Emoji Dei: Religious Iconography in the Digital Age
Issue: Vol 46 No. 3-4 (2017)
Journal: Bulletin for the Study of Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies
DOI: 10.1558/bsor.32715
Abstract:
A recent proposal to create a hijab emoji raises interesting questions about the place of "religion" among the colorful pictographs that increasingly punctuate our texts, emails, and social media posts. In this exploratory article, we offer some preliminary – and, of necessity, inchoate – reflections on religious representation in the digital age and outline possible avenues of research for colleagues and students to pursue. Of crucial importance, we argue, are what religiously-themed emoji might suggest about the default world in which they operate; a default, we submit, that functions to affirm the normative ascendance of the secular.
Author: Méadhbh McIvor, Richard Amesbury
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