The Mediatization of Religious Authority on Instagram: Theological Layers of Discourse and Representation Among Digital Preachers in Türkiye

Religion and media, traditionally understood as be-longing to separate spiritual and secular domains, have become increasingly intertwined with the rise of television and social media. Digital platforms now function as central spaces where religious discourse is produced, circulated, and reconfigured, with Instagram emerging as a particularly influential medium. Drawing on Hjarvard’s mediatization approach, this study shows that religious speakers are no longer merely transmitters of religious knowledge. Instead, they actively adapt to the communicative logic of digital media, producing platform-oriented content and reconstructing religious authority. Through these practices, religious authority is reshaped and rearticulated within the dynamics of contemporary digital culture. This study examines the discourse strategies and representational forms of male speakers producing religious content on Instagram in Türkiye, and how they reconstruct religious authority in the digital sphere. Conducted based on Hjarvard’s mediatization approach and Hall’s theory of representation, the research evaluated 1,086 videos from a total of 26 speakers, both affiliated with and unaffiliated with religious communities, through content analysis. The findings show that digital platforms standardize religious discourse, focusing it around morality, halal and haram, and worship practices. It was determined that speakers affiliated with religious communities reproduced authority through institutional sources and traditional visual co-des (scholars, hadith, places of worship, traditional clothing), while independent speakers established legitimacy through individual experiences and Qu-ran-centered discourse. The study reveals that Instagram diversifies rather than homogenizes religious authority, and that two different models of authority (institutional-traditional and individual-experiential) coexist in the digital sphere.