Main Approaches in the Study of Religion and New Media

Studies concerning media’s role in presenting religion has been significant in social sciences, communication sciences, cultural studies and religion studies for many years now. The abundance of literature in the field of media and religion, and in particular, the relationship between Internet and religion over the last few decades has highlighted the importance of this research field. This paper provides a focused review of three dominant theoretical approaches to this relationship adopted in the last few decades in line with the key theoretical approaches to the study of media and religion (Mediatization of Religion, Mediatization of Meaning, Social Shaping of Technology). This, hopefully, will provide a lens for interpretation, especially for studies of new media engagement and interaction by religious users and communities. The present study is a descriptive-analytical study and the data was collected in a desk study