“Pull up a Chair and Join in”: The Collective Creation of Space on the United Church of Canada’s WonderCafe website

• Main Author: Hunter, Morgan
• Other Authors: Beaman, Lori
• Language: en
• Published: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa 2012
• Subjects: Religion Online; United Church of Canada; Web 2.0; Social Media
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10393/20526; http://dx.doi.org/10.20381/ruor-5138

In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.