Ancient rituals in contemporary landscapes: An exploration of religious practices in social media

The purpose of this project is to understand what happens when religious discourse, which has traditionally been characterised by hierarchies and structured practices, moves into contexts which are said to be anti-hierarchical and unstructured, and which explicitly aim at co-construction of meaning.

In a pilot project, which aims to constitute a stepping-stone to a larger research proposal, we study the communication on the Facebook page of the Church of Sweden. What interests us is how different social practices are affected by the re-positioning of religious communication from an offline environment into an online environment. How does this re-positioning change established religious communication practices? Do these new opportunities for participation affect how existential questions are framed and discussed? How is the legitimacy of the organisation affected by a dismantling of the hierarchies previously governing religious discourse?

Project period

January-December, 2018

Funding

This project is part of the internal informatics and media research program RATS.

Project members

Henrik Åhman, project leader
Claes Thorén, researcher

Content responsible: Henrik Åhman