The Effect of Religious Facebook: An Analysis on Turkish Users

Digitalization and interactivity are influential in religion as a social institution by two aspects: Religious communication and digitalization of religion. Traditional religious institutions and users interested in religion use social media, especially Facebook, with variety of motivations. Facebook is as a gathering medium, means of communication and tool of propaganda and new guidance not only for Muslims but also for other religions and beliefs. “The Cencept of Religious Facebook” analyzed in this research is signifying the appearance of Facebook (such as sharings, interactions and activities) that have been added some religion into or have been religiousized it. The debates over the Religious Facebook bring to disclose some oppurtunities and threats to the way of perception and representation of religion in social media, its purpose and effects can be handled in two categories: 1) “Digital religion” debates on the possibility of digitalization to lead to a radical transformation of traditional perception of religion. 2) Presentation/hypocrisy - stimulation/conveying debates on appropriateness of sharings with religious content to religious sincerity and privacy. In this research which has reached various findings on both debates, it is applied two complementary techniques: literature search and a survey study