God’s Influencers: How Social Media Users Shape Religion and Pious Self-Fashioning

In this presentation, I introduce and discuss the programmatic editorial introduction of the forthcoming special issue “God’s Influencers: How Social Media Users Shape Religion and Pious Self-Fashioning” (Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture 13:2). Drawing on the contributions included in the special issue, this programmatic editorial explores resonances and dissonances between the six research articles, outlining their contribution to the field and sketching new research directions in the social-scientific study of Digital Religion. First, I reconsider the online/offline connection in relation to the religious actors examined. Second, I articulate a post techno-utopian vision of religion online, identifying digital media as a social space where inequalities, prejudices and power structures offline as well religious norms, orthopraxy and relations of epistemic authority can be both reinforced and challenged. Third, I shed light on the subjective turn in the way online religious actors understand and impart “authenticity”, a heatedly debated concept in the context of both religion and social media. Fourth, I present some of the communicative strategies that the religious social media users examined in this special issue employ. And, finally, I conclude by sketching future research directions in the study of how social media users shape religion and pious self-fashioning.