ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which European Muslims, and particularly British Muslims, utilize the Internet in handling their hybrid identities, and how the different online platforms reveal the diverse perceptions within the same social and religious group. It draws on social identity theory, which seeks to explain the different modes of classifying oneself based on attachments to the group to which one belongs. Primary and secondary sources are used in studying offline/online contexts. The chapter aims to conduct a qualitative analysis of how religious minorities utilize the Internet to re-address their hybrid identities through exploring different online discourses and tools. Understanding the complications of the virtual individual and collective representations in cyberspace can help in studying minorities and different religious existences online since the Internet seems to be the voice of the voiceless. The chapter focuses on how British Muslims encounter questions of affiliation and how they manage their online platforms in reaction.
