Theological-pastoral Relevance of Web Portal for the Evangelization Mission of the Church
Keywords:
Internet; Bitno.net; pope Francis; Bitno.net portal readersSynopsis
Doctoral disertation „Teological-pastoral relevance of an web portal for the evangelization mission of the Church“ analyzes the impact of the Bitno.net on its readers and evaluates the content on Pope Francis published on it. The paper consists of four parts. In the first part we evaluate the impact of the Internet as new means of social communication on the Church and the world. In the second part we analyze important features of theological –pastoral speech of Pope Francis in order to establish grounds for evaluation of the articles published on web portal Bitno.net about the pope. Third part of this dissertation is dedicated to the web portal Bitno.net. Through interviews with individuals engaged on portal we have tried to present how web portal Bitno.net has been formed, it's mission and vision, as well as the way its editorial staff valuates its role within Croatian media space. Fourth part of this paper is divided into two separate parts, i.e. two separate research. First research was done in a form of survey amongst readers of web portal Bitno.net. Research was dedicated to investigate the reading habits of it's users, their attitudes and religious engagement outside the web portal. This research indicates a positive influence of website Bitno.net on reader awareness on religion and religious topics, formation of religious attitudes, and more active religious life according to their own self-evaluation. While evaluating all aspects we compare it to previous research on this portal, as well as the other relevant research. In the second research we analyse articles with hashtag #popeFrancis on Bitno.net portal. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of the content in four aspects (evangelizational, educational, dialogical and theological-pastoral), we indicate to what extent the editorial staff of the portal relies on external sources and in what way it reports on Pope Francis. While analyzing the articles, we also look at larger thematic units as well as individual cases of reporting by the editorial staff of the Bitno.net portal on Pope Francis. In this way, we want to determine what kind of theological-pastoral image a concrete Internet portal forms about Pope Francis and in what way it contributes to the Church`s evangelistic mission within the digital space.
This is the first research of its kind at the national level that attempts to analyze the influence of the Internet and the specific religious portal Bitno.net on readers with a focus on articles on Pope Francis. The topicality of this topic is growing with the development of means of social communication and the appearance of new Catholic media within the Croatian media space.
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