Smartphone Religious Networking: Negotiating Contested Identities within a Pious Community over WhatsApp

Online social networks can be considered harbingers of modernity and are claimed to encourage individualization in religious practices. Nevertheless, minority groups, including reclusive communities, legitimize their use for communal purposes. Accordingly, emerging as dynamic third spaces identity reflections on key issues lived religion. This study examined how members a group negotiate over online networks. we conducted content analysis 70 ultra-Orthodox Jewish public (Haredi) WhatsApp groups 40 semi-structured interviews with participants. Findings revealed three primary facets performance: affinity; proclaimed conformism practiced agency; contesting dogmatism pragmatism. Through these facets, new is crystallized within the Haredi sector Israel. Thus, secluded enable marginalized grassroots promote incremental change without shattering boundaries.