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,...
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| 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 YouTube Catolicismo Religious digital influence Catholicism Influência digital religiosa |
| 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. |
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