5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Religious expression in cyber space has become more prevalent and diverse in recent years. The internet has facilitated new forms of spirituality, religious practice, and community. Online worship services, spiritual counseling, virtual meditation, and religious apps have become widespread, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic. Religious influencers have gained large followings and pose potential challenges to traditional authorities and hierarchies. Advances in artificial intelligence provide new means for acquiring religious knowledge and producing religious content. Social scientists have developed diverse and creative methods for studying how digital technologies and platforms have shaped religious life, structures of religious authority, and the contours of religious and spiritual identities. This panel examines new frontiers in the study of digital religion and the methodologies that have been employed to analyze them. Contributions dealing with diverse dimensions of digital religious life, whether case studies or comparative analyses, are welcome. The aim is to showcase and think critically about new trends in the study of digital religion through exploring studies that analyze novel aspects of religion’s presence in cyber space or that employ innovative methods for studying aspects of digital religion that have gained prominence in the literature.