Digital Religion

Abstract

Abstract This chapter sketches what kinds of methods are applied in the study of digital religion and how those methods guide research in the third and fourth wave of research in this interdisciplinary field. The chapter starts with providing a brief outline of digital religion as a research field and its historical development from a study of religion online/online religion to digital religion through the looking glass of methodology and discusses the various methodological choices involved in the study of digital religion in the present context. The author reflects on how “digitalization of methods” in the study field of digital religion is guiding current research, how this methodological development resonates with other research fields in humanities and social sciences, and where the study of digital religion may be heading in the future as scholarship attempts to better understand the workings of digital religion in contemporary hybrid media environments, immersed digital communication, and hypermediation of social and cultural life.