Memes as a medium for preaching: communicating moderate religious teachings through digital media

This article examines how internet memes are used as a means of religious outreach to convey moderate religious messages, by identifying how their visual and narrative elements construct meaning. Using Roland Barthes’ semiotic analysis, this study analyses 11 memes obtained from Reddit with the keywords ‘Religious harmony memes’ and ‘Religious Islam and Christian harmony memes’, exploring the visual and textual meanings that communicate the principles of religious moderation. The results show that the memes can be divided into five categories: (1) Interfaith Tolerance, (2) Anti-Extremism, (3) Respect for Religious Differences, (4) Criticism of Judgement Based on Extremist Groups, and (5) Education and its Influence on Religious Views. Each category reveals how memes function as representational resources for digital da’wah. The findings suggest that memes are semiotically structured to communicate the values of religious moderation, tolerance, and religious pluralism to a wider audience through social media. Light-hearted and humorous memes are structured to introduce more profound concepts in responding to religious radicalisation and to convey messages of tolerance. This study indicates that memes show potential as a tool for digital da’wah, capable of conveying messages of religious moderation and reaching a wider audience through active social media users.