Development, the state, and new media: revisiting the models of demand for and supply of religion

Abstract Existing studies on secularization-religious market doctrines largely presume—often implicitly—that forms of religious communication, organization, and authority are fundamentally territorially bounded and mediated by stable organizational structures. Thus, we develop a framework that simultaneously re-examines the secularization thesis and the religious market hypothesis with digital connectivity as a structural mediator at the nexus of development, the state, and religiosity. Using a panel of 78 countries and data from the World Values Survey, International Religious Freedom, and the Religion and State Project between 2001 and 2022, we estimate a structural equation model with full information maximum likelihood. The results show that development through digital connectivity is negatively associated with religious beliefs and not religious participation, partially confirming the secularization thesis. At the same time, we find robust support for the religious market model: state intervention consistently suppresses both participation and belief, and digital connectivity does not fully offset these constraints. These findings make three contributions. First, they demonstrate that new media modifies the mechanisms underlying both secularization and religious market dynamics. Second, they reconcile competing theories by showing that development produces dual effects: weakening doctrinal belief while sustaining participation through digitally mediated supply. Third, they advance a revised framework in which religiosity persists not despite modernization, but through its technological transformation.