The Interplay of Religion, Media, and Politics in the Digital Age

Dear Colleagues,

The aim of this Special Issue is to explore the joint effects of digitalization and artificial intelligence on the complex and evolving relationships between media, religion, and politics. In a communication environment dominated by the logics of platforms and algorithms, these three spheres—historically distinct yet structurally interdependent—are being reconfigured, competing with and legitimizing one another in the construction of public meaning.

Media no longer merely relay religious or political messages; they have become symbolic co-producers, transforming belief into visibility and visibility into power. Religions, by appropriating digital devices, develop new forms of mediation and spiritual governance, whereas politics draws upon these mediatized religious imaginaries to reactivate its own mechanisms of legitimation. To this longstanding triangulation artificial intelligence is now added, acting as a transversal operator. It redistributes voices, filters truths, shapes affects, and reconfigures authority—whether religious, political, or media-based.

We invite contributions addressing (but not limited to) the following questions:

– How do media and digital logics reshape the coexistence of religion and politics in the public sphere?

– In what ways do religious and political actors use media to produce meaning, connection, and power within digital environments?

– How does AI transform the symbolic mediations of belief and governance?

– How do digitalization and intelligent platforms contribute to the uberization of religious and political authority (Tudor & Bratosin, 2025) by redistributing, fragmenting, or disintermediating regimes of legitimacy and forms of power in the digital public space?

– What new forms of alliance, tension, or hybridization are emerging among these three spheres within digital ecosystems?

The phenomena under study may include, for example, the circulation of religious symbols in political communication; the mediatization of religion for purposes of influence or diplomacy; shared regimes of visibility between faith and power; technospiritual imaginaries mobilized in political discourse; or algorithmic systems that hierarchize beliefs and ideologies in connected public spaces.

Any analysis of these interactions also calls for methodological vigilance. Statistical and computational tools—however powerful—should serve rather than steer communication research. Their positivist foundations, by abstracting phenomena from their lived contexts, tend to overlook the symbolic and relational complexity inherent in the interplay between media, religion, and politics. The digital context, saturated with affects, emotions, and collective representations, instead requires a systemic and interpretative approach capable of restoring the depth of meaning and the circulation of belief within mediatized politics.

We primarily, though not exclusively, welcome empirical and theoretical contributions that examine the co-production of meaning among media, religion, and politics in the age of algorithmic mediatization—an era in which artificial intelligence is no longer a mere tool but a new symbolic actor in the construction of social bonds.

In this framework, contributions are encouraged to adopt an integrative theoretical perspective developed by the Montpellier research group, which extends Andreas Hepp’s (2013) conceptualization of mediatization as a multi-layered and multi-scalar process in which culture, communication, and media are inextricably intertwined. Complementing this approach and drawing on the Marburg School—particularly Ernst Cassirer’s (1972) theory of symbolic forms—the Montpellier perspective articulates mediatization through the notion of anthropological mediality (Tudor & Bratosin, 2021).

We invite submissions from the perspective of journalism, media and communication research, religious studies and theology scholars, or related disciplines that examine, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• The reconfiguration of coexistence and tensions between religion and politics in digital media.
• The strategies of religious and political actors to produce meaning, establish authority, and exercise power through digital media.
• The role of artificial intelligence in transforming symbolic mediations and regimes of visibility between religion, politics, and media.
• New forms of alliance, hybridization, or conflict between media, religion, and politics in digital environments.
• Epistemic Challenges in a Triangular Reality: Religion, Media, Politics, and the Dynamics of Truth, Misinformation, and AI Hallucinations
• The circulation and mediatization of religious symbols in political discourse and vice versa.
• Religious mediatization for political, diplomatic, or social influence.
• Shared regimes of visibility and legitimacy between faith and power in digital public spaces.
• Techno-spiritual imaginaries mobilized at the intersection of religious and political discourses.
• The impact of algorithmic systems on the hierarchy of beliefs, ideologies, and opinions in connected media.
• Critical analysis of research methods applied to complex media, religious, and political phenomena in the digital age, particularly the role and limits of statistical and computational approaches.

This list is not exhaustive. Other innovative and interdisciplinary perspectives are strongly encouraged, provided they shed light on the co-production of meaning and power at the intersection of media, religion, and politics in digital societies. Every contribution must, however, substantially engage with religions and/or religious elements.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor, or to the Assistant Editor of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

References:

Andok, M. (2024). The impact of online media on religious authority. Religions, 15(9), 1103. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091103

Bratosin, S. “Fake News” and “Present Truth”: Culture and Spirituality in the Adventist Digital World.Religions 2025, 16, 1409. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16111409

Bratosin, S. et Tudor, M.A. (2021). Comprendre la communication publique et politique. L’échiquier et sa tour de Babel. Paris: l’Harmattan.

Bratosin, Stefan. 2016. La médialisation du religieux dans la théorie du post néo-protestantisme.Social Compass 63: 405–20.

Bratosin, Stefan. 2020. Mediatization of Beliefs: The Adventism from “Morning Star” to the Public Sphere.Religions 11: 483.

Bratosin, Stefan. 2024. Adventism and Mediatization of Fake News Becoming a Church.Religions 15: 492.

Campbell, H. A., & Tsuria, R. (Eds.). (2021). Digital religion: Understanding religious practice in digital media (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Cassirer, Ernst. 1972.La Philosophie des Formes Symboliques. Paris: Minuit, vols. 1–3.

Evolvi, G. (2020). Materiality, authority, and digital religion: The case of a Neo-Pagan forum. In G. Evolvi & J. Pons (Eds.), Entangled Religions (pp. 1–15). Bochum.

Evolvi, G. (2022). Religion and the Internet: Digital religion, (hyper)mediated spaces, and materiality. Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik, 6, 9–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41682-021-00087-9

Hepp, Andreas. 2013. The communicative figurations of mediatized worlds: Mediatization research in times of the ‘mediation of everything’.European Journal of Communication 28: 615–29.

Hjarvard, Stig, and Mia Lövheim, eds. 2012.Mediatization and Religion: Nordic Perspectives. Gothenburg: Nordicom

Hjarvard, Stig. 2008. The mediatization of religion. A theory of the media as agents of religious change.Northern Lights 6: 9–27.

Hutchings, T. (2017). Creating church online: Ritual, community and new media. Routledge.

MA, Z. (2022). Médiatisation de l’islamophobie sur les réseaux socionumériques chinois : les enjeux ambigus de l’État face au militantisme anti-Islam. ESSACHESS – Journal for Communication Studies, 15(2(30), 47-71. https://doi.org/10.21409/FWFR-3N38

Marei, F. G. (2024). God’s influencers: How social media users shape religion and pious self-fashioning. Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture, 13(2), 143–172. https://doi.org/10.1163/21659214-bja10140

PATON, N., NILSEN, A. B., DECHESNE, M., SAKELLARIOU, A., HELM, G., SALORD, T., & CABANAC, G. (2022). The European Far Right and Islamist Extremism on Twitter: From Radicalisation to Political Participation. ESSACHESS – Journal for Communication Studies, 15(2(30), 13-46. https://doi.org/10.21409/VAQQ-S725

Tudor, M.A. (2024), Les débats feminists. Dans Espace public éclaté (dir E. Dacheux), CNRS éd.

Tudor, M.A. & Bratosin, S. (2021). La médiatisation. Nouveaux défis pour les sciences et la société. Paris: l’Harmattan., coll. Questions contemporaines – Questions de communication

Tudor, M.A., Bratosin, S. (2020). « Croire en la technologie : médiatisation du futur et futur de la médiatisation », Revue Communication, 37/1 : pp. 1-16, https://journals.openedition.org/communication/11021

Tudor, MA & Bratosin, S. (2025) "Digital Technology" dans Christianity in Eastern and Southern Europe ( eds Kenneth R. Ross et al), Edinburgh University Press.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Bratosin
Prof. Dr. Mihaela-Alexandra Tudor
Guest Editors

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• religious and political mediatization
• artificial intelligence and symbolic power
• media visibility and legitimacy
• religion–politics–media entanglement
• critical methodologies in communication