#yogaeverydamnday : En analys av religiösa och andliga uttryck och beskrivningar på Instagram

In recent years, the Internet has exploded with different kinds of social media, where a significant function is to share your life in text and images. This changes how we form our identity, our religious identity included. The aim of this paper was to study how Instagram forms a space for the creation and development of religious and spiritual beliefs. For this purpose, Instagram updates from five women with yoga oriented Instagram accounts have been analyzed in relation to two theories: Paul Heelas’ och Linda Woodhead’s theory of a spiritual revolution and Heidi Campbell’s theory of networked religion. The aim of the study was to explore how these women presented themselves in their Instagram flow and what part religion and spirituality had in their presentations. The method used was thematic content analyses. Four themes were identified: (1) immanent and transcendent religion, (2) the unique self, (3) the holistic idea and (4) thoughts about the universe and the earth. The conclusion when analyzing the data in relation to the selected theories was that religion and spirituality have a central part in the texts that was published with the pictures and that the women expressed and described religion and spirituality in a way that can be understood in accordance with both the theory of a spiritual revolution and the theory of networked religion, especially with references to storied identity, shifting authority and convergent practice. Nevertheless, some parts of the result couldn’t fully be explained through these theories and there were some parts of the result that showed that the theories might need some development or adjustment, for example regarding gender roles and female religiosity in the contemporary society