Daniella Zsupan-Jerome, Ph.D
ONLINE PUBLICATIONS, FEATURES
& INTERVIEWS
Engaging Violent Words: Prophetic Ministry in Digital Discourses
Religious Education, January 2017
Faith-based engagement with digital culture calls communities of faith beyond an instrumental use of apps, gadgets, and platforms. Rather, engaging in digital culture calls for prophetic engagement that seeks to communicate truth and offer hope in and through digital communication. One salient area for such prophetic engagement is the reality of verbal violence online, especially as manifest in aming comments in online public discourse. This article explores this prophetic approach and draws implications for Christian religious education.
Shower Social Communication with the Good News
Guest Column, Clarion Herald
For many of us, logging on to social media in the past few months has been an intense experience. Postings and comments are charged with high emotions, sharply divided political opinions and, in some cases, vitriol, sarcasm and ugly mockery.
Liturgy Shaming is a Growing Internet Phenomenon
By David Gibson, Religion News Service.
William Bornhoft is a Catholic who admits that he sometimes cringes at the liturgical novelties he sees at Mass and has himself been tempted to post a complaint or a photo of the offending innovation.
Another Benedictine Option - Oblation: Liturgy and Life
Have you heard of the Benedict Option? I admit using this as a conversation starter at many recent gatherings where the Church thinks. More often, the answer is no, whereupon I take the pleasure of providing a quick summary and then launching into an animated exposition of my thoughts on the matter.
My New Book - praytellblog.com
What’s the point of your book, in ten words or less?
The best I could do is seventeen words – hazard of the job for an academic.
To invite the church to think out of the tradition when it comes to engaging digital culture.
Or if I were to put it Twitter-style in 140 characters or less:
To stand on the shoulders of tradition for being church in the digital age #connecttowardtrueencounter #goandproclaiminthedigitalage
Connected Toward Communion: An Interview - wordonfire.org
BRANDON VOGT: In your new book, Connected toward Communion, you trace the Church's communication teachings from Inter Mirifica at Vatican II through modern teachings on social media. What are some of the most important documents in that span?
DR. DANIELLA ZSUPAN-JEROME: It is difficult to pick our just a few, because the documents really function together as a progression of thought on social communication. They build on each other, and reference one another. They form an ecology of thought on the topic, a reservoir for envisioning ministry, evangelization and being Church in our digital culture. Given this, there are a number of excellent entry points into the social communication documents and teachings of the Church.
Saving Communication - Oblation: Liturgy and Life
On January 23rd, 2015, Pope Francis published the annual World Communications Day Message, a regular tradition of the Roman Catholic Church since 1967. These annual messages offer a brief reflection on some aspect of social communication today, and in terms of published Church documents on the topic, these have kept the conversation going and relevant since the most recent social communications document we have from 2002. I look forward to the Message each year—it is the Church’s opportunity to go in and go deep with a focused reflection, without the necessary background and overview required of a longer document. In our digital culture where short and sweet reigns, these messages, averaging 10–15 paragraphs each, are Church documents made palatable for our digital appetites.
Relating Sacramentally in Online Teaching - dailytheology.org
Stephen Okey’s recent reflection on “Catholic Identity and Online Education” is a timely conversation starter, and I appreciate his framework of focusing especially on five key areas of concern around Catholic identity. Of these five, the third concern of “the sacramental and liturgical life of the university” is especially intriguing for me. With a background in liturgical studies and my research focusing on faith formation and digital culture, the excellent questions he raises are frequently on my mind as well.
Steve makes the point that “given the centrality of physical contact for sacraments, there can be no real sacramental life mediated online,” focusing the rest of his thought on this topic around innovative possibilities to mediate the university’s sacramental celebrations and spirituality enrichment opportunities to online students.
The Church in the Digital Age - saltandlightv.org
For an institution that still uses smoke signals to communicate the election of a new leader one wonders how the Church will respond to the challenges of the digital age? When I reflect on this topic, I can’t help but remember when the good old Pope Benedict launched News.va. That’s right, in case you’ve forgotten, it was Pope Benedict’s finger that launched NEWS.VA.
Isn’t there something incredible about an image of a Council Father, like Pope Benedict, launching a news portal via an ipad. Two worlds literally meeting at the tip of a finger. Reminds me of the scene of Adam and God in the Sistine chapel.
In light of the World Communications Day, I caught up with Professor Daniella Zsupan-Jerome, Author of Connected Toward Communion: The Church and Social Communication in the Digital Age to share some insights with us.
Conference Explores Evangelization in Context of Modern Technology - ncronline.org
Moraga, Calif.
Christianity's beginnings are rooted in violence: Christ was nailed to the cross. And now that much of theological discourse has gone online, that violence reveals itself as verbal assaults, said Loyola University New Orleans professor Daniella Zsupan-Jerome.
"In the digital context, suffering takes the form of violent language," she said at a workshop on digital media and evangelization at St. Mary's College in Moraga, Calif.
Catholics and digital media:
Answering to a higher calling
Daniella Zsupan-Jerome, a theologian with a keen interest in communications, was the leader of a social media conference — "Sharing the Good News in the Era of Pope Francis" — hosted by the Cummins Institute at Saint Mary's College of California this summer.
Zsupan-Jerome is the author of "Connected Toward Communion: The Church and Social Communication in the Digital Age." Zsupan-Jerome's research, which has taken her to The Vatican, focuses on media and ministry, especially digital media and its potential for faith formation. She is an assistant professor of theology at Loyola University of New Orleans. During the conference at Saint Mary's, Zsupan-Jerome spoke with Michele Jurich of The Catholic Voice.