Commodifying the Unseen: Cyber-Capitalism, Rationalized Rituals, and the Reconfiguration of Religious Authority
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66277/jims.1.1.240Keywords:
Religious Commodification, Religious Authority, Media Political Economy, Theo-Economic Circuit, Muhammad FaizarAbstract
The debate over digital religion remains confined to a binary opposition between altruistic proselytizing and commercial exploitation. Moving beyond this dichotomy, this article conceptualizes the structural reconfiguration of religious authority through the lens of media political economy. By analyzing cyber content production, this study demonstrates that the systematic demystification of the supernatural does not function as a neutral educational effort but rather as advanced content commodification designed to manufacture rational audience trust. Spatially, this engineered trust is seamlessly integrated by digital infrastructures into algorithmic e-commerce marketing funnels. This extensive expansion facilitates a distinct structuration process, institutionalizing a new religious managerial class capable of subjecting networked piety to capitalist power relations. Ultimately, this article theorizes a novel circular theo-economic circuit, revealing how public spiritual literacy and capital accumulation mutually reinforce each other to sustain financial stability and theological hegemony under global cyber-capitalism.References
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