Discourses offeminine mediatized religion on Persian Instagram

Abstract

AbstractSocial media brings the benefit to people to make their voices heard, an opportunity which was not accessible in the past. In this article, we have shown that this opportunity has led to the emergence of feminine religion. Women used to be less able to talk about religion - in terms of preaching, advices, explanations and interpretations - but through these networks they have been able to produce extensive content about their religion and religious beliefs. The feminine religion is not always reflected in the same fashion, of course, but in a spectrum of beliefs among the women active in the social media. We can consider all the contents in this area in one picture and discuss the emergence of a new opportunity in Iranian society based on the commonalities between the contents. We have shown that the expression of women in religious life with the help of new media has put the traditional institution of religion in a new position. In addition to the challenges it has caused, unparalleled opportunities are also created for religion continuation. At the same time, feminine religious expressions have played a role in limiting the spread of anti-religious sentiments and have achieved many of the desired goals of religious intellectuals in practice. This study examines the feminine mediatized religion presented on Instagram analyzing the discourses in Iranian women's narratives of religion. For this purpose, five Instagram pages have been examined using the Fairclough discourse analysis method. The results indicate the existence of a feminine religious structure which is characterized by search for oneness, call to life, and production of new teachings in the field of religion.

Keywords

• mediatized religion
• feminine mediatized religion
• religion
• feminine religion
• discourse analysis
• instagram
• expression
• the official language of religion