Blog #4


My study of Mormon beliefs and how that is reflected through behavior has been mainly surrounded around church behavior and mission trips. The key messages that I've seen through all the memes haven't been about outsider stereotypes but mostly about insider behavior surrounding the behaviors of the Mormon religion. The lack of online presence that Mormons have reflected on why most of the Mormon memes are related to missionaries and church.The two memes that I collected about the experience of mission trips and how Mormons try to spread the word of their faith. 
The meme above shows the outsider point of view of how Mormons are very persistent in spreading their faith but yet no one really knows what Mormonism is really about because they keep their faith and traditions inside the community. The main type casts that this meme reflects is a stereotype of being the religion that goes door to door.  

The meme above talks about how persistent the missionaries are. This meme could come from an insider or outsider perspective because they go through a training for their missionary trips and go through extensive experience and training for their missionary trips. In each country that there are Mormon missionaries, there is a tight knit community. Because they are all over the world, it is not a geographical community- they are a community by the label. Anyone and everyone that is going through the mission experience, they become a small scale community. On the other hand, there is a small online community because Mormon's aren't allowed to use social media, internet or phones. They are encouraged to send letters and blog. 

These messages that are coming through the memes are an accurate depiction of what the Mormons believe in and therefore how they behave. With all my research, I have found a lack of memes that have outsider stereotypes. 

I read an article on Mormon missionary trips in Taiwan and the reflection of the communities that were created while overseas. I looked at this article to see how technology and online communities were used while being distant from local and home communities bask in the United States. The Mormons were shown to be a very positive and tried to create communities into this new country. There is a lack of online presence from the Mormon community not just during missionary trips but in modern times. 

 The lack of Mormon communities online has to do with their beliefs and the need to be closer to God and be present. They are slowly created a wider presence online as they see the necessity to reach out to people not only door to door but through the internet. 
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Comments

  1. Soup Twin-1October 31, 2017 at 9:26 AM

    Be more specific in what behaviors or practice related to mission you are looking at. What do you mean by they are seen as "persistent", be more concrete in your details. Back up claims with evidence/quotes and citations from your scholarly sources. Also you final claim presented above is very abstract and unclear, there are numerous online Mormon communities so you need to contextualize such broad claims.

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