Legitimating digital media in religious institutions: the case of Benedictine monasteries

This study investigates how tradition-laden religious institutions negotiate the legitimation of digital media by exploring the intersection of digital media and religious practice in Benedictine monasteries. Studying monasteries as reclusive communities of religious virtuosos can shed light on legitimation patterns balancing tradition and technology, which all modern institutions need to navigate. Through ethnographic investigation and 28 semi-structured interviews with Benedictine monks, the study uncovered three grounded narratives that are employed by monastics to legitimize new media use in the face of ambivalence: (1) updated traditionalism, (2) maturation and self-responsibility, and (3) advocating religious values of the self. We add to previous literature by finding that the contemporary monastery is a place where digital media are omnipresent, used in individualized ways by monks, and where anomie emerges in the absence of binding regulation. We contribute to a multilevel understanding of legitimacy by exploring the cyclical integration of digital media in these tradition-laden communities and describe a bottom-up process of legitimation of digital media and thus a reconfiguration of traditional authority and legitimacy processes in the digital era.