The rise of Indonesia’s religious influencers: between strategic content, visual authority, and active consumers

This thesis investigates how a new generation of popular Islamic preachers – the so-called religious influencers – in post-Reformasi Indonesia use Instagram to propagate their beliefs to their online followers. It utilises a mixed-method approach: quantitative and qualitative content analysis of three prominent Islamic religious influencers’ Instagram accounts, combined with year-long online observation and in-depth interviews with their followers. Specifically, this study provides an examination of three foundational elements within the religious influencers’ ecosystem: 1) what they are and how they share their messages to millions of their online followers, 2) how they construct their authority through the visual affordances of Instagram, and 3) the reasons people are interested to follow them. This thesis first investigates the content production by three religious influencers in Indonesia, mapping their specific topics and arguing that they deploy strategic content in their Instagram posts (Chapter 4) to position themselves as a cool preacher, political preacher, and celebrity preacher respectively. It then explores the visual aspect of their Instagram posts and develops a visual authority framework consist of setting, casting, distance, and artefacts to highlight the way in which they manufacture their authority (Chapter 5). Here, this thesis contends that visually, these religious influencers have predominantly opted for a close-up approach, but not without unique distancing strategies to sustain a sense of veneration. Chapter 6 probes the four reasons people follow these religious influencers and examines motivations of the religious audience in the digital era. It finds that people are drawn to these influencers because of their sustained credibility, platform creativity, relatable content, and the low effort required of audiences. My thesis situates the phenomenon of religious influencers at the dynamic intersection of influencer studies (Abidin, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018; Beta, 2019), Islam, religious authority, religious audiences and digital media (Heryanto, 2014; Slama, 2017, 2018; Slama, 2018; Baulch & Pramiyanti, 2018; Nisa, 2018; Hew, 2018a & 2018b; Arifianto, 2019; Johansen, 2020). I show, through Chapters 4 to 7, that the phenomenon of religious influencers relates to larger concerns about how religious practices are being mediated in the digital era. By analysing these dynamics this thesis seeks to contribute to our current understanding of Islam in Indonesia.