Internet Exposure and Religious Openness in the Arab Region | ||||
| المجلة العربية لبحوث الاعلام والاتصال | ||||
| Article 9, Volume 2021, Issue 33, June 2021, Page 32-60 PDF (326.72 K) | ||||
| Document Type: بحوث علمیة متخصصة فی مجال الاعلام والاتصال. | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jkom.2021.195931 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Author | ||||
| Alaa Elshamy* | ||||
| Assistant Professor of Communication Faculty of Women for Arts, Science and Education Ain Shams University | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| This paper examines the religious implications of Internet exposure in the Arab region, which is deemed a world’s hub for both religious devotion and hostility. Utilizing the mediatization of religion theory, this work argues that frequent exposure to the Internet enhances religious openness in the region, attitudinally as well as behaviorally. To empirically investigate this assumption, the study utilizes a unique cross-national survey interviewing more than 25,000 participants from 12 Arab countries, during 2018 and 2019. Findings show that the rise and spread of the Internet cultivates religious openness among Arabs. Specifically, Internet use is positively associated with increasing acceptance of the religious other and with growing support for gender equality. In addition, Internet users are more likely to perceive religion as a private rather than public matter, and more willing to support the separation between religion and politics. Arguably, the results conclude that the growth of online communication in the region helps “democratize” the Arab religious sphere, giving way to new religious agents, beliefs, and practices to flourish. The implications of digital media use for conventional religious authority and secularization processes in the Arab region are further discussed. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Online religion; Internet and secularization; religious openness among Arabs; privatization of religion; media and religion | ||||
| References | ||||
|
| ||||
|
Statistics Article View: 196 PDF Download: 236 |
||||
