The Impact of Online Media on Religious Authority

Abstract

The aim of this study is to reveal in an interpretive way how computer-mediated communication, the Internet, and social media can be grasped by authority models and how these new types of authority influence religious communities that are (also) present on online platforms. In some cases, computer-mediated communication weakened and made traditional church authorities porous, but in other cases, it specifically helped and strengthened them. In other words, the impact of digital media is not uniform or unidirectional in this respect. Although there is no doubt that the Internet has multiplied it, made it optional, and personalized it from the user’s point of view, it has made religious authority customizable. The power of choice means that, in the digital sphere, the user decides when, what form of network authority they will submit to, for how long, and why they do so. In the classics of the sociology of religion, the concept of authority appears in a hierarchical representation under the concepts of (social) order and rationality. In other words, it cannot be thought of in a way that is contrary to rationality and contrary to social order. In network communication, the concept of authority is subordinated to technology, or as Castells puts it, power can only be interpreted with the logic of the network. Of course, the technological network and its contents are under external (legal) control, but it is precisely the power of the symbolic struggles taking place here that shows how important this issue is in the 21st century. The concept of authority classified under technology will no longer be linked to order or rationality, but to the processes of control, datafication, and attention management on the part of the owners of the platforms, while from the users’ side to concepts such as identity, authenticity, choice, and voluntariness. Its boundaries will be malleable, and the phenomenon itself will multiply. In summary, we cannot talk about one single online religious authority but more types of religious authorities, which are continuously and discursively formed, change, and occasionally hybridize.

1. Introduction

The social sciences have many concepts whose meanings have been greatly expanded and transformed over the past decades. The concept of authority is one of them. Almost all major sociologists, political scientists, and media researchers have dealt with the issue of power, while being able to identify its different sources, types, and manifestations. The purpose of this chapter is not to provide a comprehensive presentation of the concept of authority, as sociologists, political scientists, religion researchers, and media researchers have already done so in monographs (Bloesch 2005; Castells 2007, 2011; Couldry 2012; Furedi 2013; Parsons 1967; Weber 1989). This text only attempts to show what sociological and network concepts of religion can be associated with it, and what can be said about the online religious community and digitally appearing churches in the intersection of these two (Tudor and Ladjouzi 2020; Bratosin and Ngoulou 2024). However, it is more than that, since the validity of the patterns revealed in connection with religion and churches can be extended to a greater or lesser extent to the digital reorganization of the authority of other social institutions (Tudor and Bratosin 2018). This study was primarily written from a media science approach, examining the topic from the perspective of network communication.

Modern information technology has changed the social conditions that were previously responsible for the creation of political or even religious authority. The mediatization of religion poses a challenge to religious authority (Tudor and Ladjouzi 2020; Bratosin and Ngoulou 2024). It is not easy to control the network information flow by either governments or other social institutions and churches. At the same time, the Internet has also changed the way we look at authority, since new positions of power are created in connection with technology, hierarchical structures are flattened, and even those who have had little platform to raise their voices can express their views. Classical theories of power and authority are well known in the social sciences. The most cited sociologist Max Weber, in the context of grasping the phenomenon of rule, in the first volume of his seminal work Economy and Society, distinguishes between three types of rules, the charismatic, bureaucratic, and traditional forms. In this sense, power is based on obedience, and obedience can have a wide variety of motives in each case—from old habit to purely purposeful considerations. A certain minimum willingness to obey—that is, an (external or internal) interest in obedience—belongs to every power relationship (Weber 1989, p. 220). Researchers of network communication mostly believe that the theoretical framework in which Max Weber outlined the well-known types of authority at the beginning of the 20th century was a framework offered by the developed West, which is more debatable than self-evident in the 21st century (Hoover 2016b, p. 11). A good number of religious researchers also believe that Weber’s typology needs revision. For example, Mark Chaves argues that Weber conceptualizes religious authority in an analogous way to political authority, but the two institutional systems are so different that it is not possible to think about them in a similar way (Chaves 1994, p. 755). In the study cited above, Farkas presents and analyzes in a comparative way, in addition to Weber, the concepts of power of Dahrendorf, Parsons, and Coleman, presenting the broad spectrum in which sociology discusses the question of authority. His keywords are legitimacy, social power, order, sanction, and coercion. After reviewing the authority concepts of the sociology of religion, the study will present the forms of power connected to the media, including network communication.

2. Religious Sociological Approaches to Authority

The investigation of the functionality of religion became the focus of research in the sociology of religion at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. The goal of many researchers was to be able to answer the identity-shaping power of religion by grasping the functionality, as well as the question of how the meaning making takes place in religious communities. The British religious sociologist James Beckford attributes this turn of events to the fact that the concepts of power and authority fell out of the focus of interest. However, this does not mean that there was no scientific investigation; it was just that it was not at the forefront of the analyses. The writings of the 1960s identified the essence of religion with the various forms of socially interpreted and perceived order and, consequently, attributed to religious practices the purpose of reviving the “self-evident knowledge of the ultimate order” during social activity (Beckford 1996, pp. 21–22). The British scientist reviews some significant sociologists’ works from the end of the 1960s in order to examine to what extent and in what way the question of the relationship between religion and power appears in them. He first deals with Peter Berger’s book The Social Reality of Religion, published in 1969. For Berger, power is not a direct human experience, but merely one of the accompanying phenomena of a person’s social circumstances. Thus, Berger subordinated the concept of power to the concept of order, which he classified under the concept of rationality. The concept of religious power is therefore related to a rationally conceived social order and not to the experience of transcendence for Berger. The study of the phenomenon of power is also relegated to the background in the work of his fellow researcher Thomas Luckmann. In his book The Invisible Religion published in 1967, Luckmann begins his argument by saying that the process of institutionalization in the Western world created the private sphere, and he referred the question of religion to this. If people define religion as a private matter, then the individual can choose among religious interpretations according to their own discretion. In other words, according to Luckmann, religion is a social process in which successive generations pass on their interpretation patterns and forms through themes and symbols, and these forms will also reflect and preserve the structure of everyday social relations. Over time, these interpretation systems may become objectified, but it is not certain that they can create a connection between experience and interpretation in all cases of activity (Beckford 1996, pp. 233–34). In everyday life dominated by digital social media, this question comes up very sharply, since the successful transmission of interpretation patterns requires long-lasting social time spent together, which is not a feature of the information age. In other words, the creation of common meanings and the acquisition of meaning-giving patterns will no longer take place primarily in family and religious communities, but on online platforms where people spend a significant part of their time. In addition to a critical review of previous religious sociology writings, Beckford also developed a new typology, in which he classifies interpretations related to power into three large groups. In the first group, he classifies the range of definitions that focus on the features of power related to endowments and abilities (dispositional); in the second group, there are ideas stressing the occasionality of power (episodic); and the third group emphasizes the relational moment inherent in power (relational).

3. Possibilities of a Theological Approach to Authority

The theological theories of religious authority have been analyzed by many researchers. In this chapter, I will only present the work of the Jesuit Avery Dulles from the point of view of the theology of power. At first, Dulles distinguishes between authority and power. “At this point it may be helpful to distinguish between authority and power. The two may in fact coincide, so that power is exercised by way of authority, and authority makes itself felt as power. But the two terms, considered in their essential meaning, are by no means synonymous. Authority is always a moral interrelationship between free and rational subjects—that is to say, between persons. Power, on the other hand, may be sheerly physical. It can be exerted by dead matter as well as by persons; and it can be used upon lifeless things, animals, or insane and unwilling subjects” (Dulles 1971, p. 80). The American Jesuit theologian describes the ecclesiastical context of the theory he developed as a “pluralistic theory of sacred authority” (Dulles 1971, p. 80; Bagyinszki 2019). Dulles can dialectically integrate the intrinsic (inner) experience of God and extrinsic (objectively ecclesiastical) features, keeping these two complementary expressions of divine authority in fruitful tension with each other (Dulles 1971). The most important feature of Dulles’s concept of authority is that he distinguishes between “primary (divine) authority” and “secondary (ecclesiastical) authorities”, whose “convergence” can be realized naturally in the authentic church authority structure (Bagyinszki 2019, p. 29) “While Christians of all ages agree in taking Christ and his Spirit as the supreme authority, this agreement does not prevent the occurrence of serious disputes concerning the secondary loci of authority” (Dulles 1971, p. 82). The theological understanding of primary divine authority means that Christ is the primordial source of all created authority, which precedes the ecclesiastical authority structure. Dulles mentions five of the secondary authorities, which are Scripture, tradition, sense of faith, magisterium, and theology. Dulles considers the first-mentioned Scripture to be the “point of reference for Christian doctrine” adding, however, that even Scripture cannot be absolute as an authority. In the second place, he names the sacred tradition among the created authority bearers. Dulles mentions the sense of faith (sensus fidei fidelium) in the third place among the forms of authority. According to Dulles, the believers’ sense of faith is an ecclesiological–epistemological factor that, in a dialectical relationship with the “vertical authority” of the pastoral office, contributes in an indispensable way to the formation of the “horizontal authority” of the consensus within the church communion (Bagyinszki 2019, pp. 51–52). At the present moment, the problem of authority confronts different Churches in different ways. In some Churches, such as the Roman Catholic, the vertical authority of office seems to be yielding somewhat to the horizontal authority of consensus (Dulles 1971, p. 85). As a theologian, Dulles cautions that if it does not meet with the approval of the relevant church authorities, the supposed private revelations should be treated with wise and cautious restraint. The testimony of the sense of faith cannot therefore be isolated from the other authority institutions of the church (Dulles 2008; Bagyinszki 2019, p. 182).

The sense of belief mentioned by Dulles as a secondary form of authority is extremely significant on digital surfaces, in online media. In addition to the traditional places of religious practices and the expression of religious experience (religious communities, religious occasions, the spaces of the church and the home), online interfaces have also appeared as platforms for performing them. Moreover, in the case of young people, they have become the primary interface, the primary virtual space. We will also see later that we can also think of this phenomenon as a source of the so-called vernacular authority organized from below, the online presentation of beliefs and religious experiences. An important question is to what extent the need for church approval is present in these online communities, or whether personal authenticity within the digital community will serve as a legitimating force in terms of authority. This brings us back to Dulles’s theory. Bagyinszki points out that the Jesuit author makes a close connection between the different forms of community and the types of authority operating in them (Bagyinszki 2019, p. 29; Dulles 1971, pp. 79–94). This insight is emphatically true of the religious communities of network communication. In other words, there will be online religious communities that consider the institutional authority of the church to be legitimate and adapt to it on digital platforms as well; in such cases, the online media maintains, or in some cases strengthens, the traditional religious authority. In other types of online religious communities, however, we find examples where personal authenticity provides the legitimacy of authority, and church commitment is not necessary; in this case, online media weakens traditional religious authority.

4. Media and Authority

Media theories present and analyze the relationship between media and power from different dimensions. Among them, we find a work on media history in which the American researcher Elizabeth Eisenstein calls the effect of printing revolutionary because “printing encouraged criticism of authority, as it made opposing views on a given issue more widely available” (Eisenstein 1979). However, the relationship between mass communication technologies and their associated institutional system and the democratic state system received the most scientific attention, both descriptively and normatively. As a separate discipline, media regulation and media policy deals with models of the interaction of media and politics, the historical transformations and perspectives of political communication, and the functioning and goals of the power that regulates the media. These studies undertake to map the power relations and types of authority of the network media, with how media researchers describe, analyze, and typify the power relations of the Internet, new media, and network communication. They are looking for answers to questions such as what types of power a specific network can be characterized by how offline institutions can extend their power to the virtual space, to the Internet, how the “masses” can exercise (vernacular) power organized from below. At the same time, when discussing the issue of authority, not only its organization, becoming multidimensional, its direction (from top to bottom, bottom to top in the hierarchy, extending in a network), hybridization, extent, but also its content can be interesting from the point of view of the analysis of religious authority. To review the power relations of network communication, I will present the works of two authors; one of them is Nick Couldry, a media researcher at the London School of Economics, and the other is Manuel Castells, a social scientist of Spanish origin.

The British researcher Couldry is not interested in the open dimensions of power in the relationship between the media and the social environment, but rather in the hidden, less obvious mechanisms, which can be either positive or negative. These mechanisms are rooted in the phenomenon that the medium (media content) has become a common point of reference in people’s everyday lives. The viewers, the receivers, behave in some way by referring to the media content, following the representation of behavior in the media as a model and comparing their own way of life with what has been shown in the media. However, not only behavior and new social practices are “sanctified” by the media; its legitimizing power is much more comprehensive than that. In general, it is also true that the media change the dominant modes of legitimation, and, in this context, the types of authority associated with them. After all, we can see and experience the power of the media to verify and build reality in the everyday world. A good example is when something was accepted as true because it was announced on television. The transformations brought about by the digital world—writes Couldry—have made the authority of classical social institutions porous (Couldry 2012, p. 153). One of the reasons for this is that digitization has made a huge amount of information available, not only to the institutional or communication elite, but to anyone. These are horizontal communication possibilities, which have a much greater impact on authority than vertically organized patterns, where appropriate, protecting institutions. The network favors the development of personal authority over institutional authority, but it is less expandable and less generalizable, and its legitimating power is limited. At the same time, its modes of appearance will be stronger due to the performative nature of online media. Couldry also explores the issue of religious authority, one of the important forms of expression of which is text-based (based on holy texts) authority. On the interfaces of network communication, these sacred texts have entered an interactive discursive environment where they do not require special qualifications for commenting and interpretation. Anyone can interpret these texts in their own personal way—narrower or wider, sacred or secular—on their interpretation horizon. Interpretation has become an individual, community activity on the network interface, where there is no institutional control, or it is difficult to maintain. According to Couldry, an important question is also how centralized the organizational structure of one or another religion is (was) originally, since, in parallel with this, the authority in the given church will be strongly or less strongly centralized. Overall, the English media sociologist believes that it would be a mistake to attribute the weakening of traditional religious authority solely to the emergence of online digital media.

The most cited idea related to the network concept of power comes from Manuel Castells. The Spanish researcher believes that both institutions and norms are constructed in a society in such a way that they are saturated with the values and interests preferred by the current power. In his comprehensive three-volume work The Information Age, examining the political effects of the network, he concludes that, “in a sense, the political system is losing its power, although not its influence” (Castells 2007, p. 431). According to Castells, power itself means the ability to force behavior, and the political system is no longer the primary depository of this in the period of the network society. “However, the power does not disappear. In the information society, it basically evolved into the cultural codes with which people represent institutions, life and make decisions, including political decisions. … Cultural struggles are the power struggles of the information age. They are fought primarily in and through the media. But not the media is the holder of the power. Power, i.e., the ability to coerce behaviour, lies in networks of information exchange and symbol manipulation, which connect social actors, institutions and cultural movements with the help of icons, advocates and spiritual amplifiers”, writes the media researcher (Castells 2007, p. 431). In his work a few years later, Castells accurately lists the forms of power that can be identified in the digital space. According to its basic premise, the concept of power in the network society can only be grasped through the concept and operating principles of the network. Castells—considering the social and technological conditions of the network—identifies four different forms of power. The four forms of power are the global networking power, the power that regulates the internal functioning of the network (network power), the power created between the nodes of the network (networked power), and finally, the power to create and activate the network (network-making power) (Castells 2011, pp. 773–87, 773). The first is the global networking power, the power of the actors and organizations that form the core of the global network society and have influence over groups and individuals who are not part of this global network. The second is the power that regulates the internal functioning of the network (network power), which is created because of the rules necessary to coordinate social interactions on the network. In this case, power cannot be exercised by exclusion from the network, but, on the contrary, by inclusion (by bringing it under its scope). The third is the power created between the nodes of the network (networked power), the power of those social actors within the network who have some influence over other social actors. In other words, here, Castells emphasizes the relational aspect of power. The forms and processes of networked power are unique to each network, different from the others. Additionally, his view of this resonates with the previously quoted thoughts of Avery Dulles. For Castells, the fourth form of power is the power of creating and activating a network (network-making power) to a goal or program defined by an actor or organization. Along the lines of the interests of the strategic alliance of dominant players and networks, it can even switch between these activatable networks, and it can even connect them (Castells 2011, p. 773).

Overall, we can say that most of the forms of power described by Castells can also be identified in the networks of religious communities. However, we can no longer be sure that this power is in the hands of the member or members of the network’s religious community—in fact, certainly not in terms of datafication. Datafication can be defined as the conversion of phrases, places, and social interactions into real-time data that can be measured online, which can not only be used to describe social behavior and its context but also be used to predict it. In fact, datafication provides a new kind of access and understanding of human behavior. This not only means monitoring behavior, but also enables planning based on it (Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier 2013; van Dijck 2014; van Dijck and Poell 2015; van Dijck et al. 2018). The possession of data on users, their use of media, their use of digital devices, and the use (sale, manipulation) of these data are one of the most decisive forces of power in the 21st century. This kind of power cannot be clearly linked to one or another of Castells’ forms of power among the four he mentioned. Rather, we can say that all four forms can benefit from datafication.

5. Vernacular Authority

The next possible research background of the power dimension of Internet users is provided by ethnography, which describes the phenomenon with the term vernacular authority (Howard 2022). The term vernacular was originally used in folklore research, with the meaning of traditional culture. Vernacular authority relies on tradition outside social institutions. A tradition whose basis is the individual experience of ordinary people, which the institution undervalues, perhaps tries to silence or make weightless and discredited. Robert Glenn Howard was the first to use the term vernacular authority in his ethnographic writings when interpreting the concept of tradition. The idea of the importance of individual experiences resonates with the part of British Roger Silverstone’s mediatization theory concerning experience. In his book Media and Morality: On the Rise of the Mediapolis, Silverstone writes, “Everyday life can no longer be understood without acknowledging the increasingly central role of electronic media in defining the ways of seeing, being and acting in everyday life.... Of course, neither the media nor everyday life is a uniform phenomenon, and their relationship to each other is not the same” (Silverstone 2013, p. 125).

One of the characteristic online interfaces of vernacular authority is the blog, several of which Howard analyzes. The American researcher also extended his studies to the area of religious authority (Howard 2008). He is concerned with how religious faith is expressed, how it can be expressed online, what examples and patterns there are. The forms of personal religiosity and everyday religious experience should also be scrutinized in this theoretical framework. Their characteristic is that these personal expressions (credentials, experiences) do not have the authenticating marks of religious institutions and churches. Of course, there are several reasons for this, as belonging to a religion not only has become individualized but also has become quite fluid in the 21st century; meanwhile, the service of churches has gone beyond the scope of physically localized parishes. On the other hand, in the case of communities organized from below, we can notice that since the members of virtual religious groups often do not have a church community in a physical sense, community organization itself often becomes the primary goal and task for sharing religious experience in the virtual space. In general, in online religious communities, vernacular authority and vernacular power can be more easily perceived than authority tied to traditional church institutions, but it may not be more durable.

6. The Transformation of Religious Authority on Online Platforms

The Internet has changed the way we look at authority; since new positions of power are created in connection with technology, hierarchical structures are flattened, and even those who have had little space to raise their voices can express their views. All these peculiarities also transform the issue of church authority, especially regarding institutional authority and religious leaders, since, in the case of the Internet, the structure of interactions is dominantly networked and not hierarchically organized. “The mediatization of the religious authority contestation designates a reality of production of meaning, i.e., an authority that is both relational and co-produced, forged in constant connection with audiences and legitimacy” (Bratosin and Ngoulou 2024, p. 162). The phenomenon was previously pointed out in several studies in the literature analyzing the relationship between religion and the media (Tudor and Bratosin 2020, 2021). “The media become alternative places to live the religious experience where the traditional sources of religious authority have been replaced little by little with unofficial and marginal voices sometimes even outside the realm of the religious, such as, for example, the political leaders who mobilized religion to support their public and political action” (Bratosin and Ngoulou 2024, p. 162). Traditional religious authority finds itself confronted with the Internet and digital media exactly where the traditional religious institution was considered to be the most powerful provider of guidance and moral education (Tudor and Herteliu 2017).

For the sake of terminological accuracy, the text describes the definitions of computer-mediated communication, social media, and social media sites, since these concepts are not synonymous with each other. Computer-mediated communication is a process in which human data interact with each other via one or more telecommunication networks. Computer-mediated communication includes different types of network technologies and software, such as e-mail, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), instant messaging (IM), Usenet, and mailing list servers. The Internet is a worldwide system of interconnected networks built on the communication infrastructure that today supports many computer-based communication types (McQuail 2015, p. 69). Web 1.0 refers to the early stage of the development of the World Wide Web, characterized by a one-way process from content creators providing web services to users. Web 2.0 is the collective term for Internet sites and services that are based on online social activity, enabling network-forming users to interact and cooperate with each other in virtual communities. According to Kaplan and Haenlein’s approach, social media is a group of Internet applications “that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that enable the publication and exchange of user-generated content” (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Within this general definition, there are different types of social media sites. Within this, social media sites (Social Network Sites—SNSs) are “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) create public or semi-public profiles within a closed system; (2) creating a list displaying connections with other users; (3) browsing your own contact lists and those of users within the system”. The text of the study uses these distinctions consistently (Boyd and Ellison 2007).

In the relationship between media and religion, it is worth separating two elements, even if they are related, in a rather complex way (Andok 2022). The two elements are the mediatization of religion and the transformation of religious authority. Mediatization is the process during which the various institutions of societies and cultures (family, politics, religion) come increasingly under the influence of the media and media logic. Media logic means a set of different technological, aesthetic, and social practices and procedures. This originally served the purpose of presenting a better, more credible, and more favorable image of the given institution in the media, but this later had an impact on the institution itself. In this process, the media has a dual role; on the one hand, it conveys how other social institutions work to the receivers (readers, viewers) from the outside, and on the other hand, it shapes these institutions from the inside, when it “imposes” its own logic on their operation. By the mediatization of religion—before network communication—we must involve three processes. The first is the appearance of religious topics in news magazines, the second is the increase in the number of church-owned media, and the third is the religious content appearing in popular culture. According to the American media researcher Stewart Hoover—and we must agree with this—the control of the meaning and context of use of religious symbols can also be classified as a question of religious authority. In this case, popular culture has made a serious dent in the power of the churches, even in the era of television. In addition, the global media—which also comes into conflict with political authorities—relativizes religious authority, as it presents a wide range of meanings and values. Moreover, it displays them in such a way that the user can freely choose from them. In the sociological approach to authority theories, Hoover also starts from Max Weber’s ideas, which he criticizes according to the traditions of American cultural studies. He admits that, among the types of authority worked out by Weber, the legal type is the closest to the institutional authority of the churches, although the traditional type is often present as well. Additionally, although charismatic authority has no external validation, the founders of most world religions had this kind of authority (Hoover 2016b, p. 21). It is also true of the charismatic that he is often opposed to and comes into conflict with the legal and tradition-based authority, especially in times of legitimation crises. Hoover considers Weber’s typology to be strongly structuralist—and embedded in the historicity of the era—while he consistently characterizes his position as culturalist (Hoover 2016b, p. 28). It finds important points of connection with Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias’s definition of religion in 2008, according to which religion is that which has the power to confirm the meaning of signs. This is the basis of Hoover’s view that, in the case of religion and the media, it is worth talking about convergence and not mutual influence. After all, today, the authority of the media is to strengthen the meaning of signs, and much more through their content related to popular than to high culture.

We can also refer to this with the concept of reflexive autonomy, by which we mean the power of individuals that they can exercise regarding their own identity and self, and that they can perform in mediatized public spheres. All these practices play a major role in relativizing not only religious authority, but all traditional authority (Hoover 2016a). Hoover also mentions that examining the question of authority is often related to the question of authenticity, which he mentions in relation to religious symbols, practices, texts, and doctrines (Hoover 2016b). However, we must add that, in addition to institutional authenticity, the emphasis was much more on personal authenticity on the interfaces of network communication, as mentioned earlier. At the same time, religious authority has an academic–knowledge side and an ecclesiological–religious community leadership side as well. On the network interfaces, we can see that the authority of theological knowledge is still in the hands of institutions, especially if these institutions also carry out intensive educational activities. On the online interface, the sacred texts can be reframed, and interpretation methods other than the canonized may also appear. Several scholars have indicated that, in connection with religion, this leads to disinformation, misinterpretations, loss of control over religious content, as well as the strengthening of the value of individual creeds (Dawson 2001, pp. 43–44 quoted by Campbell and Teusner 2011). The Internet also provides an opportunity for ordinary believers to easily access information, bypassing ecclesiastical gatekeepers. The Catholic Church also takes advantage of the educational opportunities regarding media use, and even church documents deal with the request (The Church and Internet 2002; Ethics in Internet 2002, Towards full Presence, a Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media 2023).

In contrast with Hoover’s culturalist approach, Stig Hjarvard, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, reviews and analyzes how the mediatization process affected religions and religious authority embedded in the process of modernity (Hjarvard 2016). The public visibility of religions and religious beliefs has become increasingly important in recent decades, which Hjarvard, like Hoover, attributed to three reasons. The first is the increasingly frequent appearance of religions in news programs, the second is the prominence of religious–spiritual content in the entertainment media, and the third is the way the social network operates, which makes it possible to show personal religious beliefs. The Danish scientist discusses the mediatization of religion within the framework of the general mediatization theory. He says that the religion that appears in the media not only provides a mirror-like representation of religions (institutions, symbols, beliefs) outside the world of the media, but also will bear the specific imprint of the media as a construction agent. This idea is consistent with everything Hoover claims about the convergence of religion and media. In this mediatization process mentioned above, the concept of religious authority also changes. Mediatization is a process during which various institutions of societies and cultures (family, politics, religion) come increasingly under the influence of the media and media logic. Media logic means a set of different technological, aesthetic, and social practices and procedures. This originally served the purpose of presenting a better, more credible, and more favorable image of the given institution in the media, but this later had an impact on the institution itself. In this process, the media has a dual role; on the one hand, it conveys to the receivers (readers, viewers) from the outside how other social institutions work, and on the other hand, it shapes these institutions from the inside, when it “imposes” its own logic on their operation.

Pauline Hope Cheong, a professor at the Arizona State University, suggests that we separate two directions when examining how the Internet has changed practices related to religious power (Cheong et al. 2012). Earlier approaches—dating back to the 1990s and early 2000s—rather emphasized that network communication erodes and weakens traditional religious authority in terms of both institutions and leaders. Later investigations, on the contrary, focused on how the possibilities of the Internet complement and support the traditional authority of religions by developing new, creative techniques for religious representations, or even restructuring legitimacy on the digital interface. The scientific focus in these studies already falls on how the network complements and supports the authority of offline religions. What kind of synergistic relationship appears in the case of religious beliefs with the connection of offline and online interfaces? In this case, offline religious authority is reframed by sustaining or shaping online religious practices. In the case of religious authority research, we also come across many cases that support the fact that members and leaders of different religions culturally shape technology and its use according to their own norms, values, and authority needs. For example, the Vatican launched a YouTube channel, one of the goals of which is to preserve the image of the religious center and maintain control. In other words, in certain cases and contexts, the network does not threaten the status of traditional religious authority, but it is possible to transfer the offline authority to the online interface. Blogs related to local communities effectively supplement the authority of offline operations, using traditional sources of authority signaling, such as hierarchy, structure, the role played in it, or the citation of sacred texts (Cheong 2013). The blogs of religious leaders also help to establish a more direct relationship between the clergy and the laity. In other contexts of the Internet, on the other hand, the criteria of religious authority, such as formal theological qualification and organizational position, did not work because the concept became much more malleable, and personal charisma, availability, approachability, and perceptible cultural competence played a role in the acquisition of online religious authority (Horsfield 2012, p. 255 quoted by Cheong 2013, p. 80). In other words, the question of whether the network strengthens or weakens classical religious authority must be examined case by case. The factors that can influence the digital transfer of authority should be found. Let us think here about how strong the offline authority is, how binding the religious person feels to submit to the authority, in what online context all this takes place, and what is the digital proficiency of religious leaders, and we can go on. It can also be observed in online religious communities that the number of followers can suddenly be large, and the community can build up quickly around the online authority, but this can also collapse just as quickly if the network node, the digitally charismatic leader, is lost. The authority associated with hierarchical institutional organization is less easily destroyed, because it is easier to replace the loss.

The American media researcher Heidi Campbell disagrees with those who reject the validity of Weber’s types of authority. In fact, in 2007, she conducted empirical research specifically based on this. She believes that the issue of religious authority can be approached from the perspective of the types of legitimation that we encounter in Weber’s classic categorization: tradition-based, legal–rational, and charismatic legitimation. Heidi Campbell analyzed the online forms of authority of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic religions in her comparative studies. For the analysis, she introduced the concept of multiple layers of authority, since, in her opinion, the researcher cannot be satisfied with the fact that the Internet transforms, modifies, or even disputes religious authority (Campbell 2007, p. 1045). From a methodological point of view, she conducted in-depth interviews with people belonging to the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religions. She conducted the interviews with all three groups according to a set of questions adapted to their own religion, so they are not suitable for statistical comparison. However, they are so to assess the reflections of those belonging to each religion, how they see the real and possible effects of the Internet on their own religious traditions. As one of the interesting aspects of the in-depth interviews, she mentions that the Jewish interviewees did not describe what is allowed and what is not in the words of authority, but in the words of the community, for example, “religious Jews don’t do it” and “we Orthodox Jews stay away from it...” (Campbell 2007, p. 1053). At the same time, in the examined communities, authority was considered conceivable as a relational concept, where power-related phenomena and their perception evolve dynamically between two or more parties. In this context, power is performative and discursive in nature, the assessment of which must consider the persuasive power of the religious leader, the attention, respect, and trust of the audience in the other party. The authority constructed in this way can be of three types: earned, constructed, and founded based on Campbell’s theory. Religious leaders can use these forms of authority as a means of control, to influence, judge, but also lead. In all cases, we are dealing with a multi-dimensional phenomenon, where the specific form of power depends on the legitimation system and cultural context in which it is embedded.

Bratosin et al. examined the transformation of religious authority in two virtual communities of the Congolese diaspora of the Salvation Army (Bratosin and Ngoulou 2024). The results of Bratosin and his colleague’s empirical research reveal the function of religious authority in its expression, i.e., religiosity referring to experienced authority, in the production of denunciation content. At the same time, they also show how significant it is for understanding the sense of authority of religion as a function of representing the sacred and as the institutionalization of communal faith in the Salvation Army’s Congolese diaspora community. Overall, they highlight how the described phenomena fit into the context of questioning religious authority in online communities (Bratosin and Ngoulou 2024, pp. 168–69). Their main findings suggest three interpretive scenarios, each with different implications. First of all, it can be observed that when the symbolic function of the sacred is subjected to the reporting mechanisms of mediatization, religious authority—especially in its expression regarding religiosity—becomes vulnerable and contested. Here, religiosity refers to the lived experience of authority, which includes the personal attributes, behaviors, subjective meanings, and experiential dimensions of an individual or entity recognized as a legitimate bearer of authority. At the level of expression, the relationship between religiosity and authority is often indistinguishable from other dimensions of existence. This relationship is built within a network of meanings and practices intersecting social determinations with the freedom and creativity of individual appropriations, which, in this context, is further enriched by the experience of exile (Bratosin and Ngoulou 2024, pp. 174–75).

In their empirical research, Tudor and her colleagues analyze the issue in an Islamic religious environment, examining the 2019 Algerian protests and traditional and online religious authority (Tudor and Ladjouzi 2020). Their study identifies three important elements. The first is that the transfer of the 2019 Algerian protests (with religion at their core) into the public sphere of digital media was not the prerogative of religious (or practicing) groups. Their results highlighted the diversity of the information literacy of Algerian youth, who are able to effectively use online tools for identity creation. “Finally, despite the political and security history of Algerian society, religious phenomena remain strongly present in Algerian public debates. The 2019 protest movement that has taken over the public and the virtual sphere is fueled in part by visual content that, if not exclusively religious, is at least imbued with religious hints, inspirations and symbols. The use of a religious approach through redocumented photos is considered a conservative and identity-protecting necessity that corresponds to the characteristics of Algerian society” (Tudor and Ladjouzi 2020, p. 120).

In Teresa Berger’s study, she also examines authority in terms of religious rites (Berger 2020). The researcher reviews which rites of the Catholic Church can and cannot be published online. Appearance is conceived not in the sense of mediation, but in the sense of real action. The researcher found that the rites associated with the main sacraments cannot be digitized. The Catholic Church defines holiness as those visible signs ordered by Christ that represent and convey the graces of salvation to the faithful. The number of sacraments in the Catholic Church is seven: baptism, confirmation, sacrament of the altar, sacrament of penance, anointing of the sick, ecclesiastical order, and the sacrament of marriage. None of these can be realized digitally, but it is important to note that most of the theological reflections were related to the question of communion, the administration of the sacrament of the altar, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Australian media researcher Peter Horsfield reviews the history of religious authority from the age of antiquity and thus arrives at the issue of religious authorities appearing on online platforms (Horsfield 2016). The Australian scientist emphasizes two important levels of the examination of religious authority—different from those of the researchers described so far. One is the authority appearing at the level of individual religious practices, while the other level can be seen in the public presentation of church organizations and in their wider context and connection to social and political structures. From the Weberian theory of authority, Horsfield highlights something different from Hoover or Campbell. He focuses on dominance and legitimacy but agrees with his American colleagues that the application of the original triple typology (charismatic, bureaucratic, and traditional) to today’s situation would be rather static. After all, culture itself changes much more dynamically than in Weber’s time. He also notes that the legitimacy of religious authority is multi-layered and may have not only a religious source but also a legal one. Examining online interfaces, the Australian researcher lists a total of 12 elements that should be considered when examining the question of religious authority on a case-by-case basis, and this is much more than the four elements proposed by Campbell, hierarchy, structure, ideology, and text. Horsfield lists the following: The first is social capital, the wide range of social positions and opportunities the phenomenon can be characterized by. The second is emerging and recognized general or specific knowledge (Horsfield 2016, pp. 43–45). This knowledge is particularly important for religious groups and individuals in achieving their religious goals. The third is experience; wisdom–cultural transfers can play a big role in their operation. This is followed by charisma, ideological authority, and sacred texts (Bible, Koran, Torah, Bhagavad Gita). The seventh is the authority of religious teaching: the teaching offices, the magisterium, the rabbinical council, and the mullah. The eighth is the authority of the appointed leader or bureaucratic office, followed by the rites, the martyrs and saints, the proverbial wisdom, and finally, the visual memory (how they depict, e.g., Christ or Buddha and how they do not). In terms of how the transformation of the media affects the question of religious authority, according to Horsfield, the following questions are worth considering: Who has access to religious networks, and who is excluded from them? What is its levelling? At what level does admission/exclusion take place? Who has the right to participate in forums and institutional discussions and comment or participate in decision making? Who has the authority and expertise to share and receive information, and who decides on all of this? What factors make access possible or impossible: knowledge of the language, knowing how to read or write certain terms, knowing the jargon (theological and/or technological), belonging to a certain ethnicity, whether gender is important, or being/appearing reliable? Additionally, in terms of technology, they must have a computer and Internet access. The technological character of new media is extremely important to the question, as it has cultural implications (Horsfield 2016, p. 56). During use, these implications can become institutionalized and part of power, cultural, and religious structures. These thoughts are very close to Castells’s concept and typology of network power.

Alf Linderman examines the question of religious authority from a different angle; he approaches the question based on the chosen religious self-classification of believers, using Davie’s concept of representative religiosity (Linderman 2016; Davie 2006, 2007, 2010). Based on the attitude towards religion, the Swedish media researcher proposes two different types of investigation of religious authority. He bases the distinction between the two levels on Davie’s concept of vicarious religion. Based on this, Linderman proposes to distinguish between two types when examining religious authority. He classifies them as one of those who, although they claim to be spiritually open, are not tied to an official church, and therefore not to church authority either. In the other group, or level, he classifies those who belong to representative religiosity. They follow the traditions and rites of their religion in certain situations, and in these certain situations, they submit to the guidance and power of the religious authority. Here, the researcher mentions the phenomenon of the so-called subjective turn, which was developed by Heelas and Woodhead in 2005, and it means that people think that deciding whether or not to submit to religious authority belongs to the subjective decision-making scope of individual autonomy and if so, when, where, under what circumstances, and why (Linderman 2016, p. 77)? They also observed that people characterized by vicarious religiosity do not consider the prescriptions of their religion to be binding during their daily lives, but rather in the decisive, dramatic moments of their lives; they use the ceremonies and rites provided by the religious authority. In terms of the personal life course, these can be rites related to birth, marriage, or death. In social situations, these are events that cause shock on a social level, such as the coronavirus pandemic, national disasters, moments of national mourning. When analyzing the Swedish data, Linderman links back to the phenomenon of the subjective turn, and claims that, in Swedish society, it has become normative for the individual to experience religiosity in their own way and not in a church form. The subject, its autonomy, comes before the institution. In other words, the need for religious competence is latently present, but the individual decides where and when he or she needs this competence and authority (Linderman 2016, p. 76).

7. Conclusions

When talking about online religious authority, we have to reckon with limitations in terms of the validity of research in at least two ways. One concerns the different religions and their followers; that is, the findings only apply to the given church or religion, be it Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Israelite, or Islam. The other distinction stems from whether we are talking about the online appearance of traditional churches (religion online) or a religious community appearing online but only loosely connected to traditional churches (online religion). In the case of the former, we can see the digital translation, or at least the attempt to translate, of the offline church hierarchy and hierarchical authority structure. This is successful in many cases, and some religious leaders can remain decisive opinion leaders in the network society if they use the possibilities of digital technology in a competent manner. Institutional churches continue to have authority derived from theological knowledge, sometimes from sacred texts and from canonized memory and tradition. In the case of communities organized online, their leaders have a kind of digital charismatic power, but at the same time, what form of authority can be identified varies from community to community, from context to context. In other words, the relationship between the structure and type of digital communities and their type of authority will be very close, as Dulles already described in the case of traditional communities. In both cases (religion online, online religion), grassroots, vernacular authority will play a much greater role than in previous offline communities. In the case of online religious communities that are more loosely connected to institutional churches, the sources of authority include personal beliefs, the display of religious experience, and the authenticity of the display. We can also say that, in these communities, authority is subordinated to authenticity. Even in these groups, we can mention tradition as a source, but not its canonized expression, but rather its actualized expression. Regarding the temporal aspects of the authority of online religious communities, it can be said that, on the network interface—especially if we are talking about vernacular—its development can be very fast, much faster than in the offline world and faster than those connected to the institution. However, as fast as its development was, its disappearance can be just as fast. Its spatial extent is also different; since it is separated from the physical space, it cannot be localized in the classical sense.

In some cases, network communication weakened and made classical church authorities porous, but in other cases, it specifically helped and strengthened them. In other words, the impact of digital media is not uniform or unidirectional in this respect. Although there is no doubt that the Internet has multiplied it, made it optional, and personalized it from the user’s point of view, it has made religious authority customizable. The power of choice means that, in the digital sphere, the user decides when, what form of network authority they will submit to, for how long, and why they do so. At any time, they can decide to leave a group, not accept the guidelines, not follow the group’s norms, and simply leave the community. After all, both logging in and logging out are voluntary acts and cannot (or are difficult to) be forced on network interfaces. Technological design also enables two types of organized architecture, as Raymond explains. Eric S. Raymond describes software development in two big models with two different metaphors: one is the cathedral, and the other is the bazaar (Raymond 1999). The cathedral is centralized, reminiscent of the structure of the offline church, and operates with similar authority forms. Meanwhile, the bazaar is more of a grassroots, colorful network that operates according to vernacular authority. In summary, we cannot talk about online religious authority but only about religious authorities, which are continuously and discursively formed, change, and occasionally hybridize.