An Evaluation of Clergymen's Religious Weblogs in Iran:a Three-level Pyramid Model

This research was conducted with the aim of developing a framework of criteria to analyze and evaluate clergymen's religious weblogs. In recent years, clergymen have been provided with opportunity to have an active presence in cyberspace and propagate religion in it. However, quantitative increase in clergymen's weblogs does not necessarily mean that the intended aims and effective propagation of religion are achieved.The researcher adopted twenty general criteria to establish the criteria of evaluation, which are classified into four groups: the criteria of "interaction", "distinctiveness", "representativeness" and "availability of possibility to evaluate weblogs". Four criteria of "updated religious calendar", "authority", "applicability", and "special issues" were defined to conduct a professional evaluation of these weblogs. These eight innovated criteria are presented as a three-level pyramid whose pedestal consists of general criteria and its middle level and top consists of professional criteria. The more we move toward the top, the criteria become more professional.