Turkish Perspectives on Secularization and Media

Mustafa Dervis Dereli is an academic specializing in Sociology of Religion, with a particular focus on relationship between digitalisation and religion. He completed his master’s degree in Sociology of Religion in 2012 with a study on “Peter L. Berger's Approach to the Phenomenon of Religion.” In the same year, he became a research assistant at Erciyes University, Faculty of Theology, Department of Sociology of Religion, and worked there for ten years. During the 2015-2016 academic year, within the scope of his doctoral studies, he worked as a visiting scholar at Duke University’s Islamic Research Center in the USA, supported by TÜBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye) scholarship. In 2018, he completed his PhD in Sociology of Religion at Erciyes University on the relationship between social media and religiosity. His doctoral work received various academic awards in Türkiye. Dereli wrote Farewell to Virtual: Social Media and Transforming Religiosity and How a Muslim Should View Social Media. He translated Peter L. Berger’s Modernity, Pluralism and the Crisis of Meaning and John Bird’s What is Sociology of Religion into Turkish. He is interested in religious identity, digitalisation, secularism, postsecularism, social memory, and generational differentiation. He continues his academic studies as an associate professor in the field of Sociology of Religion at Necmettin Erbakan University Faculty of Theology. He is also the editor of the Medya ve Din Arastirmalari Dergisi (Journal of Media and Religion Studies).

Metin Eken is an academic specializing in Communication Sciences, with a particular focus on media, religion, and digital culture. He completed his PhD at Erciyes University, where his research examined the intersections of media, religion, and secularization. Throughout his career at Erciyes University, he has held various roles, including Research Assistant and his current position as Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Media and Religion Studies (MEDIAM). His scholarly interests include media and religion studies, secularization, Islamophobia, digital competencies, and the study of religious communication. He has published on online belief practices, media-driven transformations of religiosity, and the nexus between mediatization and secularization. Eken currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the internationally indexed Medya ve Din Arastirmalari Dergisi (Journal of Media and Religious Studies).