From a “Country Priest” to a digital macroinfluencer: a case study on religious digital influence

In this text, we will analyze the case of Patrick Fernandes, a Brazilian Catholic priest who, in a few months throughout 2021, went from a few thousand followers to millions on his Instagram account. We will do this based on the notion of religious digital influence, understood here as the tensions,...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Author: Sbardelotto, Moisés
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2024
Country:Brasil
Institution:Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)
Repository:Ciencias Sociales y Religión (Online)
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br:article/8674963
Online Access:https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/csr/article/view/8674963
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Influencia digital religiosa
Instagram
YouTube
Catolicismo
Religious digital influence
Catholicism
Influência digital religiosa
Description
Summary:In this text, we will analyze the case of Patrick Fernandes, a Brazilian Catholic priest who, in a few months throughout 2021, went from a few thousand followers to millions on his Instagram account. We will do this based on the notion of religious digital influence, understood here as the tensions, disputes and negotiations of symbolic power in digital networks on decision-making in relation to personal or community attitudes and opinions related to the religious sphere; in this case, the Catholicism. First, we will briefly present some theoretical premises about the concept of religious digital influence. Then, according to the method constructed for a macro-research on digital influencers of the faith (Medeiros et al., 2022), we will analyze four main angles of observation of this phenomenon – person/persona, performance, content and interaction – from the accounts of the priest on Instagram and YouTube, in order to understand how the priest’s digital performance emerged and manifests itself. Finally, we will reflect on some tensions that emerge from the case, about the limits and possibilities of the phenomenon of religious digital influence.