Abstract
In this article, the discursive construction of mental health and the role religion plays in its representation are examined using four psychological consultations collected in fall 2016 from Islamweb.net, the largest network for Islamic information. Using computer mediated discourse analysis (Herring 2004), intertextuality was identified as a communicative strategy psychologists draw upon to turn mental health consultations into platforms to perpetuate Islamic authoritative discourses (e. g. submission to God, prayer, and collectivity). Mental illnesses were also constructed within the Islamic context as supernatural and cured by religion, rather than as conditions treated through medical and psychological intervention. Intertextually, the authoritative discourses are evoked overtly through direct quotations from the books of Islam and covertly through referencing certain ritualistic discourses (words, themes, and practices) in the opening, main, and closing sections of the consultations. Permeating consultations with religious discourse, and cementing them with the speech acts of warning, scolding, and advice to not think or act otherwise, create religious authority in the context of health online. These actions also maintain Islamic authoritative discourses, and reaffirm Islamic cultural identity, while blurring the lines between medicine and religion online.
Highlights
Research on social media and Arab identity falls into two camps
This paper demonstrates in an exemplary and explorative manner how these tenants surface in online health interactions
Through an illustrative set of examples from Islamweb.net, I demonstrate the tendency of medical authorities to intertwine, and permeate, psychological consultations online with religion and other cultural discourses presented as unquestionable
Summary
Research on social media (and new media technology beforehand) and Arab identity falls into two camps. Eickelman/Anderson 2003; Zweiri/Murphy 2011) argues that the Internet has provided Arabs across nations with a democratic platform to create a Habermasian “public sphere” wherein all forms of authority (especially religious authority) have been challenged rationally and critically This was later questioned by el-Naway/Khamis (2011: 210), who argue against the presence of a Habermasian public sphere on Islamic websites online. Research exists regarding how the Muslim masses have used the Internet and social media platforms to challenge religious authority and cultural discourses online, examinations of how Muslim authorities have used these same media to advance religious, political, or health agendas are lacking This exploratory research aims to fill this gap by examining how psychological consultants utilize Islamweb.net to turn mental health concerns (traditionally conceived in the Islamic world as social concerns, El-Islam 2008) into opportunities to advance religious ends.
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