<![CDATA[Digital media have reconfigured religious authority by expanding the role of audiences in evaluating, affirming, and contesting religious legitimacy. This study examines how YouTube audiences interpret and negotiate representations of religious authority in digitally mediated religious communication. Using a qualitative approach informed by Stuart Hall's reception framework, the study draws on netnographic observation of audience comments collected between January and May 2025 from 10 videos across five YouTube channels selected for their relevance to debates on religious authority. The comments were analysed through Hall's decoding positions dominant, negotiated, and oppositional to identify how audiences recognize, qualify, or reject authority claims. The findings show that audiences evaluate religious authority through interrelated epistemic, institutional, performative, moral, experiential, and relational-digital criteria. Dominant readings tend to affirm scholarly competence and recognized religious credentials, negotiated readings introduce additional criteria such as communication style and audience experience, while oppositional readings challenge authority when public conduct is perceived as inconsistent with moral expectations. These intersecting evaluations indicate a hybrid configuration of religious authority in which traditional sources of legitimacy interact with audience-based judgments formed through digital engagement. The study contributes to scholarship on digital religion by showing that audience reception is not merely a response to established authority but an active site in which the foundations of religious legitimacy are continuously negotiated.]]>
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