Religious Authority in the Digital Age: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Islamic Debates on Music in Indonesia

On July 11, 2021, Cuba witnessed a massive political movement powered by social media, protesting against declining living conditions and demanding the resignation of President Diaz-Canel. The hashtag #SOSCuba was created as an attempt to document the movement and mobilize both local and international public opinion. Guided by scholarship on digital public spheres, this study analyzes the discourse surrounding the July 11th movement on Twitter, the only social media platform that remained unblocked during the protests. The study employs Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis over 245 tweets on the hashtag #SOSCuba to explore the online political discourse at the textual, discursive, and social levels. The findings reveal how Twitter represented a digital public sphere for Cuban citizens to express their frustration with the authoritarian regime and advocate for international solidarity and global support. The study further develops inclusive categories, which guide future scholars in the critical analysis of political discourse represented by the textual, discursive, and social practices on social media. Ultimately, this research advances discourse analysis methodologies and offers a starting point for understanding how users communicate about political issues on social media. It contributes to broader scholarship on digital activism by revealing how social media platforms can function as contested spaces of resistance within authoritarian contexts and invites further theorization of digital public spheres, particularly in nondemocratic societies.

This article critically examines the use of hadith in constructing the anti-Maulid narrative concerning the celebration of the Prophet’s Birthday disseminated through the Instagram account @foto.video.islam, using Teun A. van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as an analytical lens. The study focuses on how Salafi ideology is articulated and propagated through religious discourse in the digital sphere. The research problem addresses how hadiths are selectively cited to delegitimize the celebration of the Prophet’s Birthday while undermining the authority of scholars who support it. This qualitative descriptive study analyzes the macrostructure, superstructure, and microstructure of the discourse produced by the account. The findings demonstrate that the use of hadith functions as a tool of ideological legitimation, consolidating Salafi authority within the digital space and marginalizing alternative perspectives in the broader landscape of Islamic intellectual traditions. This strategy is not merely textual or jurisprudential but reflects complex ideological operations that shape perceptions and religious orientations in contemporary digital public spheres. The study also highlights the importance of critical awareness regarding the politicization of religious texts and underscores the need for ethical dialogue and mutual respect across theological differences, ensuring that sectarian divergences do not become sources of social conflict or hierarchical domination. Overall, the research shows that digital anti-Maulid discourse mobilizes hadith as a means to construct and maintain religious authority, while emphasizing the broader implications for critical engagement and responsible communication in diverse Islamic communities.[Artikel ini secara kritis menelaah penggunaan hadis dalam konstruksi narasi anti-Maulid mengenai perayaan Maulid Nabi yang disebarkan melalui akun Instagram @foto.video.islam, dengan menggunakan lensa Teun A. van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Penelitian ini memfokuskan pada bagaimana ideologi Salafi diartikulasikan dan dipropagandakan melalui wacana keagamaan di ruang digital. Masalah yang diteliti adalah bagaimana hadis dipilih dan disajikan secara selektif untuk mendiskreditkan perayaan Maulid serta meremehkan otoritas ulama yang mendukungnya. Penelitian ini bersifat kualitatif deskriptif dan menganalisis struktur makro, superstruktur, dan mikro dari wacana yang dihasilkan akun tersebut. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penggunaan hadis oleh akun ini berfungsi sebagai alat legitimasi ideologis, memperkuat posisi Salafi dalam ranah digital, dan memarginalkan perspektif lain dalam tradisi intelektual Islam. Strategi ini tidak hanya bersifat tekstual atau yuridis, tetapi juga mencerminkan operasi ideologis kompleks yang membentuk persepsi dan orientasi keagamaan dalam masyarakat digital kontemporer. Penelitian ini juga menekankan pentingnya kesadaran kritis terhadap politisasi teks agama dan perlunya menjaga etika dialog serta saling menghormati antarmazhab, sehingga perbedaan teologis tidak menjadi sumber dominasi atau konflik sosial. Secara keseluruhan, penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa wacana anti-Maulid digital memobilisasi hadis sebagai sarana konstruksi dan pemeliharaan otoritas keagamaan, sekaligus menyoroti implikasi yang lebih luas terkait keterlibatan kritis dan komunikasi yang bertanggung jawab dalam komunitas Islam yang beragam.]

Democratic responsibility in the digital public sphere

The enactment of Indonesia’s new Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP) has generated widespread controversy in the digital public sphere, as reflected in polarized public sentiment and discursive contestation between the state and civil society. This study aims to examine how public sentiment is formed, circulated, and contested within the digital discourse surrounding the new KUHAP and its implications for the construction of legal legitimacy. Employing a qualitative descriptive approach, this study integrates social media–based sentiment analysis with critical discourse analysis. The data were derived from visualized public sentiment analytics produced by the DroneEmprit social media analytics platform. The findings reveal a predominance of negative and critical sentiments in the digital public sphere, centered on concerns regarding the potential erosion of human rights protections, expansion of law enforcement authority, and limited public participation in the legislative process. In contrast, state narratives emphasize legal certainty, law enforcement efficiency, and stability of the criminal justice system. The interaction between these competing narratives constitutes an arena of discursive contestation that exposes the polarization of legal legitimacy between state-centered procedural legitimacy and participatory legitimacy advocated by civil society. This study concludes that the digital public sphere functions as a strategic arena for negotiating legal legitimacy, in which the controversy over the new KUHAP reflects structural tensions between state authority and democratic demand.

<span lang="EN">The effectiveness of new media has transformed Islamic preaching into the digital space, creating a new landscape for Islamic discourse. This phenomenon occurs in the post-truth era, when emotions and subjective beliefs influence public opinion more than facts. Hidayatullah.com, a popular Islamic portal among Indonesian Muslims, actively produces Islamic narratives. However, the texts it publishes often reflect certain ideological interests and social positions. This study examines the relationship between power and ideology in Hidayatullah.com's representation of Islam. The study employs Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach, enriched with Foucault's readings. Data were obtained through a literature review of Islamic-themed texts in the portal's article section. The results show that Hidayatullah.com functions as a discursive agent that frames Islamic issues in a way that reinforces conservative ideology. The portal uses discourse to reinforce religious narratives and identities in line with its ideological orientation. This study contributes to a critical understanding of the formation of religious meaning and authority in the post-truth era.</span>

This study aims at (1) exploring how Ridwan Kamil socializes public policy through digital public sphere, specifically Facebook, (2) exploring how Ridwan Kamil’s rhetorical style to socialize public policy, and (3) exploring how the thematic selection can attract the society’s attention to read the public policy socialization on Facebook. This study applies Discourse analysis as the method to answer research questions. Discourse analysis that this study uses includes various texts, i.e. in the textual, graphic, and video forms. In addition, Discourse analysis refers to an approach using interdisciplinary theories that have relation to digital public sphere, politics, public policy, and rhetoric. The result of this study, academically, is expected to be able to be the reference for more holistic studies in the future related to the use of digital public sphere in socializing public policy and politics in Indonesia. The result of this study, practically, is expected to be able to be the bridge between the conformity of theories and the practice in making digital public sphere, for example Facebook, become an effective medium that can share information of public policy.

This study analyzes how gender bias and religious conservatism are reproduced through social media in Indonesia, using the viral case study of Shuniyya Ruhama, a female religious teacher who was attacked online for expressing religious views that were considered incompatible with conservative interpretations. The objective of this study is to uncover the dynamics of the representation of female religious authority and resistance to it in the digital space. The methodology employed is Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), utilizing data from the platforms X (Twitter), Threads, and TikTok, using a purposive sampling technique. Findings indicate that women who deliver religious sermons often face delegitimization through misogynistic religious narratives that reinforce the hegemony of religious patriarchy. Symbolic representations in the form of labeling, hate speech, and the removal of women’s religious authority status reveal unequal power dynamics. On the other hand, counter-narratives emerge from progressive communities advocating for equality in religious interpretation and women’s religious authority. This study shows that social media is not neutral, but rather an ideological arena where conservative discourse is both perpetuated and challenged. The implications of this study include the need for a reformulation of gender-fair media representation and support for digital public spaces that are inclusive of women in religious discourse.

Reviewed by: Hashtag Islam: How Cyber-Islamic Environments Are Transforming Religious Authority by Gary R. Bunt Sahar Khamis Gary R. Bunt, Hashtag Islam: How Cyber-Islamic Environments Are Transforming Religious Authority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018) The question of religious authority in Islam, commonly referred to as “who speaks for Islam,” has been receiving more attention and added visibility in recent years due to a variety of factors, including the fact that more diasporic Muslim communities are intermingling with the fabric of new societies and, thus, contributing to accelerating processes of cross-cultural inoculation and cross-intellectual fertilization. Additionally, there is the fast growing, and swiftly expanding, new realm of digitalization of religion in the age of cyberspace, which opens the door for new voices to be heard in the field of ijtihad (re-interpretation of Islamic religious scriptures). This means inviting a plethora of new views and readings of Islamic religious texts, some of which are coming from outside traditional religious establishments,1 which opens the floodgates for an amalgamation of both positive effects and negative consequences as indicated in some of the scholarly publications on this topic.2 [End Page 113] Gary R. Bunt is one of the pioneers in the field of digital Islam and has been writing extensively over the last two decades about how interactions in cyberspace have been reshaping and redefining modern Muslim societies.3 In his book, which consists of six chapters, Bunt takes us on an insightful exploration into this ever-changing realm of Islamic interactions in cyberspace with a special focus on how and why such interactions have been reshaping religious authority in the Muslim world. He unpacks the far-reaching implications and new dynamics of this phenomenon, arguing that “digital content has become a key part of expressions of contemporary Islam in many contexts, in terms of the ways in which faith, command, and control are manifest across complex systems of Muslim beliefs” (1). He pays special attention to the myriad ways cyber-Islamic environments (CIEs), a term which he coined, “has resulted in some cases in a reconfiguration of understandings of models of religious authority and the dissemination of Islamic knowledge” (4). Bunt delves deep into this evolving phenomenon, with all its hybridity, nuances, complexities, and even its paradoxes, contradictions, and contrasts, as it manifests itself across different spatial and temporal contexts. He attends particularly to the rich and vibrant period between 2009 and 2017, which witnessed a number of significant events, including the eruption of the Arab Spring movements in the Arab region in 2011; the escalation of tensions in several conflict zones, such as Palestine, Iraq, and Syria; the displacement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees; and the increased visibility and heightened impact of extremist and radicalized groups, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, to mention only a few. Bunt skillfully explains how these geopolitical shifts are accompanied, and sometimes even fueled, by parallel transitions in the realm of religious authority in the Muslim world, thanks to the increased digitalization of Islam and the prevalence of CIEs. He argues that one of the ways this phenomenon manifests itself is through the crossovers between the realms of formal and informal—as well as traditional and modern—forms of religious authority, which, in turn, open the door for a plethora of multifaceted and multilayered tensions, struggles, and push-and-pull mechanisms. In tackling these crossovers, he steers away from painting one universal image with a broad brush. He differentiates across countries ranging from Pakistan and Iran to Syria and Indonesia, as well as across generations ranging from the older and more orthodox traditional scholars to the younger, more [End Page 114] liberal, and more technologically-savvy newcomers to the field of fatwa (Islamic religious advice) online. In avoiding the temptation to generalize using a “one size fits all” description of modern Muslim societies, both online and offline, he also explores the overlaps and divergences between Sunni and Shi’a Islam, in addition to the “crossovers between religious and political discourses” (74). He explains how these “religio-political discourses” are both a cause and a consequence of a cacophony of different voices and discourses in cyberspace. In discussing...

This article discusses the strategies of three YouTube Indonesian Islamic preachers in constructing their religious authority in the digital pulpit. YouTube accommodates Islamic preachers to produce da’wah content that is accessible to the wider community. In this case, these Islamic preachers not only convey various Islamic information and knowledge, but also seek to construct religious authority in the digital public sphere. The three Islamic preachers examined in this study are Ustadz Steven Indra Wibowo, KH Abdul Syakur Yasin and Habib Husein Ja’far Al Hadar. They have different backgrounds and characters. Using mediatization approach and netnography method to examine the da’wah content on the YouTube channels of the three Islamic preachers, this study concludes there are three kinds of strategies they used in constructing authority, namely 1) identity commodification strategy, 2) network collaboration strategy, and 3) interactive communication strategy. These three kinds of strategies become supporting factors for the preachers in constructing their Islamic authority through the YouTube platform.

The main subject of this study is a detailed literature review analysis of critical discourse researches made in the Turkish language. As a unique discipline, critical discourse analysis has played an important research tool role in social sciences. Critical discourse analysis, which emerged in the late 1980s, can be considered a relatively new research method in our country. This discipline has developed around the schools of three different academics. One of the leading figures in this field is Teun A. van Dijk (b. 1943). Van Dijk, the founder of the Socio-cognitive Approach, is one of the important names cited in the analysis of political and media discourses. Another name is Norman Fairclough (b.1941). Fairclough's 3-Dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis method also constitutes an important space in discourse studies. Another significant figure in the field of critical discourse analysis is Ruth Wodak (b. 1950). Wodak, the founder of the Discourse Historical approach, first developed this method to analyze the biased anti-Semitic language and imagery in Waldheim's electoral programs in the Austrian presidential election that was held in 1986. Since then, the methodology developed by Wodak has been useful for discourse analysis of cases with an important historical dimension. This study aims to explain the approaches of the discourse experts mentioned above and to compile critical discourse analysis and corpus analysis studies conducted in political and media texts in Turkish academia. As a result of this study, which was carried out within the scope of the qualitative research method, important insights into the basic features, possibilities, and limitations of critical discourse analysis research in Turkish academia have been obtained. Some of the insights obtained can be summarized as follows: It has been determined that the critical discourse analysis studies available in the Council of Higher Education online database include a total number of 54 master’s and doctoral theses published since 2003. Among these theses, the number of the theses prepared in Turkish is 23. As a result of the Google Scholar search, it has been found that the number of Turkish studies conducted since 2003 is more than 90. The most cited research among these studies is the article “Discourse Analysis” published in 2008. The main limitation of most of the critical discourse analysis studies made in the Turkish language is about the usage of the translations of the works authored by the above-mentioned experts who developed this discipline, and this usage limits the number of resources concerning the method because not every major work has been translated into Turkish. In the light of the findings, the ways to improve the discipline in Turkish academia shows the importance of this study.

The "sex sells" marketing strategy is still used by anime, a form of entertainment that is becoming more and more popular worldwide, and one of them is Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu anime series. Due to the main character's vulgarity against girls, this anime series sparked debate among anime viewers. For a number of reasons, such as the freedom to work for artists and the fact that sexual objectification done through animation does not damage real girls, objections to this topic are frequently refuted. The goal of this study is to identify the various ways that girls are sexually objectified in anime, which could affect viewers' attitudes and actions. A qualitative approach is used through critical discourse analysis by Sara Mills. Discourse is utilized methodologically to dismantle forms of sexual objectification of women in anime series. It is revealed how women are portrayed as sexual objects in anime fan service through the male gaze through discourse analysis of characters, focalization, fragmentation, and cinema schemata. Findings from this study indicate that there existed instances of sexual objectification of women in the anime series Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu, particularly in relation to the love interest of the main male character. This study critically makes us aware that the growth of digital media, which can provide a wide range of content and depict a variety of male and female characters, nevertheless reinforces patriarchal value. Even in the digital age, animation—a creative form of entertainment—continues to treat girls as just objects of desire for men. This serves as a reminder that the conventional entertainment industry, which frequently makes fun of sexual harassment of women, still exists in the internet sphere. In light of this anime series, women participation in the digital sphere ought to be promoted in order to change people's perceptions of women. It has been proven that the freedom that many advocate in the digital age yet imposes restrictions on the presence of girls as a subject. Keywords: anime; digital; girls; objectification; male gaze;

Accessible yet theoretically rich, this landmark text introduces key concepts and issues in critical discourse analysis and situates these within the field of educational research. The book invites readers to consider the theories and methods of three major traditions in critical discourse studies � discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis -- through the empirical work of leading scholars in the field.

Critical Policy Discourse Analysis bridges the literature on critical discourse analysis (CDA) and critical policy analysis to provide a practical guide on how to combine these major approaches to critical social science. The volume gives a clear introduction to concepts and analytical procedures for critical policy discourse analysis. Utilising ten international case studies, the authors explain and critically reflect upon the methods and theories that they have used to successfully integrate CDA with critical policy studies across a diverse range of policy issues. Case studies are used to explore issues in economics, health, education, crisis management, the environment, language and energy policy. Analysing these through discursive methodological approaches in the traditions of CDA, social semiotics and discourse theory, this book connects this discursive methodology systematically to the field of critical policy studies. This is an essential read for researchers wishing to practically combine methods of CDA with critical policy studies. It provides key insights for politics scholars looking to gain a more in-depth understanding of the impact and analysis of discourse.

Over the past few years an increasing number of studies have attempted to examine the question of religious authority vis-a-vis developments in Europe’s Muslim communities. However, given the purported weakness of institutionalized religious authorities in Islam, these studies concentrate on specific types of religious actors and institutions, particularly on imams. While this actor-centered approach, which often equates authority with leadership, has been proven valuable, one wonders whether a more resolutely discursive perspective might also be productive, particularly in education. However, the literature on the nexus between religious authority and education is limited and unexplored. This chapter addresses this lacuna by examining the place of religious authority in Islamic education, focusing on how it is rendered as a school subject in the confessional teaching of Islam. It poses the following questions: How is religious authority constructed in Islamic education settings by teachers and through resources? What types of religious authority exist? On what bases is their authoritativeness predicated? How are debates among religious authorities framed? How does educational discourse on religious authority contribute to intellectual rigidness? Accordingly, this chapter is organized in three parts. The first defines “religious authority” and explores its relevance to education in general and to confessional religious education in particular, and how religious authorities in the Sunni tradition have been accommodated in Islamic education, arguing that these authorities are embraced with little deliberation with regard to requirements, characteristics, and responsibilities. Moreover, little attention is given to how they have been debated and changed throughout the history of Islam. The second part grabbles with ‘intellectual rigidness’ as both a manifestation of exaggeration in religious opinions (ghulū) and an inevitable reflection of the presence of religious authorities in Islamic education. It reveals how intellectual rigidness is established by approaching religious authority in ahistoric and non-discursive ways, highlighting how intellectual rigidness is inherently linked to the value of obedience (tā‘ah) and the epistemological constraints placed on innovation (tajdīd) and disagreement (ikhtilāf). The third part presents concluding thoughts on how to approach the idea of “correct religion” (al-dīn al-haqq), which functions as a type of morality that many religious authorities follow. It also suggests pedagogies that offer methods for engaging critically with Muslim religious authorities in Islamic education, while grounding these pedagogies in Sunni theology.

Positivism continues to exert a powerful influence on housing research. To a limited extent, this began to change in the mid to late 1990s with a number of researchers in Europe and Australia employing critical and poststructural theories to investigate contemporary housing issues. Critical discourse analysis (CDA), in particular, started to be seen as a tool that could be used to analyse and critique policy debates about urban regeneration, housing policy reform and managerialism. This paper begins by positioning discourse analysis within the field of housing research. The second part of the paper uses an empirical case study of housing policy change in the Australian state of Queensland to illustrate the limitations and possibilities offered by critical discourse analysis. The conclusions drawn from the study indicate that critical discourse analysis is a valuable adjunct to the dominant positivist tradition in housing research. However, for this value to be fully realised, more work needs to be done in a number of areas, including the development of more explicit links between material and discursive practices and a closer integration of CDA with other social research methods.