From Pulpit to Spectacle; Celebrity-like Re-presentation of Clerics on Instagram

By increasing access to social media in Iran, the clerics as well have used these media. They not only use these media for religious content production; but also they use social media such as Instagram to present non-religious content to attract attention. In this study, based on purposeful sampling method 71 Instagram posts of 5 clergymen were analyzed.Results show that non-religious content in 2 themes have been articulated: "liquidity of Instagram clergy" and "transition from privacy to spectacle environment" By re-presenting their political attitudes, sport activities, their home, companionship with celebrities, cultural consumption, and on other hand, self re-presentation, the clergymen have expressed various issues to get attention of users on their pages. Relation of this style of self-expression with celebrity culture is siginifies the resemblance with celebrities activities, such as showing everyday life, privacy and various comments that are based on attention communication model, seeking fame promotion on instagram and gaining more attiention captial. Thus clergy transition from re-presentation of religious and non-religious content to the non-religious re-presentation has occured to gain greater fame; to turn them into "show clergy" according to the components of a semi-celebrity.