Authentic Paganism in context: Exploring the influence of social media engagement on perceptions of authenticity within Paganism.

Paganism is used as an umbrella term for a number of different nature-based religions/spiritualities that are inspired by the native pre-Christian traditions of (mainly) Europe. Paganism is a burgeoning belief system; the UK census shows that the number of people who labelled their religion as “Pagan” almost doubled between 2001 and 2011. Pagan practices tend to be diverse and individualistic, often leading to discussion within the community around what makes an ‘authentic’ Pagan. Pagans have been using the internet as a forum for information sharing and community building since the early days of the commercial internet. Due to this, this project aims to explore how authenticity is perceived within and outside of these online communities, how it might differ between platforms, and how online engagement may influence Pagan social identity. Data collection will use qualitative methods.