[FIR 6.1 (2011) 47–63] Fieldwork in Religion (print) ISSN 1743–0615 doi: 10.1558/fiel.v6i1.47 Fieldwork in Religion (online) ISSN 1743–0623 © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2012, Unit S3, Kelham House, 3 Lancaster Street, Sheffield S3 8AF. Stephen Pihlaja “Are You Religious or are You Saved?”: Defining Membership Categories in Religious Discussions on YouTube Stephen Pihlaja is a PhD student at The Open University. His interests include metaphor analysis and inter-religious dialogue. The Open University Walton Hall Milton Keynes MK7 6AA UK S.S.Pihlaja@open.ac.uk Abstract Using membership categorization analysis, this article investigates membership categories in a YouTube video made by an Evangelical Christian in which he differentiates between “saved” and “religious” users. Analysis will take a discourse-centred, multimodal approach grounded in longitudinal observation, using analysis of video discourse to instruct analysis of video images and user comments. Findings will show that categorization is accomplished by using recognized categories with ambiguous descriptions of category-bound activities that include metaphors, such as “being hungry for God” and not “hanging out with atheists.” These categories are recognized by commenters on the video, but the category bound activities applied to the category members are disputed. Findings will also show that scriptural reference plays an impor- tant role in categorization in the video, drawing on direct Bible quotes as well as paraphrases of key passages. Keywords: discourse analysis; Evangelical Christian discourse; multimodal analysis; YouTube. Category Membership on YouTube YouTube is a video-hosting website, founded in 2005, which for the last two years has consistently been one of the most visited websites on the Internet (Alexa, n.d.; Burgess and Green, 2009). In many ways, YouTube embodies the notion of web 2.0 environments where social networking tools enable users to produce content and interact with each other. The site’s interactive features provide many opportunities