“The Digital Communication of Religious Organizations: A Case Study of a Muslim Mosque”

COVID-19 intensified the use of the Internet and digital platforms by religious organizations and their audiences. Using a communicative constitution of organizations framework, and a theoretical understanding of digital religion as mediation, we aim to understand the organizational identity of Muslim organizations, through their communication practices in the pandemic years, and its image among young audiences. Our case study is the largest Muslim religious organization in Portugal, which is a minority religion in the country. We conducted twelve semi-structured interviews with the Imam, its communication officers, and young Muslim audiences. During the pandemic, the Mosque increased its online presence on social media, sharing both religious and reliable health-related content. Digital communication enabled the consolidation of the Mosque’s identity as “open to all”, a strategy that aims to counteract. Through cooperation with public health entities, by disseminating COVID-19 reliable information, and promoting vaccination, the Mosque consolidated its identity as a social-oriented and public health institutional actor. The religious organizational identity matches, to a large extent, the image of the Central Mosque of Lisbon among the young Muslim audiences, as they also see themselves as active agents against Islamophobia. However, these youngsters felt an age and gender gap regarding the Mosque’s digital communication, and they still prefer to attend on-site religious ceremonies, at the Mosque. This chapter expands the theoretical approach to the study of communication as mediation in religious organizations, to the empirical body of studies on Muslim organizational communication, and the study of religious organizations’ audiences.