Mohammad Taghi Abbasi Shavazi

Mohammad Taghi Abbasi Shavazi is assistant Professor of sociology at Shiraz University (Iran). He received his PhD in sociology at Shiraz University in 2012, where he obtained his B.A and M.A, also in sociology. His fields of interest are religion and new communication technologies, in particular the intersection of Islam and new media with a special focus on Shi'a online religious communities, Authority online and gender on online communities. Mohammad Taghi Abbasi Shavazi worked on his PhD thesis project entitled "Religion in the Cyberspace: A Sociological Study of Participation in Virtual Religious Communities. His research focuses on a Shi'a virtual religious community and its connections with actual religious communities in Iran. As visiting PhD student, he worked from March to December 2010 at the department for the Study of religions, Faculty of humanities, at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), under the supervision of Professor Dr. Oliver Kruger.