Picturing the Swedish Free Church: Visual Practices of Local Congregations on Social Media

The increasing use of social media by religious organizations has opened new spaces for the construction of institutional identity. While there is a growing body of research on how churches use social media platforms, the visual practices of these institutions remain understudied. This article examines the visual social media practices of local Free Churches in Sweden, focusing on their visual self-representation and the logics behind the construction of these public narratives. The study shows that these visual practices are often shaped by practical constraints and legal–ethical cautiousness, rather than by media logic. Hence, rather than evidencing a mode of communication strongly influenced by “the agency of media” these visual practices reflect what I term bounded mediation. The study further demonstrates that this bounded mediation leads local Free Churches to depict themselves on social media in ways that simplify, and sometimes distort, their theological identity. The analysis is based on data from nine local Free Churches’ Instagram accounts and interviews with individuals responsible for managing social media in 24 congregations across Sweden. Theoretically, the study draws on mediatization theory and Stuart Hall’s theory of representation.