TY - JOUR

T1 - Monks, Blogs and Three Media Cases

T2 - Russian-Speaking Buddhist Communities in the Era of Social Media

AU - Островская, Елена Александровна

AU - Бадмацыренов, Тимур Баторович

PY - 2024/9/29

Y1 - 2024/9/29

N2 - This paper focuses on the problem of how Buddhism was reinstitutionalized in Russia in the frame of the meta process of mediatization. The empirical part of this study included two stages and was conducted during 2020–2024. In this paper, the authors focused mainly on the peculiarities of constructing strategies in the Internet and new media via traditional Gelug ethnic offline organizations, the Russian branches of the International Karma Kagyu Community, International Dzogchen Community and Russian-speaking community of Theravada converts. The methodological framework of the research included the institutional perspective developed by the Danish media scholar Stig Hjarvard for studying the mediatization of religion and the concept of “mediatized public religion” by Mia Lövheim and Marta Axner, as well as the concept of “digital religious innovators” by Heidi Campbell. The authors revealed that the processes of digitalization and mediatization have resulted in the emergence of Russian mediatized Buddhism. Various trends in modern Russian Buddhism are disproportionally represented in the public sphere of media; representation directly correlates with the strategies that Digital Buddhist creatives of different streams—Gelugpa traditional, Dzogchen, Theravada or Karma Kagyu—have chosen in relation to the Internet and new media.

AB - This paper focuses on the problem of how Buddhism was reinstitutionalized in Russia in the frame of the meta process of mediatization. The empirical part of this study included two stages and was conducted during 2020–2024. In this paper, the authors focused mainly on the peculiarities of constructing strategies in the Internet and new media via traditional Gelug ethnic offline organizations, the Russian branches of the International Karma Kagyu Community, International Dzogchen Community and Russian-speaking community of Theravada converts. The methodological framework of the research included the institutional perspective developed by the Danish media scholar Stig Hjarvard for studying the mediatization of religion and the concept of “mediatized public religion” by Mia Lövheim and Marta Axner, as well as the concept of “digital religious innovators” by Heidi Campbell. The authors revealed that the processes of digitalization and mediatization have resulted in the emergence of Russian mediatized Buddhism. Various trends in modern Russian Buddhism are disproportionally represented in the public sphere of media; representation directly correlates with the strategies that Digital Buddhist creatives of different streams—Gelugpa traditional, Dzogchen, Theravada or Karma Kagyu—have chosen in relation to the Internet and new media.

KW - Gelug

KW - International Dzogchen Community

KW - International Karma Kagyu Organization

KW - digital Buddhism

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/1079b440-9468-3856-8972-f3e73d2fb29a/

U2 - 10.3390/rel15101186

DO - 10.3390/rel15101186

M3 - Article

VL - 15

JO - Religions

JF - Religions

SN - 2077-1444

IS - 10

M1 - 1186

ER -