1 Social Media: A New Religion? A Masters Thesis by Ashleigh Nicola Clarke 41044098 Department of Sociology, University of Canterbury 2 Acknowledgements I would first and foremost like to express my deepest gratitude to my two supervisors Mike Grimshaw and Zita Joyce for your inspiration, invaluable feedback, pushing me above and beyond my limits, offering constructive criticism and advice, and continuous support throughout all the meetings, emails, pestering, and questions. Your insights have helped strengthen my knowledge, writing, and research skills. Thank you. Thank you to all the people in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at the University of Canterbury, as well as the two administrators, Pat and Denise, for all your hard work. Thank you to everyone I met throughout my undergraduate and postgraduate studies who encouraged me to keep going to pursue my academic dreams, even when times were tough, confusing, and ambiguous. Thank you for listening, understanding, and always being there to support me as your peer, your equal, and your friend. Thank you to my Mum, Nikki, for always having a space for me in your home while I pursued my university career, offering support when you could, encouraging me to live my best life, your compassion for others, and for just being my mum. I would also like to thank the rest of my family, my Dad Phil and his wife Christine, my Grandma Avis, Cath, my Nana Barbara, my Grandad Trevor, and Sandra for all your support during my years of studying. A special thank you to Micaela, Alex, Liv, Tayler, Lizzie, Darryl, Leon, and “the boys” for your friendship over the years, life advice, support, acceptance, banter, encouragement, taco nights, and always believing in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. Thank you to my year 11 high school English teacher Malcolm Hewlett for inspiring me to go to university, encouraging me to always keep writing, and always telling it how it is. Thank you to my undergraduate students who listened, followed my advice, looked up to me, and pushed yourselves further than you knew you could. A very special thank you to Karell (and Richard) for all your love and support over the past two years. For being there when I needed you the most, for understanding, for pushing me to do things I never thought I’d do, encouraging me to strive to be my very best self and more, travelling New Zealand with me when we couldn’t travel elsewhere, always cooking great food, teaching me to live in the present, and just for being you. I could not have done this without any of you. Thank you. 3 Abstract This thesis argues that in contemporary Western society, social media has become a New Religious Movement that expresses elements of the New Age Californian Counterculture. The methodological process I use throughout this thesis to convey the new religion of social media is a social constructionist mixed-methods approach, utilising an autoethnography analysis of my own social media use and a textual analysis using visual analysis techniques to analyse a sample of Instagram influencers. Key findings from the autoethnography suggest some social media users use social media platforms to create alternative realities online, present the self as worthy of devotion to encourage engagement from their followers, and that the smartphone acts as a New Age Californian Counterculture bible/sacred text substitute. Key findings from the textual analysis using visual analysis techniques suggest that the sample of Instagram influencers in this research convey some attributes of the New Age Californian Counterculture on Instagram demonstrating that social media is an implicit religion. These Instagram influencers also act as contemporary totems in our contemporary Western world; they are furthermore a cult of saints social media users attach themselves to in order to help understand and explain the world around them, especially in online culture. These findings demonstrate how social media is a New Religious Movement that reflects elements of the New Age Californian Counterculture in new ways because of how social media and religion are interconnected in everyday life. 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Glossary ...................................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter One: Introduction ...................................................................................................... 11 The Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 13 Thesis Outline ....................................................................................................................... 15 Chapter Two: Methodology .................................................................................................... 18 The Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 19 The Research Paradigm ........................................................................................................ 21 Autoethnography ................................................................................................................. 22 Advantages ....................................................................................................................... 22 Textual Analysis using Visual Analysis Techniques .............................................................. 23 Advantages ....................................................................................................................... 24 The Research Design ............................................................................................................ 25 Nonparticipant Observation - Digital Data ....................................................................... 25 Data Collection ................................................................................................................. 27 Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 30 Chapter Three: The New Age Californian Counterculture ..................................................... 31 Religion: Explicit, Implicit, New Age, and New Age Californian Counterculture ................. 32 Defining ‘Religion’ ............................................................................................................. 32 ‘Implicit’ Religions ............................................................................................................. 33 Defining the New Age ....................................................................................................... 34 Defining the New Age Californian Counterculture ........................................................... 36 The 1960s ............................................................................................................................. 37 The Rise of the Counterculture: The Beats, and Carlos Castaneda .................................. 37 Self-Spirituality in Community: Findhorn Foundation and Esalen Institute ..................... 39 Human Potential Movement (HPM) ................................................................................. 44 The 1970s ............................................................................................................................. 46 Erhard Training Seminars (EST) ........................................................................................ 47 Dr. Schucman’s A Course in Miracles ............................................................................... 48 The Aquarian Age ............................................................................................................. 49 The 1980s ............................................................................................................................. 51 5 Marilyn Ferguson – The Aquarian Conspiracy .................................................................. 51 Shirley MacLaine ............................................................................................................... 52 Sheilaism ........................................................................................................................... 52 The 1990s – Contemporary Society ..................................................................................... 54 The Celestine Prophecy .................................................................................................... 54 Mind, Body, Spirit ............................................................................................................. 55 New Age Californian Counterculture Characteristics .......................................................... 56 Pick and Mix ...................................................................................................................... 56 Millennialism, The Sacred Self, and Post-Protestantism .................................................. 57 Alternative, Divine Reality, and Identity ........................................................................... 60 Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 63 Chapter Four: The Digital Canopy: Content, Community, and Connection .......................... 64 Communication