Digital Merit: A Case Study of a Chinese Buddhist Meditation Group on WeChat During the Early Outbreak of Covid-19 in China
While most academics regard virtual religious communities to be secondary to in-person religious communities, the virtual Buddhist sangha served as a full and complete social infrastructure that provides purpose to life and spiritual consolation to its members. From the outbreak of the Covid-19 from...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
2022
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| In: |
Journal of media and religion
Year: 2022, Volume: 21, Issue: 4, Pages: 175-192 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Peking
/ Buddhism
/ Meditation
/ Religious practice
/ WeChat (Online service)
/ Geschichte 2020
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| RelBib Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion BL Buddhism KBM Asia ZG Media studies; Digital media; Communication studies |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | While most academics regard virtual religious communities to be secondary to in-person religious communities, the virtual Buddhist sangha served as a full and complete social infrastructure that provides purpose to life and spiritual consolation to its members. From the outbreak of the Covid-19 from March to May in 2020, this paper investigates how a Chinese Buddhist group based in Beijing practices Theravada meditation on the WeChat social media platforms. This paper, based on online ethnography and informal interviews, argues that digital media is a significant arena for Chinese Buddhists to conduct Buddhist rituals, transmit Buddhist ideas, generate and accumulate Buddhist merits, and build alternative cyber-Buddhist economies. This paper also highlights that Buddhist groups are continuously growing and rising as highly united and community-oriented digital sanghas within current China’s technoculture context. |
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| ISSN: | 1534-8415 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of media and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/15348423.2022.2147324 |