Mediating Chaplaincy: The Online Mediation of Multi-Faith University Chaplaincy in the Pre to Immediate Post-COVID19 Pandemic Period 2020 to 2024

This research is a multidisciplinary qualitative study investigating the use of digital media methods in three UK University chaplaincies during the pre-COVID-19 till the immediate post-lockdown period of 2020 - 2024 and the utility of a media affordance approach. The 2020 to 2024 timeframe was selected because the period offers a unique opportunity to study the application of digital religion methods to Chaplaincy and pastoral care in higher institutions as the pandemic forced operations to go online and accelerated many changes already happening in the sector. The study utilises semi-structured interviews with chaplains, university staff and students. It also employs some online and on-site participant observation and online content analysis to enrich the understanding of the data. The research has the following objectives: 1. To demonstrate how three multi-faith university chaplaincies understood and utilised digital media in the 2020 - 2024 period and evaluate how the COVID-19 pandemic affected that use. 2. To explore how the students or other recipients of the chaplaincy services responded to these methods. 3. To evaluate the usefulness of affordance theory to understand how Higher Education Chaplaincies use digital media to fulfil the objectives of Chaplaincy. 4. To investigate through the chaplaincies' use of digital media whether and how the specific affordances of digital transmediality, the ability to strategically utilise different media types/methods and to connect platforms, and autonomy, the degree of agency and ownership/independence the users of digital media platforms can exercise, can expand our understanding of digital religion. The Research Design This study explores digital religion, especially 'media choice' and use, in multi-faith chaplaincies in UK universities and it attempts to capture the individual and social processes involved through the lens of affordance theory and networked religion.