printRussian Digital Buddhism:
Strategies of Buddhist Communities in New Media
Оstrovskaya Е.А.
Dr. Sci. (Sociol.), Prof., Faculty of Sociology, Saint Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia e.ostrovskaya@spbu.ru
Badmatsyrenov T.B.
Dr. Sci. (Sociol.), Assoc. Prof., Head of Department of Politology and Sociology, Dorzhi Banzarov Buryat State University, Ulan-Ude, Russia batorovitch@mail.ru
The reported research was funded by RFBR project No. 20-011-00531
Оstrovskaya Е.А., Badmatsyrenov T.B. Russian Digital Buddhism: Strategies of Buddhist Communities in New Media. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2022. No 7. P. 109-119
The paper is devoted to the consideration of the dynamics of digitalization of communities of various Buddhism traditions in Russia and the construction of strategies by them for building relationships with the Internet and new media. As a methodological framework, the authors have chosen Heidi Campbell’s “socio-religious technology formatting” approach, which makes it possible to identify the correspondence between the history, tradition, beliefs of the religious community and the strategies they choose to use media technologies to construct their own identity, authority and boundaries. Based on interview materials and data from the analysis of online texts, the authors analyze the correlations between the sociocultural consolidation of specific areas of Russian Buddhism and the maturation of media niches of Russian-speaking Buddhism.
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