ONLINE MEDIA IMPRESSIONS FOR MANAGING RELIGIOUS REASONING OF MADRASAH ALIYAH STUDENTS
Today's students at Madrasah Aliyah (MA) cannot escape the grip of online media. These Muslim Students are one of the millennial communities that intensively use online media to access religious knowledge. Through online media, these students find it easy to find various religious references and learn quickly. But it seems that studying religion through online media often traps students to be more exclusive and conservative. In the findings of this qualitative research, some MA students in Makassar, after learning from online media, have become conservative, they tend to find it difficult to accept differences and even oppose school rules. For example, they do not want to participate in flag ceremonies, refuse to pray and do not want to participate in mawlid celebrations. Indeed, not all students experience this kind of case. Only those who have a particular religious ideological preference or who are indeed intensively studying religion from online media have the possibility of slipping on Islamic and puritanical religious learning materials. This study concludes that they are trapped in religious conservatism in online media because online media is still dominated by religious information from Islamists. In addition, online media have algorithms that tend to polarize consumers to be more extreme in their respective ideologies. For this reason, Islamic moderates need to contribute a bigger role in intervening and filling religious discourse in online media. In addition, promoting online media literacy to students in MA is a necessity.
Religious Radicalism, Online Media, Religious Reasoning, Madrasah Aliyah Students.