The Youth and the Internet: The Construction of Doctrine, Islam in Practice, and Political Identity in Indonesia

Abstract

The role of young people in the virtual world tends to be an all-consuming one. Indeed, they play a role as actors in various aspects of the digital age. This study therefore sought to analyze the construction of religious messages related to doctrine, religious practice, and identity politics. Methodologically, this study implemented ethnomedia for young people who upload content to social media, specifically Instagram. The practice of religious deconstruction was explored through a multimodal analysis of the content these people share on Instagram. The findings of this study reveal how young people, as actors, produce items of content that are interrelated. The religious practices of these young people potentially trigger resistance to being moderate due to the seemingly infinite range of online religious sources. Online-mediated religious understanding, however, cannot be fully understood through the reductionist lens of binary opposites, such as moderates and radicals or positive and negative attitudes. This article illustrates that young people’s experiences without guidance and emotional expression online are affected more than by their knowledge and abilities of the digital world, and that their attitudes and the interrelated complexities need to be considered.