Religious and Socio-Political Communication on TikTok and its Reception

Study at Ruhr University Bochum

Project Description

As part of the project “Religious and Socio-Political Communication on TikTok and its Reception”, the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at Ruhr University Bochum is con-ducting an analysis of TikTok content produced by religious influencers from different religious communities, as well as its reception. The study is being conducted as part of the project “Youth, Religion and Society” (plugether), which, since 2024, has been bringing together young people with religious affiliations to explore questions of coex-istence in a pluralistic society and to collaboratively create TikTok videos. The overall project and the academic analysis are funded by the Federal Commissioner for Migra-tion, Refugees and Integration.

On the basis of a sample of short videos by different content creators in the field of reli-gion-related and socio-political communication on TikTok and by means of a qualitative analytical framework, the researchers carry out a comparative assessment. In addition, the reception of the content will be investigated, as far as it becomes visible in com-ments and other reactions on TikTok, in order to draw conclusions about the effective-ness and success strategies of different topics and narrative styles with regard to vari-ous target groups.

Finally, the findings will be discussed in light of the current state of research on religious and socio-political communication on social media, particularly on TikTok, and with consideration of its potential implications for religion and society.

Research Objective and Societal Context

It is becoming increasingly evident that young people today primarily use social media to inform themselves about societal, religious, and ideological issues, and to engage in related debates. Against this backdrop, scientific findings are of considerable sociopo-litical relevance. Therefore, this project aims to generate data-based insights into ac-tors and content particularly regarding religion-related and sociopolitical topics in digi-tal spaces, as well as their effectiveness, and to discuss these findings from a compara-tive perspective.

Planned output and results

• Insights into topics, styles, strategies and effectiveness of religious and socio-political communication on TikTok
• Identification of a pool of relevant content creators from the religious field and best practice examples
• Integration of the findings into the broader academic discussion on religion in digital spaces
• Presentation of the findings of the project at academic conferences and in an aca-demic article
   

Funding period:

04.2025–12.2025

The study is part of the plugether project - Youth, Religion and Society, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration, who is also the Federal Government Commissioner for Anti-Racism. For more information on the plugether project and the role of the study anchored at CERES, visit: https://aiwg.de/gesellschaft/#plugether