Rev Fr. A. Christopher, HGN

Religious Programmes: A blooming development in broadcast media

A Study Paper

Dr. S. Nandakumar & A. Christopher Joseph Cruz

E-mail: nandakumar.su@gmail.com

a_xtopher@yahoo.co.in

Address

Dr. S. Nandakumar

Associate Professor

Dept of Journalism and Mass Communication

Periyar University

Salem – 636 011

Cell: +919444086807

A. Christopher Joseph Cruz

Research Scholar

Dept of Journalism and Mass

Communication

Periyar University

Salem – 636 011

Cell: +91 9840995431

Subject

Media & Religion

Key words:

Electronic-religion, Religious broadcasting, Spiritual industry, Propagate, Cultural change, Social change, Ethical impact.

Religious Programmes: A blooming development in broadcast media

Dr. S. Nandakumar*

A. Christopher Joseph Cruz**

Abstract

This paper reveals the impact of religious channels among people in a multi-cultural, multi-linguistic and multi-religious Indian society. How altruistic is the spiritual industry? Does the new religious broadcasting represent mere broadcasting, or propagate or create a new kind of electronic-religion? Furthermore, do the research advocates that do those religious channels create any ethical impacts on the audience? Do they help human beings improve themselves religiously? A survey methodology with random sampling techniques was used to collect data in the research.

There have been some sweeping claims made about its significance-claims that it transcends both broadcasting and religion and has assumed a place of unprecedented power and prominence in culture, and symbolic formation.

Key words: Electronic-religion, Religious broadcasting, Spiritual industry, Propagate, Cultural change, Social change, Ethical impact.

*Associate professor, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu, India.

**Research Scholar, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu, India.

Introduction:

Religious broadcasting has moved, over the past decade, from the margins of social and religious life to centre stage. The religious programmes on foreign television channels were once unavailable before the proliferation of transnational channels in India. Those channels have now become easily accessible in India; subsequent to the Supreme Court verdict in mid 1990. In a multi-religious society like India, religious television channels are mushrooming in every region of the country. Even the news channels today cover all the religious festivals around India. Over the last couple of years, more than two dozen religious television channels have mushroomed in India. The list (Aastha, Sanskar, Maharishi, Om Shanti, Maa TV, MiracleNet, God TV, Quran TV…) is getting longer every day. And the spiritual airwaves are being beamed from all over the country as well as abroad. While Aastha operates entirely from Mumbai, Sanskar has studios in Indore and Delhi. Maharishi channel is telecast from the Capital while Maa TV is based in Hyderabad. Om Shanti is Mount Abu-based. Quran TV beams out from Dubai. Both God TV and MiracleNet have regional offices in Chennai while the former is telecast from Jerusalem.

Several new channels are in the pipeline. Even big names like Zee Telefilms have taken the holy plunge with the launch of a 24-hour channel, Jagran, on January 14, 2011. Anil Anand, its business head, says, “The religious channel genre is proliferating.” The fight for pious eyeballs doesn’t worry the new flag bearers of spirituality. Other than these channels, Government controlled Indian Public Broadcasting has also allotted separate time slots for religious programmes.

The common understanding is that any programme which has clean message to improve a human being - improve them religiously, ethically and socially and push them towards being productive and effective, having ambitions. This general statement pushes the researcher to test it with regard to the religious programmes that are being telecasted in our country.

Therefore, this paper is trying to divulge the impact of religious channels among people in a multi-cultural, multi-linguistic and multi-religious Indian society. How altruistic is the spiritual industry?

Literature review:

Though many articles and books have been referred to for this research paper, the researcher reviewed a few selected articles and books that were in line with this present study.

Robert A. White in his article “Religion and Media in the Construction of Cultures” in the book “Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture” compiled by Stewart M. Hoover & Knut Lundby (1997, pp 37-54) arrives at a firm conclusion that both media studies and religious studies are coming together to create a new understanding of the media as a cultural negotiation.

In “Televangelism” Bobby C. Alexander (1997, pp 194-208) observes that Televangelism, as ritual, has the capacity and potential to contribute to the efforts of viewers to overturn their marginalized or peripheral social standing within American Society.

“Making Sense of Religion in Television” by Alf Linderman (1997, pp 263-282) studies the construction of meaning by individuals from religious media. The audience constructing meaning out of religious television not only shows how this type of television works in the minds of different audience categories as they “make sense” of these programmes, but also reveals how general qualities are ascribed to this medium by various viewers.

“Christian Mass Media Reach More Adults with the Christian Message Than Do Churches” is a study paper by The Barna Group Ltd from Ventura, CA, USA (July 2, 2002). They conducted a nationwide telephonic survey among 1007 adults. The majority of Americans assume that the most common way of experiencing the religious faith is by attending a religious service. But the survey by the Barna Research Group reported a different conclusion. A greater number of adults experience the religious faith through religious media, such as radio, television or books, than attend churches or temples or mosques. However the Barna Group found a lack of personal accountability. The research group suggested the incorporation of people’s factor.

Ursula Lindsey (2006) in her article “The new Muslim TV: media-savvy, modern, and moderate” reveals that a talk show on a new Islamic satellite channel Al Risala by a famous Egyptian actress Sabreen, at Cairo, Egypt has created a religious revolution among Muslims. Thousands of viewers sent messages through their mobile phones saying the programme brought positive changes in their lives; ethically and socially.

One or two studies have proved that the religious programmes on TV promote culture, promote morality and promote religious values.

Methodology:

The study was conducted using the survey method with random sampling techniques. It contains both independent and dependent variables. The questionnaire was self administered.

150 questionnaires were distributed randomly across Chennai city in which 125 responses were received. The paper has used both primary and secondary sources. Questionnaires were passed randomly to different religious people and not restricted to any gender, age, caste, literate, illiterate, rich, poor etc. The research also took the form of semi structured interviews with some media personals, religious leaders and with the producers of some religious TV programmes. The data was analysed statistically using SPSS.

The Random Sampling method was chosen to give a better cross-section of the population so as to gain a higher degree of relative precision.

Data Analysis and Presentation:

Out of 125 participants, 55.2% were male and 44.8% were female. The male participants were slightly higher than the female. Among the respondents, people from the age group of 40 and above responded more, with 45.6%. 32.8% fell into the age group of 26 to 40, while 13.6% of the people were among the age group of 18 to 25. Only 8% fell into the category of less than 18 years old. Therefore, the majority of viewers were 26 years old and above, i.e. 78.4%.

In analysing the type of viewers in terms of religion; Hindus were 29.6%, Muslims were 28% and Christians were 41%. Others formed only 7.2%. 2.4% people said that they belong to no religion. Collectively, the Hindus, Muslims and Christians formed 90.4% of the total respondents.

Out of 125 respondents, 96 of them said they watched religious channels or religious programmes. 29 of them said that they didn’t watch religious channels or religious programmes. Almost 76.8% of the people watched religious programmes on TV.

Among the respondents 54.1% of the people strongly agreed and 16.6% just agreed that the religious programmes did affect their personal lives and brought some changes to them. 21.87% of the people were neutral in their stand. Almost 70.7% of the people said that the religious programmes on TV brought some positive changes to their personal lives. This finding affirms the same result of Ursula Lindsey’s study on Al Risala. However, about 57.2% of the people strongly disagreed that the religious programmes on TV were substitutes to the real services and rituals of the religion.

Coming to the point of whether those religious TV programmes promote any culture, most people said that they promote western culture, but not their own local culture. Semi structured interviews with some religious leaders revealed that the intention is not to promote any culture, but rather the religious values. The producers of the programmes also shared the same point. However, some media personals were strongly arguing that they do promote western culture. This research disclosed that half of the respondents (52.02%) had the same answer.

Does the religious broadcast make any social impact? The majority, (27.08%) of the people strongly agreed, 32.29% of the people just agreed, 17.7% were neutral, 15.62% disagreed and 7.29% strongly disagreed. Table 1 below depicts this clearly. About 59.37% of the people, i.e. more than half of the people said that the electronic religion does bring social changes in the human life. However the religious leaders and programme producers opined that they don’t directly aim at social change. Their first priority is to propagate their religion and its teachings.

Table 1

The majority of the respondents, 24% and 35%, strongly agreed and just agreed that the religious broadcast make ethical impact respectively. Table 2 clearly speaks about this. 13.54% were neutral, 14.58% disagreed and 12.5% strongly disagreed. About 59.35% of the people believed that this electronic spiritual industry teaches a lot of good morality. Some of the interviews with the parents revealed that religious broadcasts teach morality in an effective way. The examples from the real lives of the preachers make the viewers think about their moral lives. Lots of excellent stories with good morals, provide morality to their children in a simple way. The religious leaders and the producers of religious programmes also affirm the same. According to them, the most important aim of religious broadcasts is to teach ethics and imprint moral values in the heart and minds of the people.

Table 2

Religious broadcasts made religious impacts on about half of the (47.91%) respondents. They agreed that these programmes helped them to grow more religious. One third of the total respondents (22.91%) were neutral and one fifth of the total respondents (18.75%) disagreed. Table 3 clearly illustrates them below. The religious leaders expose that they do make lots of religious impact. They have found that many people today experience their religious faith through media. One of the producers of religious programmes of Blessing TV, in the Tamil language, says the media teaches religious values and the religion more effectively than the real religious leaders today. People gain knowledge of their religion more from the media than the religious preachers.

Table 3

Key findings and suggestion:

It is observed in the present research that religious symbols have always been, and continue to be, an important foundation of any society. More than half of the respondents agreed that the religious broadcasts do have some impact on them. They even prayed while watching those religious programmes. Ajita Shashidar, in his article ‘TV viewers tuned in to piety too’ that appeared in Business Line on January 21, 2006 also has the similar findings. Most of them said that they watched these programmes to receive God’s blessings upon themselves through this electronic media. Some of them even used these programmes as an alternative to their regular religious practices. A total of 70.7% of the viewers agreed that the religious channels touched them personally and paved the way for a change of life.

However, it is observed that viewers are not happy with the way things are presented. They are against presenting the programmes with a western style. Most people expressed the opinion that the adoption of local culture is important in the programmes. ‘Enculturation’ should be adopted to give a comfortable feeling to the viewers.

There are also some accusations leveled against religious TV channels, in that they use religion for profit. The common man says that it is a business for many people and those people are really making good money out of that. You say the word Islam or Hindu or Christian, and people will rush to that. But the executives of many religious channels say that in airing their channels they hope to promote their ideas without losing money. If anyone loses money, that means he is not appealing and does not have any viewership; which means he is not promoting his ideas.

Conclusion:

It is concluded that television medium is used as a vehicle to propagate their views and teachings by the majority of religions all over the world. Religious messages that are authentic and of significance to contemporary culture, that are expressed in meaningful and illuminating languages, images and symbols that promote dialogue and collaboration, will surely be received and welcomed by humanity. Media, especially TV, is the effective medium today to enlighten people. The education of all religions edifies good social, ethical and religious values that are the needs of the hour. This is indeed a blooming development in the media and spiritual industry, and it needs to grow in a positive way.

Reference

Alexander, C. Bobby. (1997). Televangelism. In Hoover, M. Stewart., Lundby, Knut. (Ed.) Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture. California: Sage Publications, Inc., pp 194-208.

Comstock, George., & et al. (1978). Television and Human Behavior. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 172.

Fore, F. William. (1980). There is No Such Thing as a TV Pastor. TV Guide, p. 18.

Fore, F. William. (1987). Television and Religion: the Shaping of Faith, Values and Culture. Augsburg, currently reprinted by SBS Press, 409 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511

Gerbner, George., & Kathleen, Connoly. (May/April 1978). Television as New Religion. New Catholic World, p. 56.

Hadden, K. Jeffrey., & Swann. E. Charles. (1981). Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism. Reading: Addison- Wesley, 4-12.

Hoover. M. Stewart., & Lundby, Knut. (1997). Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture. SAGE Publications. Inc, California, pp 37-54, 194-208, 263-282.

Linderman, Alf. (1997). Making Sense of Religion in Television. In Hoover, M. Stewart., Lundby, Knut. (Ed.) Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture. California: Sage Publications, Inc., pp 263-282.

Lindsey, Ursula. (2006). The new Muslim TV: media-savvy, modern, and moderate. The Christian Science Monitor. May 2. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0502/p01s04-wome.html

Nicholls, Bruce. (1975). Hinduism: The World’s Religions. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, p.137.

Shashidar, Ajita. (2006, January 21). TV viewers tuned in to piety too. Business Line. http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/bline/2006/01/21/stories/2006012103140800.htm

The Barna Group Ltd. (2002, July 2). Christian Mass Media Reach More Adults with the Christian Message Than Do Churches. Ventura, CA, USA. https://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/77-christian-mass-media-reach-more-adults-with-the-christian-message-than-do-churches?q=bible

Valle, A. Carlos. (1992). Religion and the Media. Media Development, World Association for Christian Communication, London.

Veer, Peter van der.. (1994). Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 78-85.

White, A. Robert. (1997). Religion and Media in the Construction of Cultures. In Hoover, M. Stewart., Lundby, Knut. (Ed.) Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture. California: Sage Publications, Inc., pp 37-54.