Mediatisation of Catholicism in Croatia : A Networked Religion ?

This paper deals with the topic of mediatisation of religion. It is seen as a process wherein the structural logic and communicative characteristics of the media play a significant role in religious communication, thus exerting an influence on the success of the transmission of such messages and on religion as a whole. Consequently, it is argued that contemporary social transformations of religion cannot be properly analysed and understood without the acknowledgement of the increasing mediatisation of religion and its effects. Having in mind the overarching importance of the Internet as a communication platform, the authors investigated whether the Internet presence of Catholicism in Croatia can be identified as a networked religion with its main components (networked communities, storied identities, shifting authority, convergent practice and multisite reality). Media content analysis using a sample (N = 200) of various categories of Catholic websites and Facebook pages was employed. Even though noteworthy differences were found between the sites affiliated, semi-affiliated and non-affiliated with the Catholic Church in Croatia, as well as between such websites and Facebook pages, the findings suggest that in the case of Catholicism in Croatia, Internet religious communication bears close connections to the offline world, does not challenge formal religious authorities, nor does it lead to new interpretations of religious doctrines and texts. The authors concluded that the Internet presence of Catholicism in Croatia leads to the re-affirmation and deepening of the existing forms of religion in the new media environments.


Introduction
The role of the media in the secularisation theories is somewhat invisible, having in mind that among the phenomena usually labelled as "modernityˮ, or the phenomena that are constituent parts of the "modernisation processˮ, the media seldom occupy a prominent role.For example, one of the most outspoken proponents of the secularisation theory, Steve Bruce (2002Bruce ( , 2011)), situates secularisation in the framework of modernisation, which itself encompasses industrialisation, individualisation, egalitarianism, disappearance of small communities and rationalisation.However, he does not touch upon the role of the media in the process of modernisation.Even José Casanova (1994) does not consider the media to be a structural part of the new public religions that, in his view, challenge some basic tenets of secularisation, such as the privatisation of religion.In a similar vein, the competing paradigms within the sociology of religion that challenge the secularisation theory -the theory of religious economy 1 (Stark and Bainbridge, 1987;Stark and Iannaccone, 1994;Finke, 1997) and New Age spiritualities (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005;Heelas, 2006) -do not explicitly take into account the media as an independent force of religious transformation.However, both of the aforementioned competing paradigms emphasise the importance of religion marketisation, thus implicitly evoking the media as one of its vehicles.Stark and Iannacone emphasised the importance of religious supply in demonopolised religious markets, and this supply obviously has to be mediated in some way.Similarly, New Age spiritualities are interrelated with the idea of subjective well-being that can be reached through marketable mind-body-spirit holistic practices.It can also be argued that the rise of the Internet might be compatible with the subjective quest for the inner-self, which is decentralised by its very nature.
Such a neglecting stance of sociologists of religion towards the media is inconsistent with the increasing media role in the processes of the social transformation of religion, internal religious transformations visible in many religious communities, as well as with the expansion of some religions (as measured by the number of believers) that is incited by skilful use of the media in pastoral and/or proselyte activities.For instance, a survey conducted in Denmark in 2009 showed that as much as 56% of the participants would use the Internet to seek answers to religious questions, whereas the pastor and the Bible represented the second and the third choice, respectively (Fischer-Nielsen, 2012: 51).Similarly, Lövheim (2012) showed that, for the younger Swedes, the media, friends and school largely replaced the church and family as socialisation agents, even though this is less pronounced with regard to the "organised religiousˮ than to the "in- 1 The term stems from the American sociologist Rodney Stark.dividual religiousˮ and the "non-religiousˮ youth.Religion is increasingly present in the virtual world as well.For instance, the virtual world website Second Life 2 features religious virtual worlds ranging from the extension of existent offline churches to completely new online churches with their believers and digital architectural representations.
To sum it up briefly, it can be argued that media analysis should have a more prominent role in the contemporary discussion over religion and its future developments.As noted by Meyer (2004), it is not enough to point to the shortcomings of the secularisation theory, nor to the lacking or contrary empirical evidence."Counter-secularisationˮ scholars need to provide a framework that can explain the increased public presence and possibly even the increased relevance of religion in contemporary societies.Consequently, the question of mediatisation, that is the exploration of the ways religion is presented in the increasingly mediated world, seems paramount.Having in mind that this question is largely unexplored in Croatia, in this paper we presented the results of the research on one aspect of mediatisation of Catholicism in Croatia; online religious communication, and its possible impacts on new forms of religion and religiosity.

Mediatisation of religion -a theoretical framework
When observed in a broader context, the question of religion mediatisation can be seen as a welcome contribution to the debate about secularisation and desecularisation of modern societies (Pavić, 2016a).Contrary to the postulate that the media represent only neutral carriers of religious or antireligious ideas, the concept of mediatisation assumes that the media have a much more active role and that the structural logic of the media plays a significant role in the process of religious communication, thus exerting an influence on the success of the transmission of such messages.In this way, the media can be considered an analytically independent factor that stands between the sender and the recipient of religious messages or as a factor that cannot be superficially merged into the complexity of characteristics that are usually labelled as "modernityˮ.The contemporary media culture consequently influences the processes of religious transformation, sometimes acting in the direction of secularisation, at other times re-enchanting the world or causing unintended consequences that bring about new forms of religion and religiosity.As suggested by Heidi Campbell (2010), world religions, including Christianity, are often regarded as anti-technologyoriented, and the reason is a somewhat exaggerated conflict between religion and modernity as well as between religion and science.Campbell emphasised that the relationship between religion and media technologies is somewhat ambivalent, similar to the relationship between religion and science, which in the Western history has gone through different stages, ranging from mutual acceptance and permeation to rejection and mythical conflicts. 3On the one hand, technology provides new possibilities for communication with the existing believers and establishing contact with new believers.On the other hand, media technologies can provide contents that are not considered to be compatible with the believers' standards (e.g.atheistic ideas, sexualised imagery, pornography) and therefore may represent a certain threat to the established religious communities.Here we can use a well-known example of the Amish and their rejection of the use of modern technologies, including the media.Specifically, this rejection is not the result of religious taboos, but it represents a conscious decision that the (frequent) use of such technologies brings new ideas into the community and diverts attention from family and communal life devoted to faith.That is why Campbell concluded that the relationship between religion and technology represents a complex and two-way process, wherein religious communities decide on which aspects of technology to accept.Certain characteristics of religious communities, such as relationship to authority (the level of hierarchy within the religious community), the relationship to written religious texts and the rights of the believers to their own interpretation within the interpretive community, exert an important influence within the process.Hepp (2013) divided the general mediatisation scholarship into two broad approaches -institutionalist and socio-constructivist.The first approach emphasises media power, i.e. the media logic that permeates other social processes, while the second points to the changes in communicative 3 Within this framework, it is very interesting to analyse the so-called "Galileo Affairˮ.Notwithstanding the fact that Galileo was unjustly condemned for his ideas and views on science and its relationship to religion, this case cannot be fully understood without taking into account its political (Miller, 2008), interest-based (Kešina and Radošević, 2009) and epistemological dimensions (Wilson, 1999).As opposed to this more nuanced view, the Enlightenment movement created an exaggerated view of the affair, thus turning Galileo into a mythical figure.It is noteworthy that Galileo is presumably the only scientist whose relics have been preserved.His fingers and a tooth are exhibited in the Galileo Museum in Florence.
processes that are being influenced by the media and might act as causal agents in other fields.As an example of the first approach, Hjarvard (2008) suggested that mediatisation may be a part of the secularisation process.According to him, it is "the historical process in which the media have taken over many of the social functions that used to be performed by religious institutions.Rituals, worship, mourning and celebration are all social activities that used to belong to institutionalised religion but have now been taken over by the media and transformed into more or less secular activitiesˮ (Hjarvard, 2008: 11)."Through the process of mediatisation, religion is increasingly being subsumed under the logic of the media, both in terms of institutional regulation, symbolic content and individual practicesˮ (Hjarvard, 2008: 12).In other words, in the process of message mediation, religion often changes itself and adapts to the media-dominated reality.
The essence of the mediatisation of religion thesis is the idea that in most situations, the media are not a neutral conveyer of the religious message.Religious ideas and institutions change themselves in order to be able to survive and strive in the contemporary media culture.Hjarvard (2016) also posited that the classical Weberian three forms of authority (charismatic, traditional and rational-legal) still hold some merit when it comes to the mediatisation of religion.For example, new forms of charismatic authority can re-assert themselves through media phenomena such as televangelism.Various charismatic movements within the established religious communities can utilise the media, especially the Internet, in order to attract new followers through the use of multimedial materials posted on websites.However, in Hjarvard's view, the forms of authority need to be broadened in order to be able to acknowledge the new forms of authority forged by the media, which are based on the cultural criteria of consensus and popularity.
As an example of the socio-constructivist approach, Knoblauch (2014) opposed Hjarvard's "logic of the mediaˮ approach to mediatisation of religion.He instead conceptualised it as a change in religious communicative action that follows from the active participation of the audience enhanced by media presence and by the audience/religious actors appreciating this presence.Knoblauch somewhat convincingly showed the behavioural impact of the televised coverage of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Berlin on the audience.He suggested that the mere media presence appreciation leads to the de-differentiation of religious communication and to individualised religious experience that he calls "popular religionˮ (Knoblauch, 2008).
The mediatisation of religion should play an even more important role given the increased use of the Internet as a communication platform.The specifics of the Internet as a religious communication medium might be best described through the metaphor of the media as environments (Meyrowitz, 1993, in Hjarvard, 2008). 4The Internet creates a possibility of a communication environment that fosters non-hierarchical communication patterns, multimodality, interactivity and hypertextuality (Lundby, 2013), as opposed to unidirectional modes of communication typical for the traditional mass media.As Schulz (2004) mentioned, an optimistic view of the new media posits that the Internet removes the traditional mass-media communication constraints by (a) increasing the media-related contents and their availability, (b) increasing interactivity between content producers and consumers, (c) loosening media gate-keeping and filtering functions, (d) providing a possibility of bypassing the traditional media and opening-up new media channels and (e) empowering the previously marginalised social actors to get their messages across.In a similar vein, Lövheim (2012) noted that most accounts of the new media literacy "emphasise the production of ideas and values through participation, collaboration, sharing and relating.Authority and expertise is distributed among many rather than attached to a certain position or institution, and quality and relevance assured through constant, interactive peer-review rather than controlled through certain institutions or fixed, formal procedures and regulations.ˮSimilarly, Campbell (2007) noted that the Internet poses questions regarding religious hierarchy (the appearance of new online religious leaders), religious structures (the level of control over online religious groups by offline religious organisations) and religious ideology (new interpretations of religious doctrines, differing views of traditional beliefs).Gelfgren (2011) posited that online religion represents a stronger, more pronounced manifestation of changes in offline religion, such as dissolving traditions, market adaptation and emphasis on relations.Thus, the characteristics of the Internet as a potentially participatory and open platform merge with the subjectivisation and marketisation of religion in the physical world.
The Internet can also open up possibilities for new forms of multimedia communication, especially with regard to audiovisual communication.Namely, the Internet can extend the use of audiovisual materials since they can be used on demand, in line with time preferences of the potential audience.Audiovisual materials can encourage more emotional and "charismaticˮ religious practices, but they can also advance a more consumerist vision of religion.The differences between the traditional Pentecostal and the Neo-Pentecostal church in Brazil, as described by Birman and Lehmann (1999), are very interesting in this regard.In contrast with the more communal orientation of the traditional Pentecostalism, Neo-Pentecostal churches, such as the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, use television to deliver promises of personal wealth and health to be achieved through personal conversion.Similarly, Meyer (2004) demonstrated how Pentecostals in Ghana appropriated melodrama as a distinct aesthetic style and incorporated it into their own vision of Christian modernity by using videos in a newly liberalised audiovisual market.Videos appeared as a suitable medium for a charismatic-style religion that aims to incorporate animist beliefs into a wider story of defeating evil spirits and temptations of modernity (e.g.sex, materialism) through personal conversion and gifts of the Holy Spirit.As elaborated later on, in our research we have not distinguished among these distinct modes of appropriation of possibilities of audiovisual presentation of religion.We have merely tried to detect whether these possibilities are used at all.However, online communication might only be an extension of the offline one.In other words, offline and online communities could overlap.Helland's (2005) distinction between religion online and online religion can be helpful in this regard.Helland reserved the former term for new religious communities that arise from online communication and are interactive by nature.The latter term denotes the existing offline religious communities that use the Internet for information dissemination mainly related to the offline world events.If religion online is a dominant form of online religious communication, then the consequences of using the Internet for the transformation of religion and religious communities would probably be largely overstated.
In a socio-constructivist manner, all the considerations presented above can be summarised under the term "networked religionˮ, which is suggested by Campbell (2012).She argued that offline and online worlds combine in order to produce a new type of religion that both reflects and creates new social and cultural environments.She lists five major components of a networked religion: networked community, storied identity, shifting au-thority, convergent practice and multisite reality.Networked communities replace a geographically bounded community as a new focus of religious communication and identity building.Storied identities refer to the possibility of assembling religious identities by employing multiple sources coming from different religious traditions in a less structured way when compared to traditional religious identity development.Shifting authority implies a struggle between traditional sources of religious authority and potential new authorities appearing from online religious communication.Convergent practice refers to the interconnection between offline practices and online technological possibilities that encourages the marketplace of religion and fosters new forms of religious expression, eclecticism and syncretism.And finally, multisite reality refers to the tendency of integration between online and offline religious contexts.That is, the Internet can be utilised in such a way that it interconnects and links offline and online worlds.

Research questions, methods and sampling
Building on the aforementioned theoretical considerations and research aims, this study sought answers to one general research question: Can online communication within Catholicism in Croatia be described as a networked religion?This general research question leads to five auxiliary research questions: RQ1a: Does online communication lead to an emergence of networked communities?Are there differences between the presence of networked communities regarding the level of formal affiliation with the Catholic Church and regarding the type of technology used (websites and Facebook /FB/ pages)?
In our research, we operationalised networked communities as online communities of persons that, presumably, do not interact one with another in the offline world.
RQ1b: What is the level of storied identity creation?Are there differences in the presence of such identity processes regarding the level of formal affiliation with the Catholic Church and regarding the type of technology used (websites and Facebook pages)?
The storied identity process was operationalised as the presence of interaction, conflict of opinions and consideration of religious ideas coming from various religious traditions.It can be assumed that such communicative process and types of content presented translate into a more fluid and individualised identity.
RQ1c: Does online communication challenge the existing religious authorities and/or create new ones?Are there differences in this regard between the sites with different levels of formal affiliation with the Catholic Church and the types of technology used (websites and Facebook pages)?This question was operationalised as the existence of opposing voices/ authority challenges, as well as the existence of non-formal authority figures on the websites.
RQ1d: What is the level of interconnection between online and offline worlds?Are there differences regarding the level of formal affiliation with the Catholic Church and regarding the type of technology used (websites and Facebook pages)?This research question was operationalised as the level of presence of information related to the offline world, as well as photos, maps and audiovisual materials related to the offline world.
RQ1e: What is the level of convergent practices and do they bring about new forms of religious expression?Are there differences in this regard between the sites with different level of formal affiliation with the Catholic Church and the type of technology used (websites and Facebook pages)?
We operationalised this research question as the presence of audiovisual materials and consumer orientation (happiness and life satisfaction/ fulfilment).
The aforementioned research questions were examined by means of a media content analysis. 5Even though content analysis deals with symbols and human communication and thus entails a level of subjectivity and interpretation, quantitative content analysis aims at achieving acceptable levels of measurement characteristics similar to other quantitative research methods.Namely, when doing content analysis it is recommendable to evaluate and improve the validity, reliability, accuracy and precision of the measurement (Neuendorf, 2002).In our research, validity was enhanced through systematic matching of theoretical concepts with their operationalisation, and through the use of face and content validity. 6The reliability of the analyses was upgraded by employing two trained coders and one additional coder who coded half of the total sample units (from both coders).This allowed for the calculation of reliability coefficients.As can be seen from the Appendix 2, the values of pair-wise percentage agreement and Kripendorff's α coefficients were satisfactory (cf.Kripendorff, 2004).To be more specific, the α coefficients were lower than 0.7 only in three cases, arguably due to the inherently subjective nature of the concepts measured through these variables (religious advice and happiness level).Research accuracy was ensured through the careful development of the coding sheet and precise definition of the categories in the coding book that was used by the coders.Finally, we tried to achieve as much precision as possible when defining the coding categories.In most cases we have decided to use three-or four-point measurement scales (see Appendix 1) bearing in mind the qualitative nature of reading and interpreting large, sometimes even massive communication contents present on the websites and Facebook pages included in the sample.
The concepts present in the research questions were operationalised in the coding sheet, whereby most operationalisations were relatively straightforward.For example, the levels of interactivity were coded according to the coders' judgement on the presence of the two-way communication on the particular website or Facebook page (e.g. the presence of forums or questions and answer sections on a website, or the intensity of the twoway communication on a Facebook page).With regard to the multimedia, only the existence of audiovisual content (video clips and similar materials) was analysed because other forms of multimedia, such as combined use of photos and text, were present on all the pages.Thus, the use of the concept of multimedia would be too broad, meaning that all Facebook pages and websites would fit such a definition.For other operationalisation details, we invite the reader to review the coding sheet presented in Appendix 1.
In order to have a clear focus in our research, we decided to analyse only the websites and Facebook pages related to the Catholic Church and/or Catholic believers.We decided to avoid the websites that are concerned with religion and spirituality in general, i.e. the Internet pages that offer a broad spectrum of ideas on religion that can be described as an online "cultic milieuˮ, or as "banal religionˮ in Hjarvard's words (Hjarvard, 2008(Hjarvard, , 2016)).Even though possible new forms of religious expressions that might emerge from the Internet networks are very interesting in their own way, the fact that our research questions were mainly concerned with changing forms of religious authority and that religiosity in Croatia is still likely to be churchbased (Pavić, 2016b) 7 led us to narrow the research focus of the paper.
The study relied on a total sample of 200 units -100 websites and 100 Facebook pages.Three quarters of the sample units were websites or Facebook pages established and run by the Catholic Church in Croatia, i.e. the websites and Facebook pages of the parishes.The remaining one quarter (50 units) consisted of websites and Facebook pages not run by the Church.In 33 cases the unit was run by the believers themselves, whereas in the remaining 17 cases the website or Facebook page was entirely or partially established by members of the Catholic clergy or was devoted to a member of the clergy (in most cases a charismatic preacher).Hereinafter, we refer to the aforementioned categories as parochial sites, non-affiliated sites and semi-affiliated sites. 8 The part of the sample formally affiliated to the Catholic Church was stratified according to the number of parishes in a respective archdiocese, while the sample units were randomly chosen from the parish lists.Due to the large number of parishes (1.598 in total), we were unable to make accurate estimates on how many parishes have their own websites and/ or Facebook pages.However, on the basis of the data on the parishes of Đakovo-Osijek Archdiocese (situated in Eastern Croatia), it can be concluded that these shares probably amount to about 20% in the case of websites or 40% in the case of Facebook pages, even though these shares are likely to vary greatly in other (arch)dioceses.
In the light of the apparent absence of a comprehensive list of websites and Facebook pages related to the semi-formal or informal organisations of Catholic believers in Croatia, i.e. the sample units not affiliated with the Church, these units were located through keyword searching (e.g."Catholicsˮ and "believersˮ) and snowball sampling (searching the web links present on the located websites).When doing so, those organisations whose activities are in a narrow relation to the formal hierarchy of the Catholic Church have not been included in the sample.For example, the website of the Catholic organisation Križari (Crusaders) was not included in the sample, given that, according to its own history and identification, it operates in the hierarchical apostolate of the Church and was approved by the Croatian Conference of Bishops.In other words, the basic criterion for exclusion from the sample was formal affiliation with the Church hierarchy.
With regard to the data analysis, besides listing the frequencies, we have calculated non-parametric measures of differences between the websites and Facebook pages and various sample categories (parochial, semiaffiliated and non-affiliated pages).In the former case, the Mann-Whitney test was used, whereas in the latter case we used the Kruskal-Wallis test.
In cases where the Kruskal-Wallis statistics was significant, pair-wise comparison (Mann-Whitney) with Bonferroni correction was used.When there was no ordinal grouping, the Chi-square test was used.Finally, it is worth mentioning that we attempted to analyse the data more parsimoniously by using the categorical principal components analysis (CATPCA).However, we failed to reach an interpretable solution, whereby other indicators (e.g. the percentage of explained variance and Cronbach's α coefficient) also pointed to a poor dimension reduction model fit.Possible reasons may include a low number of valid (non-missing) cases in several variables (e.g. the presence of ideas stemming from other religious communities and the attitudes towards them) in the subsample of non-affiliated pages, as well as low correlations between the variables.The results of the CATPCA were therefore not presented or considered in the paper.

Results
In Table 1 we present the results related to the existence of networked communities (RQ1a), operationalised as the offline world connection between the visitors of web pages and FB pages (the data for both site types are aggregated in the table). 9The visitors of the parochial sites more of-ten knew each other in the offline world in comparison to the other two site categories.The difference regarding the offline connection was found both for the websites and FB pages (H = 48.53;H = 14.30; p < 0.05).As expected, the visitors of the FB pages, additionally, knew each other less often in the offline world when compared to the website visitors.For instance, in 82% of all web pages, the majority of members/visitors knew each other in the offline world, which was true for only 11% of the FB pages (U = 1,546.0;p < 0.05).Table 2 provides the results related to the levels of visitors' interactivity and admin-user interactivity (RQ1b).It should be noted that the parochial websites rarely contained any form of interactivity among its users.In other words, the interactivity more often existed only in the cases of websites that were semi-affiliated or not affiliated with the Church.For instance, all four cases of middle-level or high-level interactivity were found on the websites founded by believers.When it comes to FB pages, this difference is smaller, but still statistically significant.For instance, only 32.9% of all parochial FB pages had a middle or high level of interactivity, while this was found for 70.0% of semi-affiliated and 66.7% of non-affiliated pages.Since admin-user interactivity was almost completely non-existent at the websites, we only presented the data on this kind of interactivity found on FB pages.The results were very similar to the findings on the visitors' interactivity.It should also be noted that statistically significant differences were found between the websites and FB pages with regard to the interactivity measures.As expected, FB pages had a much higher level of interactivity.For instance, 83.0% of all websites displayed no interactivity, while this applied to only 7.1% of all FB pages (U = 222.0p < 0.05).
As summarised in Table 3, conflict of opinions (RQ1b) was most often found at the non-affiliated pages, followed by the semi-affiliated ones.Pair-wise Mann-Whitney (rank-sum) tests revealed statistically significant differences between the parochial sites and the other two categories, but not between the latter two categories themselves.Therefore, it can be concluded that the parochial websites and FB pages contained the lowest levels of conflict.It also seems that conflict of opinions can more often be found on the websites when compared to FB pages (U = 1,154.5;p < 0.05).
However, this is merely a consequence of the fact that interactivity among visitors was found to exist only in the non-affiliated websites.Members of other religious communities were more present on the non-affiliated websites and FB pages, but even there their presence was not substantial.However, pair-wise comparisons showed that only the difference between the aforementioned websites and FB pages as well as between the parochial sites and FB pages was statistically significant. 13imilarly, consideration of other communities' ideas was more often found at the non-affiliated pages when compared to the other two categories, but even there in only a third of all cases.In most cases, such considerations were either critical or even completely deprecatory, wherein there was no statistically significant difference between the affiliated and the nonaffiliated pages.
The results presented in Table 4 demonstrate that authority challenge (RQ1c) was equally (non)present in all three site categories.However, informal leaders were more often found on the semi-affiliated and nonaffiliated pages than on the parochial pages, even though informal leaders did not appear on the majority of sites when any of the three site categories are considered.Similarly, flexible interpretations of religious texts were equally present on all three site categories.To be more precise, they were found in 59.6% of all cases where any religious texts were present on the parochial sites, whereas those shares amounted to 56.3% on the semi-affiliated and 43.8% on the non-affiliated pages.14However, a word of caution is warranted here as each interpretation of religious texts that diverged from a mere quotation of the texts was defined and counted as a "flexible interpretationˮ.When it comes to the communication of the formal leader/founder of the website or FB page, it was more often present on the semi-affiliated and non-affiliated pages.Interestingly, parish priests communicated more often on the parochial FB sites when compared to the parochial websites.In contrast, there were no differences in the founder's communication between the websites and FB pages when the other two categories were considered.In a similar vein, there was a difference between the parochial sites and the two other site categories when it comes to the share of the information related to the offline world in the total information content found on the site (RQ1d; Table 5).The parochial sites more frequently offered only or largely the information related to the offline world.The difference regarding the offline information was found no matter whether websites or FB pages were concerned (H = 50.73;H = 27.83;p < 0.05).In addition, FB pages covered offline information to a much lesser extent than the websites (U = 1,956.5;p < 0.05).For example, in 91% of all websites, at least a larger part of the information was connected to the offline world.This share amounted to 62% when it comes to FB pages.
Similarly, there was a difference with regard to the presence of photos, maps and audiovisual materials related to the offline world with the parochial sites having more of such materials.The difference between the three site categories regarding the photos and audiovisual materials was the same when the websites and FB pages are concerned (H = 36.00;H = 56.42;p < 0.05).However, no difference was found between the websites and FB pages in this regard (p > 0.05).Finally, as can be discerned from Table 6, there was a statistically significant difference between different site categories with regard to the promise of increased levels of happiness and life satisfaction, as well as the presence of audiovisual materials (RQ1e).The parochial websites and FB pages less often engaged in such a communication towards the visitors.For instance, in 68.1% of all valid cases, the parochial websites and FB pages did not offer such a message, while this applied to only 42.4% of the sample units belonging to the non-affiliated category and 23.5% of those belonging to the semi-affiliated category.In a similar vein, there was a difference between the parochial sample units and the other two categories, wherein the parochial websites and FB pages were more often focussed on individual and collective rituals when compared to the other two categories.In contrast, the semi-affiliated and non-affiliated websites and FB pages more often focussed on the personal relationship with God.The difference goes to the same conceptual direction when the presence of audiovisual materials is considered.In other words, almost half of all parochial websites and FB pages contained no such materials, whereas these shares were significantly smaller when it comes to the other two sample categories.

Discussion
The results of our study show that networked communities do emerge from religious communication on the Internet.However, this is almost exclusively the case with non-affiliated sites, those that were founded by the believers.To be more precise, the visitors of more than 50% of all such sites in our sample probably do not interact with/know one another in the offline world.The situation is somewhat different for the semi-affiliated sites since they are mostly formed around charismatic leaders affiliated with the Church.In such cases, the emerging communities are not fully de-territorialised since they meet at charismatic renewal occasions and extend their community into the online world.As could be expected, the parochial sites represent a complete extension of the offline communities.However, having in mind the other results of the study, it can be presumed that such networked communities do not substitute but rather supplement offline communities (Campbell, 2005).More precisely, the processes of storied identity formation and authority challenge are only marginally present.Thus, networked communities probably only provide interaction among similarly-minded individuals who search for new forms of religious expression and experience.
There were large differences in the visitors' interactivity levels between (1) FB pages and websites and (2) parochial websites/FB pages and semiaffiliated and non-affiliated websites/FB pages.When it comes to adminuser interactivity, there was only a difference between the parochial FB pages on the one side, and the semi-affiliated and non-affiliated FB pages on the other side.Low interactivity levels of the parochial websites/FB pages is consistent with past research, albeit small in number and mostly related to the applied, pastoral aspects of online communication.For instance, Dugalić and Džinić (2011) based their research on a sample of parishes in Đakovo-Osijek Archdiocese and concluded that various media formats (parish leaflets, newspapers, radio shows, etc.) were used more for providing information and less for evangelisation, as well as that the parishes lacked their own media projects and stronger engagement of the believers.Skoko and Gusić (2013) conducted their analysis of the parochial websites of the Archdiocese of Zagreb (the Croatian capital) in order to determine the existence of important evangelistic content, interactivity and accuracy, thereby referring to the appropriate evangelistic targets present in the documents of the Catholic Church.They also determined low levels of interactivity in terms of forums, chat rooms, questions and answer sections, surveys and comments.Specifically, about 65% of all websites offered no possibility of interactive communication between the parish and its members (website visitors).
When it comes to personal presence on Facebook, the results of a study of pastors of the Danish Evangelical Church can be indicative (Fischer-Nielsen, 2012: 56-57).Even though the majority of pastors found Facebook useful in communication about practical matters, they had strong reservations about the possibility of substituting face-to-face communication about faith with Facebook communication.Additionally, privacy concerns, as well as concerns about increased job demands, were also raised with regard to Facebook communication with parishioners.Interestingly, the pastors expressed no concern over the possibility of diminishing their authority with a more horizontal communication on Facebook.Given that our study employed the content analysis method, we can only speculate on the reasons for the smaller presence of the Croatian Catholic Church priests on Facebook.Bearing in mind that the Catholic Church has a relatively marked hierarchical structure, we would assume that the concerns over sanctions imposed by a higher authority might play a significant role.However, this should be investigated in future studies.
Even in the cases where there was higher interactivity between the visitors of the websites and of FB pages, conflict of opinions, as well as consideration of ideas coming from other religious communities, were rarely present.Where they were present, they were most often approached with a critical or even a deprecatory stance.Thus, current online communication on the Catholic websites and FB pages hardly brings about more eclectic religious ideas or at least more ecumenical considerations.This conclusion is supported by the fact that the communication rarely questioned the existing authorities.Although an informal leader appeared in a significant number of cases and a flexible interpretation of religious texts did exist, this only led to the re-affirmation of the Catholic doctrine.Thus, it cannot be concluded that the current situation leads to the formation of storied identities in a meaningful way.
It seems that the results of our study did not confirm the various scenarios of challenging religious authorities outlined by Campbell and Teusner (2011).It was their contention that the Internet would (1) change the understanding of the religious community and identity by making them more fluid, (2) expose traditional authorities to the scrutiny made by alternative voices inside the religious community and (3) blur the lines between correct theological knowledge and their online re-examinations.However, in the current study, none of these scenarios was present in a noticeable number of cases.The sites with various levels of affiliation rarely contested the existing religious authorities, even when an informal leader was present on the site's discussions.Flexible interpretation of religious texts was present only as a commentary that does not diverge from the official doctrine.Therefore, it seems that online communication in the case of Catholicism in Croatia does not lead to shifts of power in the religious field.Even though the Internet offers new possibilities in this regard, it is doubtful whether it can present an independent voice of change in the light of non-existence of significant authority challenges in the offline world -at least when it comes to the Catholic Church in Croatia.
Our results firmly show that in most parochial sample units there was a strong offline-online connection.The same goes for the semi-affiliated sites (founded by the clergy or devoted to charismatic preachers), while the non-affiliated sites (those founded by the believers) had a more strongly pronounced independent online dimension.With regard to the online-offline relationship, Campbell and Lövheim (2011) rightfully observed that the contemporary wave of research on religion on the Internet has abandoned the previously clear demarcation between online and offline religious spaces and practices.Instead, in the contemporary research, "attention is directed towards the interplay between new media technology, religious individuals and groups, and the particular situations and contexts in which they are locatedˮ (Campbell andLövheim, 2011: 1088).In other words, it cannot be inferred that online and offline religious spaces are firmly separated into distinct communities governed by different activities, norms and authorities.The two spaces interact in unpredictable ways, reflecting current religious transformations that are context-bound, as religion usually is.It seems that the results of our study also confirm the findings from the research on one of the most visited Polish Catholic forums conducted by Kołodziejska (2014).She concluded that it was not a place where new religious experiences took place, but rather a place of "double meditationˮ wherein members conveyed their offline experiences and engaged in interpretation of other members' religious testimonies.
However, it should be borne in mind that FB pages will probably dominate the websites even in the case of parochial online communication in the Catholic Church in Croatia.For example, some of the participants on the Internet forums stated that in the last five to seven years, Catholic forums in Croatia have become less active and less visited, and that some of them have even been closed (e.g.katolici.organd its pertaining forum).Since FB pages show less offline-online overlap, it can be assumed that the offline-online connection will be loosened in the future.
Even though the semi-affiliated and non-affiliated sites did not challenge the authority of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Croatia, they more frequently possessed more consumerist and emotional/ecstatic faith dimensions when compared to the sites formally affiliated with the Catholic Church.Through a more frequent use of multimedia, these sites more often evoked an emotional dimension of faith and offered happiness, life satisfaction and fulfilment.In this way, our research did confirm the previously quoted theoretical statements and empirical cases that emphasised an elective affinity between the audiovisual media, easily distributed on the Internet, and specific forms of faith expression (e.g. as in the case of the Neo-Pentecostals).
As Deacon and Stanyer (2014) rightfully warned, the concept of mediatisation should not be overused and its impact should not be overstated.
They also pointed to the need for an explanation of instances where media impact is non-existent, i.e.where the rising media presence had not been followed by the mediatisation itself.It logically follows that such instances should look for other causal factors that can harness the power of media and steer it in a preferable direction.We believe that the results of our research present us with such a situation.In the case of Catholicism in Croatia, the presumed power of the Internet does not significantly translate into religious changes that bring about more individualised and eclectic religious identities, or authority challenges.

Conclusion
Building on Campbell's notion of networked religion, our analysis showed that the level of affiliation with the Church is strongly connected to some of the components of a networked religion.Semi-affiliated and non-affiliated Internet sites more often resembled networked communities, showing higher levels of convergent practices and new forms of religious expression, as well as lower levels of interconnection between online and offline worlds.Even though Campbell's notion of networked religion does not enable us to firmly distinguish between the "oldˮ offline religion and "newˮ forms of religion that arise from online communication since they are interconnected, it still helps us to estimate the extent of such changes.
Therefore, we can conclude that the Internet, at least in the case of Catholicism in Croatia, does not challenge formal religious authorities, nor does it lead to new interpretations of religious doctrines and texts.However, it does convey rather specific forms of religious expression that are oriented towards a more personal relationship with God and self-fulfilment instead towards religious formalism, especially in the cases of semi-affiliated and non-affiliated sites.Thus, it can be inferred that the results of our study indicate that the Internet leads to the re-affirmation and deepening of the existing religious practices by using new media formats.
One noteworthy limitation of our study arises from the fact that our focus was exclusively directed to the websites and FB pages that are formally linked to the Catholic Church, or those that were established and run by Catholics.The rationale for such a decision was the intention to have a clearer research focus.However, this also implies that our results probably underestimated the potential impact of the Internet on dynamism, eclecticism and the dispute over religious authority that may exist on the websites or Facebook pages set up and run by non-Catholics or people with more open religious beliefs (persons who are inclined towards non-church spirituality or spirituality less related to a specific religious tradition).Additionally, the inherently subjective nature of the concepts that comprised our theoretical framework makes them prone to different operationalisations and thus to potentially different conclusions.Finally, limited sample size did not allow us to check for possible differences among the Croatian regions with regard to the presence of a networked religion.
"Are the ideas of other religious communities discussed or taken into consideration?ˮ-Yes, often; Yes, but only rarely; No. "What are the attitudes towards the ideas coming from other traditions/ communities and/or their members?ˮ-Affirmative/directed towards dialogue; Critical/directed towards their refutation; Completely deprecatory; There are no attitudes on the page in this respect."Do the visitors challenge the existing religious authorities (the Church in general, priests, bishops, archbishops, the Pope...)?ˮ -Yes, there are critical tones; Yes, but very rarely; No; Cannot be determined."Is there an informal leader or more of them on the page when it comes to religious matters?ˮ -Yes; No; Cannot be determined."Is there a flexible interpretation of religious texts or are they only formally listed?ˮ -Yes; No; Cannot be determined."Does the formal leader of the religious community (e.g. the local priest) communicate on the site?ˮ -Yes; No; Cannot be determined."Do the members of the Internet community who visit the website know each other in the offline world as well, i.e. do they communicate face-toface or live in the same community?ˮ-Yes, with all or almost all of them; Yes, but not with all of them; Probably with none of them; With none of them; Cannot be determined."Is the information appearing on the website exclusively related to the events of offline/physical world?ˮ -Yes, almost all of them; Yes, to a larger extent; Yes, but only to a lesser extent; Not at all or nearly not at all."Are there photos, maps and audiovisual materials that emphasise the connection with some specific site (e.g. the parish, the city ...) present on the website?ˮ -Yes, the page is full of them; Yes, but only to a lesser extent; Not at all or nearly not at all."Does the website offer greater levels of happiness and life satisfaction/ fulfilment to the visitors?ˮ-Yes, to a greater extent; Yes, to a lesser extent; Not at all or nearly not at all; Cannot be determined."Is the religious message focussed on the rational or the emotional and ecstatic experience of religion?ˮ-Mostly rational: individual prayer and respect for religious truth; Mostly rational: collective rituals; Mostly collective rituals imbued with strong emotions (song, dance, etc.); Mainly personal relationship and experience with God; Something else [open-ended]."Is there any audiovisual content on the website?ˮ -Yes, to a greater extent; Yes, to a lesser extent; Not at all or nearly not at all.