Tootfinder

The Digital Landscape of God: Narrative, Visuals and Viewer Engagement of Religious Videos on YouTube
Rongyi Chen, Ziyan Xin, Qing Xiao, Ruiwei Xiao, Jingjia Xiao, Bingbing Zhang, Hong Shen, Zhicong Lu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10957

The Digital Landscape of God: Narrative, Visuals and Viewer Engagement of Religious Videos on YouTube
The digital transformation of religious practice has reshaped how billions of people engage with spiritual content, with video-sharing platforms becoming central to contemporary religious communication. Yet HCI research lacks systematic understanding of how narrative and visual elements create meaningful spiritual experiences and foster viewer engagement. We present a mixed-methods study of religious videos on YouTube across major religions, developing taxonomies of narrative frameworks, visual…