Swedish Local Free Churches’ Use of Instagram

This study examines how local Swedish Free Churches use the social media platform Instagram. It builds on data from nine local churches’ Instagram accounts gathered between February and April 2024, encompassing 952 individual posts (including stories) and accompanying captions. Drawing on Adrienne Shaw’s (2017) work, the study not only investigates the technical affordances these congregations employ but observes what these platforms afford religious institutions. It thus challenges the technological determinism often prevalent in previous research, which tends to equate successful social media use with two-way communication and views its absence as a failure. The findings show that, rather than conforming to dominant platform norms, these churches take a negotiated approach, adapting their use of Instagram to serve their values and goals. The analysis highlights how these religious institutions translate their core values onto the platform by emphasizing congregational commitment, personal piety, and biblical authority in their posts, thus bridging their offline and online identities. The local churches included in the study belong to the Uniting Church in Sweden, the Pentecostal Alliance of Independent Churches, and the Evangelical Free Church.