Islamic Faith-Based Content and Religious Social-media Motives

Abstract

The predominance and use of social media for sacred and secular purposes have made it imperative to understand the role of social media in people’s religious motives and life. Therefore, grounded in gratification theory, the current study examines the impact of social media usage intensity, social media usage frequency, and religious appreciation in developing and strengthening different motives, i.e., ministering, spiritual enlightenment, religious information, relaxing entertainment, and well-being, among the followers of social media pages/accounts/sites for faith-based content. Following a quantitative research methodology, data were collected from the 562 followers of social media, i.e., Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in SmartPLS3 software. The results revealed that social media usage intensity and frequency positively influenced all five motives of individuals with a higher impact on individuals’ motive of gaining religious information followed by spiritual enlightenment and well-being. Likewise, religious appreciation positively impacted all five motives of individuals to assess the faith-based content on social media pages/accounts/sites. However, the intensity of the impact varied from well-being, relaxing entertainment, ministering, religious information to spiritual enlightenment from the highest to lowest level, respectively. Moreover, the unique concept, theoretical and practical implications, and future research insights of the study are major advances to literature in the field.