The Negotiation of Millennial Muslim Identity in the Digital Sphere: A Study of Religious Practices and Cultural Consumption on Social Media

Abstract

The expansion of social media has created new spaces in which Muslim identity is expressed, negotiated, and reshaped through the interaction between religious practices and contemporary cultural consumption. This study examines the negotiation of Muslim identity in Indonesia's digital sphere, with particular attention to creative da'wah, modest fashion, hybrid identity, and the relationship between cultural and economic capital. The study employed a qualitative case study design involving 28 Indonesian Muslim participants, comprising content creators and active followers of Islamic and culturally related content on Instagram and TikTok. Participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, digital observation, and documentation and analyzed using the interactive model of Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña. The findings indicate that digital platforms enable participants to communicate religious values through creative, accessible, and visually engaging content while simultaneously adapting Islamic expression to contemporary cultural preferences. Modest fashion emerged as a significant medium through which piety, aesthetics, self-expression, and economic opportunity intersected. The findings also reveal the development of hybrid and flexible identities, as participants selectively negotiated religious commitments across different social and digital contexts. Drawing on Bourdieu's perspective, the study shows that cultural resources and digital visibility can generate social recognition and, in some cases, be converted into economic opportunities, although this process also produces tensions between religious authenticity and market-oriented practices. The study contributes to understanding Muslim identity as a dynamic social process shaped by religious agency, cultural participation, and the conditions of digitally mediated life.