Reviving Islam through online preaching: A study of collective piety formation by Surabaya Hijrah in Urban Middle-Class Millennial Community

The latest developments in technology and the Internet make broadcast patterns with a wider range of middle class. This moment has been captured and used by various religious groups in Indonesia. This has allowed many preachers to follow the path of new preaching in a variety of manners, one of which is by occupying existing platforms on digital media. They enter the communities of young people by picking up the ball. In other words, they do not wait for the hijra performers to enliven the mosque. Surabaya Hijrah acts as a domain of power which supplies values through online preaching. It uses digital media as a tool to deliver messages to the congregants. This study supports previous research, which discussed this matter to a low degree from the political side. This article sought to fill political niches in terms of seeing the power relations built between Islamic groups and worshipers. In addition, the author tried to present a different perspective on the notion that power relations can occur in everyday life. The data for writing this article were obtained through qualitative research with a case study approach. In-depth interviews and participant observation were conducted in two periods: first, from April through May 2018 and, second, from September through October 2018. The theories used were Foucault's power relation concept and Mahmood's concept of piety. They were used for explaining the power relation formed in the interaction between Surabaya Hijrah as an Islam-reviving religious group and urban middle-class millennial communities. The findings showed that power relations were formed in Surabaya Hijrah through development of discourses. These discourses arose through preachers' contents made and published on the Instagram account @surabayahijrah. The interactions developing on social media produced discourses that created new subjectivity; the more pious a Muslim, the more seriously he/she perform hijra.