New digital technologies change all kind of societal spheres, including the landscape of religion and religious practices. “Christianity influencer”, faith tweets, digital chaplaincy, or online Islamic hate speech are popular examples in place. The rapidly growing scholarship, known as digital religion studies, explores the extent to which traditional religious practices are being adapted to digital environments and how aspects of digital culture are informing offline religious groups and institutions. While the young field profits from interdisciplinary collaborations and perspectives, the political dimension of this transformation process is still underdeveloped. For instance, we know very little about how digital religion influences formal state-church relationship. Will states respond to newly created religious online communities? And if so, with which governance tools? Furthermore, how do political actors adjust religious practices in digital times? How do digitalization processes in public administrations affect religious minorities? And in what ways do religious welfare organizations adapt to cope with the new conditions of a digital welfare market?

This Research Topic aims to contribute filling the existing gap and to offer first-hand empirical, theoretical as well as conceptual knowledge about the intersection between religion, digitalization, and politics. For this purpose, we intend to bring together scholars from different social science disciplines (e.g. communication studies, religious studies, sociology or theology) as well as political science sub-disciplines (e.g. public policy, public administration, political theory and comparative politics).

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Digitalization of religious practices of political actors (e.g. use of spiritual apps, religious blogs, chats etc.)

- Digital communication strategies of religious political parties (e.g. Tweets, videos)

- Digital hate speech by or about religious groups in the political sphere (e.g. Islamic hate speech)

- Algorithmic governance & (religious) discrimination

- Digitalization of religious welfare state organizations and their service provision (e.g. digital spiritual care / digital chaplaincy)

- New forms of religious engagement via social networks by majority churches and their members (e.g. offline-online formats of religious services)

- Public policy and regulation of digital religion

- Reflection on the need to reconceptualize typologies of state-church relationship

- Digital protest of (far-right) religious actors (e.g. anti-gender-campaigning)

- Reflections on transhumanism and artificial intelligence from the perspective of human right and religious values

- Reflections on new types of “religious authority” promoted by algorithms and bots

We welcome different types of manuscripts – theoretical, methodological, empirical, qualitative and quantitative – from a micro, meso or macro approaches as well as country-specific research also in comparative perspectives.

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Frontiers in Political Science

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