AMCAP Journal of Media and Communication Studies - Lahore

Journal of Media and Communication Studies

Association of Media and Communication Academic Professionals (AMCAP)
ISSN (online): 2789-9756

Digitalizing Religious Preaching: YouTube as a place for traditional Islamic preaching Waz Mahfil

  • Abu Taib Ahmed/
  • January 10, 2024
Keywords
YouTube, space, place, digital space, digital place, religious preaching, Waz Mahfil, Bangladesh
Abstract

Waz Mahfil, a gathering of Muslim devotees and common listeners for sermons on Islam, has long been one of the primary means of preaching Islam in Bangladesh. With the availability of the internet, the video-sharing website YouTube has emerged as a key platform for various Islamic groups to spread video-recorded Waz Mahfil in Bangladesh. The proliferation of the culture of traditional Islamic preaching on YouTube in Bengali has received a little attention although it has got a pervasive nature in digital space. Building on qualitative content analysis of YouTube space, the study has mapped out how Waz Mahfil transformed from physical space to digital space, enabling its protagonists to reach out to a larger and even inaccessible audience to spread their messages, going beyond the government regulations and geographical boundaries. Apart from reinforcing the Space and Place theory, this study contributes to the social science scholarship primarily in two ways. Firstly, the partial transformation of a traditional socio-religious practice from physical space to digital space clearly indicates the rise of “digitality” in society, particularly in a developing society like Bangladesh, and secondly, the phenomenon indicated that religious groups and/or communities are appropriating affordances of digital space to spread their religious message.

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Author(s):

PhD Student, Journalism and Media Communication Department, Colorado State University

Pakistan

  • abuahmed@colostate.edu

Details:

Type: Article
Volume: 4
Issue: 1
Language: English
Id: 65d34a028c23c
Pages 38 - 61
Published January 10, 2024

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