Managing missionary identity in the digital age: How missionaries utilize digital media among multiple social groups. Issue 2 (April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nehrbass, Kenneth
• Is Part Of: Missiology. Volume 46:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 183
• Page End: 195
• Publication Date: 2018-04
• Subjects: identity management -- social media -- missionaries -- semiotics -- cultural scripts; Missions -- Periodicals; 266.005
• DOI: 10.1177/0091829617748939
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0091-8296

Abstract

The way that missionaries manage their identities has changed significantly since the days they mailed out several printed newsletters a year to a small audience "back home." The space for this negotiation of identity has moved from private to public; and the interlocutors who access these blogs, emails, and posts are no longer homogenous. This original research study uses quantitative and qualitative methods to understand how missionaries avow the multiple layers of their identities in the digital age. I conclude that missionary updates are encoded along indexical "cultural scripts" that can be decoded idiosyncratically by various audiences.