Date
6-19-2024
Department
School of Communication and the Arts
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Communication (PhD)
Chair
Wesley Hartley
Keywords
Church Communication, Content Communication, Church Social Media, Uncertainty Reduction Theory, Attraction, Social Media Strategy, Qualitative Content Analysis, Marketing, Socio-psychological Tradition, Planning, Social Media Engagement, Congregation, Local Church, Small Church
Disciplines
Communication
Recommended Citation
Spilger, Kailey, "Church Attraction Through Uncertainty Reduction: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Local Church Content Communication on Facebook and Instagram" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 5716.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/5716
Abstract
For the first time since the founding of America, less than 50% of U.S. adults claim to attend church (Jones, 2021). With the transition from traditional marketing methods to digital marketing methods post-COVID-19, church leaders admit that using social media would help them reach new people, but less than 40% have a strategy (Hodøl, 2021). The purpose of this study is to understand current content themes of local churches on social media in order to inform future social media strategies. Guided by the uncertainty reduction theory, this study considers how social media content can reduce uncertainty and promote attraction and liking. The qualitative content analysis resulted in the coding of 2,800 social media posts and the discovering of 25 most-commonly used content themes. Findings also discovered four church groupings drawn from the type of content themes most commonly posted by various churches including the bulletin board church, the photo album church, the Bible study church, and the holistic church. This study also extends the work of Brubaker and Haigh (2017) who discovered the primary reasons people search for and engage with religious content on social media. This study sought to discover whether churches are currently satisfying the information-seeking strategies of people on social media by posting content themes that match what people are looking for. Posts were also coded according to their level of uncertainty reduction. Findings suggest that churches should focus on creating high uncertainty-reducing content to answer questions an individual may have before visiting the church. This analysis provides valuable insights for church communication professionals, church leaders, and church social media managers seeking to create or improve their social media content strategy.
