Navigating Sacred Soundscape in the Post-Secular Age: A Critical Analysis of the (Re)Production and Consumption of Digital Non-Traditional Religious Music Among Chinese Youth
Religions February 13, 2026 DOI: 10.3390/rel17020230 via OpenAlex
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractMany Chinese youth who lack formal religious beliefs engage with digital non-traditional religious music, such as electronic adaptations of the Great Compassion Mantra chant on platforms like Bilibili. Based on 15 interviews and one year of digital ethnography, the research shows that music, technology, environment, and cultural context shape youth's affective states of tranquility, trance, and transcendence. The study identifies fluid, contingent associations between these mediators and emergent, ambient affective states. It reveals hybridized practices that blend alternative spiritual elements with secular experiences, highlighting context-specific ways Chinese youth navigate spirituality in a post-secular age.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Qualitative study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 15 |
| Population | Chinese youth engaging with digital non-traditional religious music on Bilibili |
| Duration | One year |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Ethnography Soundscape Spirituality Mantra Mediation |
| Key finding | Chinese youth's engagement with digital non-traditional religious music produces fluid, contingent affective states of tranquility, trance, and transcendence through networks of music, technology, environment, and cultural context. |
Abstract
This research explores how Chinese youth, most of whom lack formal religious beliefs or affiliations, engage with digital non-traditional religious music, such as electronic adaptations of the Great Compassion Mantra chant, on platforms such as Bilibili. A total of 15 interviews and one year of digital ethnography were conducted to examine how various music mediators, such as music, technology, the environment, and the cultural context, shape youth’s affective states, namely their states of tranquility, trance, and transcendence. This study reinserts musicality into the social and cultural studies of religious music and identifies more fluid, contingent, and processual forms of associations and articulations between different mediators, along with the more emergent and ambient affective states brought about by such mediators, their networks, and related mediation processes. In addition, this study reveals Chinese youth’s hybridized and idiosyncratic practices that combine alternative spiritual elements with secular experiences, highlighting the context-specific ways in which Chinese youth navigate spirituality in the post-secular age.