Authority and Communication

Abstract

Abstract Contentions involving the survivability of religious authority and the uprising of new technologies are historical and recurrent. This chapter discusses the scholarship strand on paradoxes and dialectics, evinced by the dual dynamics of weakening and strengthening of religious authority amid possibilities for conflict and accommodation in our present and digital futures. In doing so, the chapter explicates key communication practices that underpin the constitution of religious authority, summarily described as strategic arbitration, invocation, and branding. Next, in light of intensified challenges in leadership performances, this chapter discusses the dialectical tensions navigated in various contexts—including autonomy-connection, display-concealment, and privilege-disadvantage—to illustrate the precarious durability of religious authority. Finally, this chapter concludes with recommendations for future research in religious authority regarding global and comparative research, intersectional analyses, mixed methods and longitudinal design, and attention to the rise of the internet of things and artificial intelligence to increase ecology validity in fieldwork.