Investigating the relationship between the use of virtual social networks and the religious identity of users

Academic Thesis in Master Degree in Advertising and Cultural Communication

Abstract

The present study has studied the relationship between the use of social networks and the religious identity of users with the aim of knowing the relationship between the personal characteristics of users and political and social factors with their religious identity and in order to answer the basic question of what effects and consequences virtual social networks have on the identity of users using a survey method. This research was conducted in universities in Tehran, and among students of different fields and courses.

The analysis of the findings of this study, which examines and evaluates the religious identity of users in the five areas of feeling, belief and belief, intimate relationships with family, educational performance of parents in the field of religion, and parents' adherence to religious values ??and beliefs, shows that the mere presence and use of virtual social networks does not have a significant effect on weakening the religious identity of users, but the type of use of These networks, in terms of functional or recreational use, the long duration of being on these networks, as well as the purpose of using these networks, in addition to their class and social base, have been effective in weakening the religious identity of the users and their desire to move from the traditional and authentic religious identity towards the reflective and modern identity, and at least it makes the authentic identity of the users questionable in some areas. The use of all communication capacities can be used as an opportunity to strengthen religious identity. Keywords: Internet; social networks; Facebook; identity; Religious identity

Introduction:

With the arrival of the era of new communication technologies and its widespread expansion, which leads to new concepts such as virtual reality, cyberspace, etc. brought along; Many changes and transformations were created in human life and made us face a new world. A world in which we think differently, write, read, communicate, and in general, a world in which we live differently. Basically, technology has always changed the way people live. The use of technology does not simply lead to the simplification of tasks, but also affects the way of thinking and the nature of the work done, effects that are mostly huge and unanticipated. The invention of line, printing technology, telegraph, telephone and computer technology can be evaluated in the same way; Because each of them, in turn, caused a change in human life with the changes they brought. The new information media, especially the Internet, is the reason for the modernization of social processes. This technology has overshadowed all aspects of people's lives. (Jehangerd; 1384: 3)

Although humans usually resist any kind of change, it should be accepted that facing these changes is inevitable and these resistances will also be broken, and for this reason, one should always prepare oneself for these changes, which happen quickly and quickly, and with a good understanding of the impact of each of these changes, minimize its adverse effects.

With the rapid growth of communication and information technologies, especially the Internet, and the rapid transfer of activities to individual and collective human life; Cyberspaces and virtual environments have become increasingly important and virtualization has become the driving force of changing human life environment and more importantly, the main factor in changing thought and behavioral patterns and in a more precise sense of "human existence". (Ohadi; 1380: 9)

As the English sociologist, Anthony Giddens [1] (1999) reminds, all these changes are not only happening "outside here" but also "happening here - in our homes and inside our heads -, and in how we see the world and where we are in it. Therefore, we We are all responsible to think about these cultural changes. The fact is that we cannot be indifferent to these changes. It is important to know how these changes can affect our daily interactions.(Torbati, 1389, p. 12)

Developing societies such as Iran are not exempt from this rule and are facing drastic changes in their social fabric. With the rapid increase of the university-educated class, the amount of the emerging middle class is increasing day by day. The consequence of creating such a social class in human societies is the production of new elites at the level of society and changes in the composition and structure of the previous elites. This gradual process in the long term will lead to a change in the communication taste of the general society.

Thinkers and experts in social sciences and communication believe that the combination and convergence, communication technologies and the restructuring of the capitalist system in recent decades have opened a new stage in the history of human societies. A stage that has been described and explained with terms such as post-industrial society [2], network society [3], information society [4], postmodern society [5], virtual society [6] and the like. "The characteristics of this new society can be listed as phenomena such as the global information economy, variable network geometry, real authorized culture, the astonishing development of digital technologies, continuous services, as well as the compression of time and space" (Castells; 1380: 15). has affected and brought about profound changes in the structure of societies and relationships between people, in such a way that the political, social, economic and cultural fields have faced a multitude of opportunities and fundamental challenges.

In recent years, "virtual social networks" have expanded at an unprecedented speed. MySpace, Facebook, 5hi, Friendster, YouTube, Flickr, Orkut, and Twitter are the most famous of these networks, which have provided an attractive space for online communication among Internet users, mainly from the young generation, and have grown rapidly in a short period of time. For example, Facebook has more than 800 million active users as of September 2011, according to Wikipedia.  (wikipedia; viewing date 09/09/2013)

From a simple site such as a search engine, social networks provide their users with facilities for uploading video, audio files, written dialogue, e-mail and other sharing tools. Social networks are the meeting place of hundreds of millions of Internet users who interact and exchange information regardless of borders, language, gender and culture.

Undoubtedly, the Facebook social network can be considered as the symbol of social networks. In recent years, being on Facebook has been recognized as a social activity worldwide and is one of the ways to communicate with friends, colleagues and acquaintances. The entry of Iranian users in this social network (in terms of the history of being in the first generation of these networks such as Orkat or local Iranian social networks such as Klub and Pardis Man) initially began to establish friendship, emotional and emotional communication with friends, colleagues and acquaintances. With the greater influence of this network among Iranians, although it was initially expressed by strengthening the emotional and emotional dimensions, but through and the type of procedure of the Facebook network itself, it can be guessed that changes have been made and will take place in this procedure. With the arrival of Iranian, Afghani, and Tajik users, Facebook decided to add Persian language to the list of languages ??on this site, although it is still used less among Persian-speaking users.

One of the most important aspects of human life that will be deeply affected by this phenomenon is identity. Identity[7] is one of the most important issues of societies. Undoubtedly, it can be said that identity is one of the psychological needs of humans and a prerequisite for any kind of collective life.

On the other hand, today various aspects of the identity issue have been taken into consideration by thinkers and social theorists. The current conditions of global communication, development and growth of various technologies, continuous cultural confrontation and so on. It has caused the issue of identity to become a central issue in social studies in different dimensions.

Among the basic issues that shape the identity of every human being, having a definition of oneself, the meaning of life, the purpose in life and so on. and with a brief look at religious teachings, we see that one of the main functions of religion in life is that by giving a divine worldview, it explains the meaning and ultimate goal of life for man and shows the end of his path. Now, if the meaning and purpose of a person's life is formed based on a religious worldview, other dimensions of a person's identity (occupational identity, gender identity, etc.)