, and an online services Department was formed to manage the website.

“the explosive growth of computer-based telecommunications is an exciting opportunity to spread the gospel to all nations and reach people in new ways,” said mother Angelica, who founded EWtn to serve the orthodox belief and teaching of the Church as proclaimed by the supreme Pontiff and his predecessors.


the web team at ewtn.com began by growing the document li-brary, including statements from the Vatican and bishops. the site now has one of the largest online collections of free Catholic docu-ments in the world.

EWtn.com also immediately added television and radio sched-ules and expanded the forums. items from EWtn Religious Cata-logue were highlighted until an e-commerce was built in 1998; the

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Catalogue is now easily available at the click of a button from the home page.

in January 1998, EWtn.com added a spanish language website and, in 2003, a website was developed in german.

on the technical side, EWtn added live audio to its website in 1998. soon, archived audio of series and the Daily mass were made available on demand with a RealAudio Player.

in 1999, EWtn signed with Real networks to provide stream-ing audio and video of both its English and spanish feeds. in 2004, EWtn provided mP3 of its programs with the growth of iPods and mP3 players.

Among the site’s most popular sections are a growing collec-tion of prayers, novenas and litanies; the news site; and EWtnkids. Launched in 2006, EWtnkids is an interactive internet site where young people can learn about their Catholic faith. EWtnKids is built around a Catholic neighborhood, which is home to a church, a school, several homes, a clubhouse, a Post office, a library and the EWtn Faith Factory, which is the name of the network’s children’s program-ming block.

most recently, EWtn signed with Akamai technologies in 2008 to make available its eight television and two radio signals online us-ing Windows media Player. in fact, most of EWtn past and present programming can now be heard on demand from the website.

in a nutshell, viewers and potential viewers have come to know that they can turn to EWtn.com to find: 1) information about up-coming programming; 2) on-demand programming; 3) live streaming video and audio; 4) background information on shows; 5) amplifying information on the shows’ messages; 6) special content pages, i.e., on election-related issues, World Youth Day, papal visits, etc.; 7) spiritual resources – from Church documents and prayers to “holy reminders” that can be purchased and pilgrimage information, as well as 8) Catho-lic news of the day.

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users and usages

According to google Analytics, a comparison of this year (Aug. 12, 2007- Aug. 12, 2008) with last year (Aug. 11, 2006 to Aug. 11, 2007) shows that:

· the number of overall visitors increased more than 23 percent to 16,236,735 while the number of “page views” increased more than 37 percent to 31,009,549

· more than 66 percent of users come directly to the website; the rest are referred by search engines or other sites

· the number of people viewing video or listening to audio increased more than 158 percent

· the most-viewed pages are the English home page, the spanish home page, devotional/prayers, tV schedule, multimedia page (which includes streaming video and audio and on-demand), EWtnKids, the news section and the audio library


the online and Creative services departments, which design and maintain the website, reside in the Communications Department. they report to the Director of Communications, michelle Johnson, who reports to EWtn President and CEo michael Warsaw. mr. Warsaw is ultimately responsible for all of the website’s content.

Jeff Burson, online services manager, a former engineer, has been with EWtn for 22 years and with the department since its inception. Burson directs a team of four web editors, who continue to build both the English and spanish sites.

Louise Webb, Creative services Director, who has a background in visual communications, has been with EWtn for 24 years and is responsible for the graphic design of the website along with her team of four graphic designers.

monica Brantley, Director of information services, and her de-partment provide technical support for the website.

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in the following lines an overview on the procedures for adding new pages to the website:

· First, EWtn’s CEo/President may request a site, the Director of Communications may want to publicize a particular show or build a site for a particular reason (i.e., a guide to Catholic teaching and Voting), or someone in the organization (i.e., theology or Produc-tion) may request that attention be given to an event or show

· Creative and online services (Cs and os) meet with the Commu-nications Director to discuss navigation and web pages needed. the Vice President of theology may also be consulted

· Cs designs the page(s), os lays out and builds the page(s) in Dream-weaver on the developer server, adding Flash or embedded media if needed. Depending on the content of the page(s), EWtn’s CEo/President, the Communications Director, and the Vice President of theology review, add or delete items. the page is moved to a stag-ing server, which information services uploads to the live server, which is updated several times a day

· the new page or site is announced on various social media sites, add-ed to the website’s “What’s new” section, and announced in Wings, EWtn’s weekly e-newsletter (85,000 subscribers and growing), and, if appropriate, in various Catholic, online and secular media outlets

Future Projects

Future plans include the development of websites in additional languages, programming that would allow EWtn managers to inde-pendently add website content specific to their areas, as well as expan-sion of video on demand, expert forums, and EWtnKids.

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B.3. tHE soutHERn CRoss - nEWsPAPER

ContactName of the institution: The Southern Cross, South Africa’s national Catholic weekly

Website address: www.scross.co.za Case’s author: Michail Rassool

Role/position: Staff writer

Abstract

The Southern Cross website, which has existed since 2003, a rela-tively late entry into the world of electronic publishing for a newspaper that had existed for more than 80 years, does not have a dedicated team running it because it does not have the financial resources to set up such a facility. nor is it updated as regularly as it ideally should be, for these very reasons. Content and look are usually the product of col-laboration between The Southern Cross editor günther simmermacher and a web design consultant.

the institution

The Southern Cross is incorporated under the Catholic newspaper and Publishing Company, which was founded in 1920 by the south African bishops to be a tool for ongoing evangelization of Catholics. the first issue went out in october of that year.

the newspaper also aimed to keep the Catholic reading public abreast of developments in their local Church, which was still growing and being established, and to be a vehicle through which the teachings of the magisterium of the Church would be communicated to them.

its object was also to give local Catholics a wider sense of Church through being informed of developments in other parts of the world, and to give the Catholic perspective on local and international current affairs.

until the 1990s, The Southern Cross, which has always had a small editorial staff component, was headed up by a series of clerical editors. south Africa’s first cardinal, the late owen mcCann, archbishop of

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Cape town, served two terms as editor (the second served concur-rently with his Cape town archiepiscopate).

this started changing when former priest michael shackleton (who as priest was once Cardinal mcCann’s secretary, accompanying him to Rome to attend the second Vatican Council) was appointed editor in 1995. sources say the move was not considered particularly radical because it was believed that since shackleton had been a priest and still functioned as a theologian, he knew all the forms and content, which he certainly did and still does.

this atmosphere changed at the end of 2000, when the then 34-year-old dynamo simmermacher, who had been shackleton’s manag-ing editor, took over the editorship of the newspaper and set about implementing his own vision and ideas of where the newspaper could go. But, naturally, these are things that cannot be achieved without consultation, without the approval of one’s board of directors, share-holders, or even one’s newspapers readers. the ideas of readers – that is, those who responded to a readership survey conducted in 2000 – were factored into considerable changes that were being made to the newspaper, a prelude to starting a website.

under the new regime, a whole new look was given to The South-ern Cross, in which more updated standards of newspaper design were employed, with content that reflected what the newspaper’s readers – theologians, bishops, priests, religious, laypeople, and so on – said they would like to see in it. it emphasized the way in which the Church was responding to current affairs, or the difference it was making to the lives of the poor and marginalized, of those with HiV/Aids, and so on. more emphasis was also placed on presenting the lay Catholic perspective on a range of issues – from the evangelical, theological, the political and the ongoing fight for equity and social justice, to the domestic (that is, family life). it was also felt the newspaper should be a more dynamic forum for debate, with more diverse opinions expressed by the newspaper’s correspondents being represented in it, not exclud-ing those whose opinions perhaps veered a bit too far away from the teachings of the magisterium.

According to simmermacher, this provided the ideal environment for starting a website, to give a wider audience a sense of The Southern

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Cross new content, as a world-class Catholic newspaper that responds to more than just the spiritual or parochial needs of the faithful.


in keeping with his new vision, simmermacher said the website’s aim especially is to be a platform for dialogue, debate and exchange of opinion, aside from being a place for hard news and other aspects of journalism. He said when the site was first launched it was not inter-active, catering for consumers the way other newspaper websites did, even though it had a significant audience. this, he said, is currently being remedied (albeit within limits), and space is being provided for active reader response and engagement with content, subject to mod-eration (taking care to eliminate insults and practical jokes, for exam-ple), through setting up Catholic internet forums and bulletin boards, in which individuals can discuss issues and not just be fed material uncritically. All of this is in line with the new look Southern Cross’ aims and objectives. simmermacher says he also sees this as catechetical.

other media websites do things in a far more comprehensive way than The Southern Cross does, because the key issue for the newspaper remains the availability of resources that making such broad sweeps always requires.

simmermacher said that, under the circumstances, he prefers to oversee a comprehensive update of the website than employ a perenni-ally piecemeal approach, which the situation would compel him to do. For now, small information updates to the site he performs himself, which does not involve altering the existing structure and look, unless a more sizeable update calls for a more sweeping approach, which re-quires the web designer’s expertise.

much of the rationale for setting up the website is contained on its homepage, which showcases simmermacher’s editorial entitled “A new media culture”, published in 2008 The Southern Cross’ “Commu-nications sunday” issue. it sets out the bigger picture, especially the Church’s support for using the latest media technology as effective tools for evangelization.


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As the website stood at the time of writing, it had recently been revamped and several parts were still under construction, and it almost exclusively involves re-publishing of Southern Cross material. most of the current wealth of material on it were by columnists – the regu-lar and guest columnists – who wrote on such diverse topics as “Why dump Yahweh?”, “scott Hahn: A convert’s story”, “A way to help lapsed Catholics”, “A new media culture”, “When was the old testa-ment written?”, “Catholics and the Bible” and “suffering can lead to god”.

Editorials from 2001 to 2008 had been placed and regular colum-nists’ writings had been grouped under the heading “Perspectives”, the title of the newspaper’s section in which they are showcased. Also in-cluded in this section are perspectives from bishops, on areas of Church life and other topics, including liturgical developments and life issues.

the section for feature articles written by Southern Cross staff was being reviewed, and re-placing key selections and placing newer ones had not yet taken place under the section earmarked for them, which was still under construction. these would be grouped under the fol-lowing headings: backgrounder, people, dealing with life, faith life, education, life issues, history, travel and media.

Reviews of books and DVDs covering a range of subjects could also be viewed, as well as accounts of Southern Cross-led pilgrimages. there is also the Youth section, dealing with faith issues as they affect young people as well as music, which consists mainly of CD reviews, but this was also still under construction (only some CD reviews had been placed so far). series of articles on single topics – on Lent or on st. Paul – were to be grouped under their own section.

Also pending was a section for “bloggers”, providing space for on-going informative dialogue and debate on the topics encountered on the website, which simmermacher sees as a useful and more immedi-ate means of gauging the Catholic viewpoint or seeing how the wider world responds to Church-based issues.

simmermacher said the website’s structure is meant to reflect opinion, backgrounders to various aspects of Church life and work as well as analysis, which he identifies as its three principal criteria. He

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said he doesn’t wish to overload users with information, a problem he has found with many other websites, and feels The Southern Cross site should be easy to navigate.

its design is simple and unassuming, making the wealth of re-sources available to users easier, simmermacher said. Whereas the previous design had been geared more to conveying information, the present site is more interactive, which is more in keeping with the pur-poses of new media, he said -- the first significant step in bringing The Southern Cross in line with new developments in media technology.

users and usages

Regarding users and their requirements, The Southern Cross has not done a quantitative analysis of its potential website users, the kind of rigorous exercise the newspaper does not currently have the resourc-es for anyway. so projected audiences are rooted in the good, old-fashioned Catholic manner – hope, prayer and faith (not necessarily in that order).

simmermacher said the website should ideally reach people who do not like picking up a newspaper and, conversely, should also lead people who have not picked up The Southern Cross before to want to do so, thus boosting existing readership levels. He believes the site’s “blogging” facility, for example, will add value to the newspaper. sim-mermacher hopes that bloggers will form a large and diverse circle – from the political, theological and scientific, to other areas of life (that is, people with something substantive to say) – through whom Catholic opinion would get out to the general public.

He says a Catholic facility such as this is essentially specialized, so there is no room for a whole variety of opinion. But this is not to say that there is no room for an open spectrum of individuals to engage in dialogue, simmermacher said. For example, if one sees a movie one can write about it, reflecting on it within a Catholic paradigm. or one could write about a personal experience, something as common-place as speaking to someone on the street, perhaps a beggar, providing material for reflection on the Christian value of love in action. the


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blogsite’s contents need not be confined to the ecclesiastical, simmer-macher said.


As indicated before, this function is outsourced to a little media consultancy – basically a one-man show. simmermacher said the web designer had come up with a concept for the present website, an un-cluttered, tighter one, which at the time of writing (october 2008) was already drawing praise from several quarters, for speed of loading and greater navigability, all of this still too early to quantify. He said com-ment on the content had started coming in from several quarters; for example, from someone in the us who praised the pilgrimage material on the site.

Future Projects

simmermacher said part of his dream is also to include a “Face-book” page and to make use of cellular technology, thus bringing about a far more integrated approach to media by the newspaper. the whole project is still a work in progress.

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B.4. ZEnit - nEWs AgEnCY

ContactName of the Institution: Zenit News Agency

Website address: www.zenit.org Case’s author: Jesús Colina

Role/position: Director

Abstract

Zenit is a non-profit news agency that reports in seven languages on the Catholic Church. its objective is to inform about the “world seen from Rome,” with professionalism and faithfulness to the truth.

the institution

innovative media inc., the publisher of Zenit in all its language-editions, is a non-profit organization based in new York. there is, however, no real home base for the Zenit team. Zenit’s office is the in-ternet. this has enabled the agency to reduce costs, and allows people from any corner of the planet to collaborate with the project.

Each language-edition (spanish, English, French, german, Por-tuguese, italian and Arabic) and each department (reader services, pro-motion, fund raising, advertising, administration) organizes its own work, answering to their respective directors according to the orga-nizational guidelines that are normally agreed upon at an annual pro-gramming meeting.

innovative media, inc. carries out its activity directly or in collab-oration with: “Fundación Zenit España” in spain, “Association Zenit” in France, “Zenit eV” in germany, “Asociacao Zenit” in Brazil. All are non-profit organizations in their respective countries.

the name “Zenit” means “zenith” in many languages, and refers to the highest point in the sky reached by the sun, a symbol associated with Jesus Christ by early Christians. Christians tried to see the world with the eyes of Christ, from the highest point that the sun reaches, the “zenith.”

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Zenit is an independent, professional news agency that does not represent nor belong to the Vatican. However, the agency’s defining principle is “the world seen from Rome,” which means that by way of its information service, it wants to offer a vision of the world as it is seen and proposed by the Holy see.

in order to fulfill this goal, Zenit is in contact with various orga-nizations within the Holy see, particularly the Pontifical Council for social Communications. But it always maintains its independence as a news agency.


Zenit began in 1997 and now publishes in seven languages. the first service was published in spanish, answering the needs of the Catholics from Latin America, Latinos in united states, and spain (more than the 40% of the Catholics in the world). From the begin-ning Zenit was part of RiiAL (www.riial.org – see dedicated case in this book).

At the request of Catholic newspapers, Zenit started to publish the news service in English (January 1998), French (January 1999), german (october 1999), Portuguese (April 2003), italian (march 2004), and Arabic (november 2006).

Zenit began with some journalists who were convinced that a worldwide project to distribute religious information, especially that related to the Pope and the life of the Catholic Church, could have great success. And they were convinced they could make use of the great opportunities that the technological development of communi-cation systems were beginning to make available to everyone in that time (1997), particularly the internet and e-mail. in Zenit’s first three years, important donations from the group Aid to the Church in need, the italian bishops’ conference and the Legionaries of Christ enabled the agency to grow.

Zenit is an international news agency comprising a team of profes-sionals and volunteers who are convinced of the extraordinary richness of the Catholic Church’s message, particularly its social doctrine. the Zenit team sees this message as a light for understanding today’s world.

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At the same time, they are aware that this richness is little known in the information world. this motivates them to strive to bring this message to the internet, in the greatest possible number of languages.

the agency aims to view the modern world through the mes-sages of the Pope and the Holy see; tell about the happenings of the Church; and inform about the topics, debates and events that are es-pecially interesting to Christians worldwide. our compass is the social doctrine of the Church, summarized in the Compendium published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.


our information service focuses on a range of news, primarily:

· the activities of the Pope: apostolic trips, documents, meetings with heads of states and social, cultural and religious figures. We give particular emphasis to the activities of the Holy Father and his addresses

· interviews with men and women of the Church, and political and social figures featuring topics of special interest

· the current international scene, with special emphasis on questions relevant to Christians and the life of the Catholic Church

· the activities of the Holy see, including diplomatic efforts, human-itarian initiatives and cultural events

· social, political and religious topics at the center of public debate. special attention is given to themes related to the defense of life and the family, social justice, bioethics, euthanasia, abortion, contracep-tion, respect of human rights and religious freedom

users and usages

Currently, some 602,000 subscribers receive Zenit’s information service directly to their e-mail. Hundreds of thousands of people con-sult Zenit articles at our web page and other internet sites. 3,685 sites


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link to Zenit’s site and it has a world traffic rank of 42,340 according to Alexa.

Receiving Zenit by e-mail or by Rss, as well as navigating on its web site, and using the search engine and the indexed archive is free for those who intend to make personal, not professional, use of Zenit materials. given that personal use of Zenit is free, those who would like to financially support the agency can do so by responding to the invitation extended during the annual fund-raising campaign. How-ever, the agency does charge a fee for those who make professional use of Zenit (information services or organizations) and wish to reprint the news articles.

Zenit news is reprinted by some 20,000 media sources. they are quite varied: large and small television and radio channels, newspapers and magazines, web pages, diocesan and parish bulletins and newslet-ters. the same is true of organizations that use Zenit.

our readers are just as diverse. many of our readers are mission-aries or people who live in strikingly difficult situations, with few re-sources. thanks to the fact that Zenit is free, direct and real-time news is available to them and enables them to feel closer to the Church of Rome. moreover, we believe that the Catholic Church has great influ-ence in forming public opinion at a worldwide level and plays an active role in defining social and global geopolitical tendencies. the Church’s voice cannot be ignored in analysis, debates and discussions that aim for objectivity and plurality. therefore, we believe that offering infor-mation about religious themes and particularly about the activities and positions of the Catholic Church, and doing it with professionalism, is a service for all, regardless of individual religious beliefs.

Who’s Behind the website?

our team is composed of more than 50 journalists, editors, trans-lators, technical staff and administrators. Here some of the names of the people with particular responsibilities:

· Jesús Colina (spain) is Zenit’s founder and director

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· Karna swanson Lozoya (usA) is the editor of Zenit’s English edi-tion, and oversees reader services

· gisèle Plantec (France) oversees Zenit’s French edition· genevieve sidaner (France) oversees reader services for the French

edition as well as fund-raising and administration in France· Dominik Hartig (Austria) oversees Zenit’s german edition· tanja schultz (germany) oversees reader services for the german

edition· Jose Antonio Caetano (Brazil) oversees Zenit’s Portuguese edition

as well as the administration in Brazil· mirko testa (italy) oversees Zenit’s italian edition· Roberta sciamplicotti (italy) writes for Zenit’s italian edition and

oversees reader services for the italian edition· tony Assaf (Lebanon) oversees Zenit’s Arabic edition· Paul De maeyer (Belgium) works on the press research· Cuca maset (spain) works in reader services and helps with promo-

tional work· Carmen Lago (spain) oversees fund-raising, promotion and reader

services· stefano magnaldi (italy) assists in technical and managerial servic-

es· Alex Drummer (germany) is Zenit’s it guru· Antonio maza (usA) is the president of innovative media inc., the

u.s. non-profit organization that publishes Zenit in all languages

Zenit’s editors coordinate their work through the internet. Zenit is based on a loose structure of coordination among each of the seven language editors where each editor is totally responsible for the content – covering stories and writing − of that language edition. For example, the English edition took the lead in covering Benedict XVi’s apostolic journey to the united states in April 2008, and for World Youth Day 2008 in Australia. stories for those two events originated in English.

Each editor is also responsible for choosing which stories from the other language editions will be translated, adapted and published by that language edition. stories will be adapted by adding or cutting information according to its pertinence for the readers of that particu-lar edition, and edited for style considerations particular to that edi-


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tion. For example, a story originating from the English edition on the experience of pilgrims at World Youth Day could be adapted for the Portuguese edition by adding quotes from Brazilian youth attending the event.

Questions and special situations are addressed in this process through a system of exchanging e-mails. one editor with a particularly interesting story of universal interest will often send the story directly to the other editors suggesting they consider it for publication. Zenit’s general director, Jesús Colina, will also often send stories of particular interest to the editions highlighting its importance.

Editorial and strategic planning meetings are held as needed through teleconferencing, and once a year the general organizational meeting of all Zenit’s editors is held in Rome. At that meeting the previous year’s work is reviewed, the work for the next year is planned, and the editors are able to meet each other face-to-face (often for the first time).

Future Projects

Zenit is trying to answer to the request of many Catholic news-papers and Catholic websites to translate the news services in other languages. the team is also reflecting in the use of multimedia news services to complement the written information.

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B.5. ouR sunDAY VisitoR - PuBLisHing ComPAnY

ContactName of the Institution: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division

Website address: www.osv.comCase’s author: Greg Erlandson

Role/position: President and Publisher

Abstract

www.osv.com plays increasing importance for our sunday Visitor as a way to communicate with Catholics, share information, support its Catholic mission and distribute Catholic products. As a traditional Catholic publishing house, our sunday Visitor has been intent on the good stewardship of its resources, investing carefully in the web while making sure not to neglect its traditional print products.

the institution

For almost 100 years, our sunday Visitor has been one of the largest Catholic publishers in the united states. Best known for the our sunday Visitor (osV) newsweekly, it has more than 500 active book titles, five other periodicals, and a wide variety of religious educa-tion and parish resources.

it serves three primary customer groups – Catholic parishes/dio-ceses, retail book vendors and individual Catholics – with timely, well-produced and trustworthy materials to inform, catechize and inspire. its sister division is the largest producer of Catholic offering envelopes in the united states. As a non-profit, self-owned organization, it also donates sizeable funds every year to Catholic organizations around the country.

Because of the transformative effect of the internet on communi-cations and community, our sunday Visitor is steadily increasing its web offerings and will soon be embarking on another major upgrade of its site.

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the internet first became available to the general population a little more than 13 years ago. At the end of 1995, there were 16 million users, or about four-tenths of one percent of the world’s population. in march 2008, there were 1.4 billion users, or 21.1 percent of the world’s population.

our sunday Visitor has not ignored this change. in the past 12 years, we have become a fully digitized publishing house, with almost every aspect of our enterprise now created and preserved in some elec-tronic format. our newly released books will soon be available in an e-book format for Amazon’s Kindle, for example. our periodicals are sent electronically to our printers. materials can now be uploaded eas-ily both to vendor sites such as Amazon as well as to our own website.

this digitization of our process as well as our content has been driven by a variety of factors: flexibility in serving the needs of our customers, greater design options, cost savings and capabilities of our primary vendors.

it has also made our materials more available for use on our web-site. our first website was created in 1998 and has undergone several major revisions since its inception. it has grown from a handful of pages to more than 4,500. the biggest recent improvement has been the addition of the Dotnetnuke content management system, an open source program that is already given us much greater freedom to revise and expand our website further.

Print companies have chosen to respond to the advent of the web in a variety of ways. As a traditional print company, we have always been mindful of the fact that while the web is the future, we must not abandon our primary communications methods and our primary rev-enue streams by which we fulfill our apostolate. good stewardship is the foundation of any long-lasting company, and from the beginning management emphasized that the osV website must not drain focus or resources from other efforts by the company even as it sought to grow its presence in this new arena.

For this reason, care was taken almost from the very beginning to use the website as a means of selling and distributing our other Catho-lic materials and not simply making information available.

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in recent years we have instituted a “real time” ordering system that can take orders, calculate discounts and track shipments on the fly. Even with the reality of Amazon as the largest distributor of books in the united states, osv.com book and periodical sales have steadily grown in the past 10 years, with 2008 sales once again setting a new sales record. this revenue stream has meant that we do not need to rely solely on advertising sales, which remain weak for most Catho-lic websites, or pay-for-content fees that have generally not been well received by internet users. the emphasis on sales has also driven such developments as product-centric blogs, e-mail advertising, newsletters and the like.

in the long run, of course, we want the website to be a means of serving active Catholics as well as those curious about the Faith. it provides many advantages over traditional means of marketing, for example, and the potential reach of the website is universal. At the same time, we are keenly aware that all of our efforts must be self-sup-porting, and as we move into the web 2.0 environment of interactive communities, we continue our efforts to balance our dreams with our resources.


While we expect our website to be significantly revised in the coming year, at this point its home page points our three audiences in distinct, yet overlapping, directions: parish, retail and individual.

osV4me is the main focus, reaching individual Catholics and those interested in the faith with daily features such as daily medi-tations from our magazine My Daily Visitor, “Catholic Word of the Day,” and “Question of the Day,” as well as highlighted articles, a daily blog commenting on topical issues and a variety of special features. For example, during Pope Benedict’s visit to the united states last spring, we supplemented our heavy coverage of the visit in our newsweekly publication with a daily blog on our Papal Visit page. For the year of st. Paul, we posted our first interactive web page using Flash technol-ogy, and we have consistently ranked high on google for searches for “Year of st. Paul.”


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Each of these features utilizes materials from a variety of our publications as well as materials written specifically for the website. For example, a recent blog promoting our book Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire uses a variety of articles from various osV publications as well as original material, secular book reviews and material taken from the book itself. the site includes a Flash promotion for the book that is hosted on Youtube and collects reviews of the book also. Readers are now invited to comment on articles and blog entries as well. A weekly e-newsletter is also offered to all of our visitors, and can be received through a simple opt-in process.

All of these materials are available to our parish customers, but they also have access to a variety of teaching resources, a special news-letter geared to catechists and religious education directors, and other materials such as activity sheets, posters from our newsweekly and supporting materials for religious education teachers in the form of free downloads. Likewise, our retail site will post materials of interest to Catholic bookstore owners and managers.

We have also been working on our online marketing efforts, rang-ing from promoting our own products on our osV.com site and our companion Free4Catholics site, one-step purchase landing pages and weekly “e-blasts” to promote our new or timely products. We solicit customer e-mails with every transaction.

Another feature of the site is that we offer a “taste” of each publi-cation for free (usually one article), but then offer the entire content to any subscriber of the print version of the publication. in other words, if you subscribe to osV newsweekly, you can access the materials days before the current publication reaches your mail box. Print subscribers can also access the digital archives for all articles back to January 2006. this policy limits access to our articles, but it also rewards our print subscribers, who remain our primary source of revenue.

users and usages

While we do not make our sales and customer data publically available, we do track unique visits and a variety of other statistics on

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a regular basis. At first we used urchin. now we primarily rely on google Analytics.

in terms of site visitor growth, we are currently reevaluating our metrics. As we transitioned from urchin to google Analytics, session traffic was more suppressed (and more accurate in the opinion of many experts). in addition, a complete site redesign affected traffic results as well. some lessons learned were in the area of preserving traffic to archived content with high google ranking as new site designs are implemented.

until now, Publishing has created, developed and maintained its presence with relatively small investment. our annual operating bud-get in 2007 was less than one-quarter of our gross sales, but tracking costs has become increasingly important as more and more depart-ments contribute resources to the web. Editorial, marketing, Design and Advertising all allocate resources to the website as we expand our efforts, along with it (information technologies) and senior staff.


our web team primarily consists of a fulltime webmaster, Cathy Dee, who originally worked in Editorial but has been with the website from its inception. Assisting her are a variety of staffers working in Editorial, Design, marketing and management. Cathy reports to greg Pike, our Director of operations, who is in turn responsible for De-sign, Production and a variety of digital projects. greg’s background is in the information technology area.

We rely a great deal on outside resources – design consultants, developers, etc. – that provide both strategic and technical assistance. We have brought in a media web designer to train our internal design staff, for instance, and we are working with an experienced web media professional to help craft our marketing and editorial strategies.

it has been particularly helpful when such consultants understand the unique nature of our work, both as a publisher and as a Catholic not-for-profit entity. While we have worked with many non-Catholics as well, it has been particularly helpful when mission as well as medium are both clearly understood.


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Future Projects

We are currently recruiting for a Web Director and hope to ex-pand the full-time staff significantly in the next two years. While our webmaster currently reports to our Director of operations, our Web Director will have senior staff status and will also have responsibili-ties for the website of our sister division, our sunday Visitor offering Envelopes.

this expansion will be coupled by a revised strategy that will put a much greater emphasis on search Engine optimization (sEo) so that we can more effectively reach those who do not know us now through google, Yahoo and others. From our internal research we know that most of those who visit us already know us or know our products. our goal is to rank much higher in terms of general searches by Catholics who may not know us but would be interested in our materials.

As we embark on a reorganization of our staff, our website orga-nization and our publishing strategy, we are particularly aware that in the current web environment, the issue is not just the materials that are available, but also the community that is formed. By allowing feedback to blogs, means of reviewing books and reader-created e-content for newsletters, we hope to cultivate a community of Catholics passionate about their faith and committed to both the products and the vision of our sunday Visitor.

Future endeavors will include a more direct link to our internal publishing platforms, additional XmL integration geared towards tar-geting content to multiple platforms and blog-to-print content.

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B.6. CAtHoLiC.nEt - intERnEt PoRtAL

ContactName of the Institution: Catholic.net Inc.Website address: http://es.catholic.net

Case’s author: Lucrecia Rego de PlanasRole/position: International CEO

Abstract

Catholic.net is a place in the internet where Catholic people can find:

- Current and faithful information about almost all subjects related to the Catholic faith

- subsidies and materials for their personal growth and for the exer-cise of their apostolate within the Church

- Personalized assistance of experts in each matter, in the spiritual, doctrinal and human fields

- A place to share knowledge, doubts and experiences with other Catholic people using a lot of interactive tools: forums, blogs, polls, comments, etc.

- A place in which Catholics can develop and harness their apostolic efforts

- A place to encounter with god´s healing love among its prayer chains and workshops

the institution

Catholic.net is a web based apostolate, managed and directed from méxico City, by some lay members of the Regnum Christi movement and other ecclesial realities, intended to equip Catholics with informa-tion to help them build a Christlike character, so that they can engage and transform the culture with the gospel transmitted to us by the Catholic Church (which is one, Holy, and Apostolic).

Catholic.net aims to form an online Catholic community commit-ted to evangelize the social world by building up the kingdom of Christ


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through their families, parishes, dioceses, and other various commu-nities. to foster this commitment Catholic.net promotes interaction among Catholics worldwide through information sharing and online interactive tools. Basically, Catholic.net serves as an online platform to build synergies among various apostolic initiatives.

Catholic.net is supported by the generosity of its donors, and the invaluable work of its volunteers who are religious and lay persons from congregations and movements faithful to the magisterium. most and foremost Catholic.net is made possible by the prayers of our commu-nity and of our Lady of guadalupe, our patroness, to whom the inten-tions of this apostolate and of all the people it serves is entrusted.


Catholic.net has been among the first Catholic portals in the in-ternet, founded in 1995 by James mullholland – graduated at the mas-sachusetts institute of technology on 1944 and founder of Hayden Publishing in 1952 –, as a direct access to all the Catholic realities that were arising in the web.

in 2000, in union with Zenit news Agency and other church or-ganizations, the spanish version of Catholic.net was born as a member of the RiiAL (Red informática de la iglesia en América Latina), with the mission to bring Jesus Christ’s message to all mankind around the world, bringing a sure response to human quest and problems, giving to the visitors true, deep and trustful information, as well as personal orientation in any issue related with the Catholic faith and everyday life.

Catholic.net manages a large documental base with more than 30,000 documents, distributed along 12 thematic sections and 12 vir-tual communities. it has established more than 5,000 strategic alli-ances with other Catholic sites (although numbers grows daily). Visits ascend to more than 4,000,000 per month and the various mailing lists have more than 1,500,000 double opt-in subscribers.

that’s how Catholic.net has achieved the goal of joining the evan-gelization efforts of most of the charismas inside the Catholic Church and became to be recognized as a reference point in doctrine and mo-

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rality with extreme fidelity to the magisterium teachings and a place of encounter for the Catholics in the web, where they can share their knowledge, experiences and doubts, develop their capabilities and find a way to put in action their apostolic desires.


Catholic.net currently offers 12 channels of targeted content:1) global Catholic Daily news 2) Controversial subjects on Faith and moral3) Learning to Pray4) Knowing Your Faith: Catechism, Bible, Liturgy, etc. 5) Christology 6) mariology 7) sexuality and Bioethics 8) Apologetics and sects (Defending Your Faith)9) Religious Celebrations Around the Liturgical Year 10) saints of Each Day 11) Ecumenism and inter-religious Dialogue 12) tourism and Pilgrimages

moreover, Catholic.net has also formed 12 large virtual communi-ties where Catholics with common interests can relate and share their experiences and opinions, using many interactive tools and without the commitment of being tied to certain geographical locations:

- Catholic Educators- Catholic Lawyers- Catholic Communicators- Catholic Businessmen- Catholic Psychologists- Catholic Writers- Catechists and missionaries- Priests- Religious and nuns- Catholic Families- Youth People & Catholic singles- Vocational Community


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Catholic.net has established affiliate programs and strategic part-nerships with more than 5,000 Catholic organizations sites and web pages. the affiliate program consists in the placement of the affiliate’s banner on the website and a “Catholic.net member” numbered seal in the affiliate site, which certifies its commitment to be faithful to the teachings of the Church. this affiliate program includes an agreement that allows free interchange and use of contents and services among Catholic.net and all its members.

users and usages

Hereafter, a synoptic view of the historical growth of the website (number of user sessions per month).

Table 19. Evolution of average User Sessions to catholic.net (2000-2008)

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Jan. 0 36,085 103,343 219,694 277,776 1,877,210 2,337,478 2,993,873 3,885,502

Feb. 0 54,684 101,006 202,623 415,775 1,749,892 2,375,184 2,845,436 3,802,546

Mar. 0 39,527 124,062 264,103 619,941 1,987,969 2,864,643 3,076,622 3,925,792

Apr. 0 55,237 142,890 231,410 717,591 2,445,622 2,654,991 3,107,904 3,903,668

May 217 70,947 157,941 315,398 801,476 2,522,509 3,023,692 3,270,228 3,998,828

Jun. 894 66,714 173,845 296,609 1,023,435 2,419,150 2,819,770 3,303,623 3,994,583

Jul. 1,520 64,775 184,172 271,930 1,165,456 2,176,521 2,176,521 3,414,322 3,784,523

Aug. 2,664 68,034 171,703 233,543 1,303,011 2,698,525 2,698,933 3,637,801 3,790,552

Sept. 14,138 78,909 183,976 253,295 1,645,271 2,589,340 2,974,442 3,686,357 3,811,429

Oct. 30,512 92,673 204,551 319,839 1,732,042 2,688,025 N/D 3,899,581 3,934,563

Nov. 32,048 91,218 194,692 296,306 1,875,709 2,539,837 2,804,278 3,933,829 4,121,041

Dec. 28,111 97,278 200,152 343,692 1,660,487 2,104,523 2,957,785 3,895,105 4,304,856

in paralel to the growth of the visits, the number of mailing lists subscribers has also shown a constant increase, reaching 1,230,000 by 2007.

B. media

236

Who’s Behind the website?Figure 10.

Organizational chart of catholic.net

in the following lines, a brief presentation of people involved in the management of the website:

- Lucrecia Rego De Planas (international CEo). Born in méxico City in 1960. Actuary mathematician with specialization in sta-tistics. Post-grades in Education, school Direction, marriage and Family and Education Philosophy. married, nine children. member of the Pastoral Council of the Archdiocese of méxico and mem-ber of the Bioethics Council of the mexican Episcopal Conference. more than 20 publications about Catechesis, spirituality, Family, Education and marriage. member of the Regnum Christi move-ment since 1975. Founder and Director of Catholic.net since 2000 and its representative inside the RiiAL and the Pontifical Council for social Communications (PCCs).

- Julio C. Cumplido (Engineering and technology Director). Born in méxico City in 1972. Computational sciences Engineer, with specialization in internet technologies. Post-grades in Databases, internet security systems and Last generation Languages. Respon-sible for Catholic.net technological development and maintenance. technical representative of Catholic.net inside the RiiAL. member of the Regnum Christi since 2002.


237

- Pilar Calva De Vasquez (Community Director). Born in méxico City in 1958. Doctor in medicine with a specialization in genetics. master in Bioethics. married, four children. manages the Bioethics and sexuality sections in Catholic.net.

- Jorge A. Hidalgo toledo (Community Director and media man-ager). Born in méxico City in 1972. graduated in Communica-tion and master in Humanities. Editor, anchorman and producer in many media programs. Researcher and teacher on communication sciences. manages the Businessmen and Communicators communi-ties in Catholic.net as well as podcast and radio transmissions.

- mayra novelo De Bardo (Community Director). Born in Quin-tana Roo, méxico, in 1972. married, lives with her husband in it-aly. graduated in Educational sciences and Human Development. studies on Humanities, spirituality, Philosophy and theology in the international Center of Educational sciences, Rome. master in Educational sciences. manages Educators community, Apologetics and Liturgy in Catholic.net.

- César Arellano mendoza (Coordinator and Producer of Catholic.net Radio). Born in mexico City in 1973. He holds a Bachelor de-gree in Communication sciences from Anahuac university. mar-ried, two daughters. He has worked as Director of Radio for the social Communication management of the Primate Archbishop of mexico. He was a producer of radio programs in various groups in mexico City (Radio Centro, televisa Radio, Radio ACiR, Cadena RAsA). He is also professor in Communication sciences.

- Laura Arellano (Fundraising manager). Born in mexico City in 1983. she has a degree in Communication sciences from Anahuac university (West Campus). she has attended courses in marketing, humanities and religion. in Catholic.net she serves on the publicity, communication with benefactors and fundraising.

monthly costs of catholic.net are presented in table 20.

B. media

238

Table 20. Monthly costs of catholic.net (in dollars)

Concept Cost (US $) Percentage

Salaries (16 professionals) 16,215 40

Taxes 4,971 13

Other Expenses: training, transportation, insurance, utilities, office supplies, etc 4,544 12

Internet Connection & Servers 4,523 12

Healthcare 4,356 11

Indirect Salaries Benefits 3,018 8

Accounting Services 795 2

Regular Maintenance 452 1

Phone Service 242 1

Total 39,116 100

income is generated from two main sources: fundraising cam-paigns with personal donations from visitors and requests to interna-tional Foundations. in the future, it is expected to raise money also from other sources:

- sales of banner advertising on Catholic.net pages. the opportunity for this revenue to grow is associated with the rapid increase in the number of visitors and page views

- sponsorship for specific sections of the site, which will give the sponsor/advertiser exclusive rights on that area

- e-commerce services, including a Catholic.net superstore, featuring both religious and secular products

Future Projects

Projects in progress: Baby match. Adoption vs Abortion cam-paign; Prayer campaign for our priests; Prayer campaign for our gov-ernors (for all the countries in the world); sms messages, images and ringtones; Audio and Video Podcasts; Catholic.net Radio.

new Projects: modern e-Learning tools; smart interactive Bul-letins; Catholic.net tV; Catholic.net English version; interactive Vid-eo game “El Castillo interior”; A Catholic version of Facebook.

239

ConCLuDing REmARKs

Religious Internet Communication. Facts, Experiences and Trends in the Catholic Church wanted to represent a step forward in studying, from an academic perspective, the efforts that the Catholic Church as a whole, and its different institutions in particular, have done and are doing to respond to the challenges of the digital environment.

in the book we have presented an overview of Christian Catholic online communication, which shows its qualification to be considered a main issue of study by researchers in communication. the in-depth studies were focused into particular spheres of Church online com-munications: the dioceses – the main type of territorial circumscription within Church’s organization –, the online communication with the media – from the perspective of journalists who cover religious news –, and religious congregations – their use of the internet in their external and internal communication flows. All chapters have complemented each other, providing step by step a clearer picture of the whole Church online communication activities.

indeed, in the last decade, the Roman Catholic Church has taken the internet into special consideration. since 2002, with Pope John Paul ii’s message for the World Communications Day - WCD (Inter-net: A New Forum for Proclaiming the Gospel), to the 2009’s message of his successor, Benedict XVi (New Technologies, New Relationships. Pro-moting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship), up to the theme assigned to the 2010’s WCD, which spells The priest and Pastoral Min-istry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word, Church’s leadership has made very clear and positive remarks with regard to the internet and the new technologies. this study has documented how different Church institutions are putting into practice these remarks

Concluding Remarks

240

and coping with the internet. From different perspectives, with a di-versity of resources, all the cases presented in these pages have shown that the Catholic Church has not remained behind in using new infor-mation and communication technologies and in putting them at the service of its own mission.

opposite to what some stereotypes about the Church may portray – conservative and reluctant to progress –, it has incorporated the tools and potentialities of the internet to its daily activities. the future is uncertain, but the Church is not renouncing to it. Certainly, when speaking of the activity of Catholics in the internet, the dynamism of singular individuals will be always ahead of what “official” institutions can do, but this happens in all the spheres of social life: politics, econ-omy, entertainment… nevertheless, recognizing the role of singular Catholics, the aim of this book has been that of presenting the institu-tional perspective of Church’s internet activity. For that reason, several representative organizations have been selected. obviously, it was not possible to include the whole variety of Catholic Church institutions and the authors apologize for that. However, the cases presented here, as well as the in-depth studies that introduce the book, are – in our opinion – sufficient to provide a rich perspective on what’s going on in Church’s institutional activities with regard to the net.

Cases have shown, first, that the field studied is very important – whether in figures, interest, activities or news. they also prove that there are very different levels of maturity among religious bodies when it comes to online communication, due to different culture, back-grounds, concerned/target publics, and resources. As a consequence, “literary genres” of Church online communication are just forming (in this regard, a significant step has been done with chapters 2 and 3, to define the scope, contents & services and strategies of diocesan web-sites).

What the whole book brings necessarily up is a need for more studies about users: who are they? What do they want? the chapter about journalists is very promising in this regard.

in fact, the current trend towards more interaction and social net-working (web 2.0) in religious online communication would require a volume 2.0… or even more: the creation of a permanent observatory onto this field of communication.

Concluding Remarks

241

in conclusion, the study is a tool for academics and practitioners interested in religious internet communication. For the academic com-munity, which studies communication, institutional communication, media, and specifically internet communication, it has provided re-search results and an extensive and unpublished body of knowledge; for professionals in communication offices of Church institutions and other religious bodies, it gathers an extensive background on the field and cases where to mirror their own experience and get a relevant benchmark.

We hope that our readers have experience and enjoyed the same interest and excitement we did while researching and writing it.

the authors

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Religious Internet Communication. Facts, Trends and Experiences in the Catholic Church.

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