Understanding London’s church tweeters: A content analysis of church-related tweets posted from a global city

Abstract

This study builds on the findings of previous research into church-related tweets by considering and analysing the content of 1,004 tweets containing the word “church” which were posted from within Greater London during a 10-week period. The qualitative analysis of the resultant Twitter dataset enabled the research team to validate a previously proposed coding framework for church-related tweets, subject to a minor change, and provide new evidence around the types of content discussed in church-related tweets posted from across all London boroughs. This paper concludes by drawing-out some of the key lessons which sociologists of religion can learn by exploring church-related tweets.