Reconnections in connectional devices: The reconstruction of the religious in socio-digital networks

Abstract

In the technologically mediated social interactions of the digital environment, social practices reveal mediated dynamics, which also involve the operations of social institutions, such as the Church, and its members. In these environments, there are numerous religious meanings in circulation. In this way, there is a deviation in the practice of faith to the online environment, based on media logics, making the religious phenomenon and communicational processes more complex. Thus, new modes of perception and expression of the sacred are formed in new cult environments. Not only ecclesial institutions or media institutions, but also society in general, in the most diverse areas of the Internet, speak about religion. In this article, we present a reflection on the digital mediatization of religion, a contemporary social phenomenon in which the reconstruction of religion is situated. We analyze the concepts of reconnection and connectional devices, based on the interactions between users of Facebook pages that address Catholic constructs. In conclusion, we point out that, in this reconstruction of the "catholic", a religiosity in experimentation arises marked by e-rejías, that is, new symbolic meanings of the religious in network, "bricolajes de la fe" in the digital environment.