"The content analysis shows that polarization is still a major problem in the reporting of religion in the Ethiopian media. Stories are often biased towards the journalist’s political and ethnic stance. Claiming that they are ’secular’, the state media (’public media’) tend to ignore impor
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tant religious issues and conflicts which have resulted in loss of lives, burning of religious buildings, and displacement of people. The media appear to be ambivalent between applying a peculiar interpretation of ’secular’ principles by ignoring religion, or deciding to report such issues. The report stresses the importance of sensitizing reporters about religious issues and making the media more ethically responsible when reporting religion." (Executive summary)
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"The study seeks to understand consumers’ and decisionmakers’ perspectives on how current entertainment media treats themes of faith, religion and spirituality in its narratives and characters, if there is a market for more accurate and diverse representation of faith, and what opportunities exi
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st for improving these portrayals. HarrisX surveyed nearly 10,000 entertainment consumers across 11 countries as well as 30 in-depth interviews with entertainment industry leaders. Consumers say they learn about other religions through entertainment and see the potential for faith-inclusive content to create understanding and dialogue in society. Yet, respondents share that when they see their religion or faith - and others - included in mainstream entertainment, they feel it’s often sensationalized or that the portrayal leans on stereotypes. Similarly, entertainment industry professionals also highlighted an opportunity to reach and connect with an underserved audience. They noted that producing this content not only represents a good business opportunity, but also provides the opportunity to demystify what consumers know about other faiths and create understanding between people of different belief systems." (Introduction)
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"Divided into five parts, the Handbook opens with a state-of-the-art overview of the subject’s intellectual landscape, introducing the historical background, theoretical foundations, and major academic approaches to communication, media, and religion. Subsequent sections focus on institutional and
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functional perspectives, theological and cultural approaches, and new approaches in digital technologies. The essays provide insight into a wide range of topics, including religious use of media, religious identity, audience gratification, religious broadcasting, religious content in entertainment, films and religion, news reporting about religion, race and gender, the sex-religion matrix, religious crisis communication, public relations and advertising, televangelism, pastoral ministry, death and the media, online religion, future directions in religious communication, and more." (Publisher description)
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"There is a growing gap between the coverage of religion and the needs of the faithful–global desire for better coverage, understanding and representation of faith in media. 53% of respondents [of the online survey among 9,489 adults in 18 countries across six continents] say the media actively ig
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nores religion as an aspect of society and culture today. 59% of respondents believe it’s important that the news media covers a diverse set of faith and religious perspectives or content. 63% of people globally said that high quality content on faith and religion is needed in their respective countries. People want faith and religious stereotypes to be addressed: 61% say media perpetuates these stereotypes rather than protects against them. 78% believe such stereotypes should get the same or more attention as race and gender stereotypes. 8 in 10 believe faith and religious groups must provide more relevant spokespeople. Over 85% want more diversity and lived experiences from these representatives (among those who feel faith and media groups must do more). Journalists feel that coverage of faith & religion is poor, inconsistent, and becoming more marginalized. They express fear around ’getting right’ religious coverage, particularly in largely secular newsrooms. Religious stories are not seen as a good fit for ‘hard’ news, easier to do ‘soft’ coverage and focus ‘hard’ news on times of controversy or scandal." (Findings at-a-glance, page 5)
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"This study finds that the Indonesian media ecosystem is not a safe space for marginalized religions. As explained in the conclusion to the content analysis, the space given by the media for news coverage of marginalized religious groups is still very small. Although non-Islamic official religions e
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njoy enough coverage space, they are only ceremonial in nature. Most of the coverage is given to things like religious holidays. Even if the news coverage of Sigi was quite extensive, this was made possible by the presentation of the issue as part of a national and global discourse: terrorism. In other words, issues related to the marginalized religious groups have no inherent news value unless they are placed in the context of a “big narrative” such as “against terrorism.” This leads to the depiction of marginalized religious groups as “victims.” They tend to be treated as objects rather than subjects who can narrate their own point of view. When it comes to news consumption, the internet in Indonesia (as well as in the rest of the world) has become a crucial medium in obtaining news and information, while printed media and radio are gradually losing their relevance. Television, however, remains a popular choice for people's news consumption. The data shows that this is common across all participants regardless of religion, gender and demography. Significant differences can be seen in the utilization of the internet for marginalized and nonmarginalized religious groups. Use of social media and chat applications to find and share religious information is dominantly carried out by marginalized religious groups. For non-marginalized religious groups, even if they use the internet for this purpose, they do not abandon television as a means to access religious information. Unfortunately, the increasing trend to consume information from the internet is not supported by basic media literacy skills and knowledge." (Conclusion, page 56)
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"The handbook is divided into five parts, each taking global developments in the field into account: Theoretical Reflections, Power and Authority Conflict, Radicalization and Populism, Dialogue and Peacebuilding, Trends. Within these sections, central issues, debates and developments are examined, i
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ncluding: religious and secular press; ethics; globalization; gender; datafication; differentiation; journalistic religious literacy; race, and religious extremism." (Publisher description)
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"The most mentioned religious groups include Muslims (Sunnis and Shiites). This is logical given that Islam is the majority religion in the three monitored countries. There is also a fair amount of content mentioning Christians in each country as well as Shiites and Sunnis in both Lebanon and Iraq.
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The report provides a first analysis of the nature of the conversation, while understanding the limitation of this research in providing a comprehensive overview of the narrative. Also, sectarianism and components were among the most popular concepts mentioned, often in claims that there are attempts at minimizing sectarian strife and appeasing the diverse segments of the population. The minimal coverage of certain topics pertaining to law, gender, the environment, science, and technology in their relationship with religion reflects the interests of the region and its governments. Social and political turmoil are perceived as more crucial for survival and worthy of attention. Social and political topics are more present in the public debate. As for the general discourse and tone of the narrative, they were mostly neutral if not even positive at times. Though it’s important to note that whatever points the authors aimed to make, they were rarely ever explicit." (Some of the key findings, page 8-9)
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"A central theme running through this report is the basic and fundamental conviction that journalists and programme-makers should aim to explore the “lived experience” of religion as well as its doctrinal, ritual and ceremonial elements. This view was supported across the full body of our submis
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sions and by panellists from a variety of different faiths. Too often, religion and belief are reduced to a series of rules to be learnt and practices understood; it was instructive that the majority of responses from media organisations understood religious literacy only as a matter of acquiring knowledge. For the vast majority of people of faith, this is only one part of their religious lives. Focusing on practices and rituals fundamentally misses the lived experience of faith as something which informs every part of public and private life and acts as a source of motivation, strength and guidance to the majority of the world’s inhabitants. Until this simple truth is understood, the media will continue to misrepresent and misunderstand religion." (Executive summary)
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"Christianity as the predominant religion in Zimbabwe consists of several faith groupings, each of which responds to public events through the mass media. Mainline churches uphold a conventional human rights approach to faith-based political criticism, while Mapostori or Apostolic churches follow an
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Africanist form of faith and appear to condone some alignment with the authoritarian ruling party. In the sampled media coverage of three online newspapers, the political use of religious strategies or practices from various faith groups by the president and high-ranking party functionaries is reported from either the former government-sanctioned view or an oppositional stance. Moralist reprimand is levied at various politicians from a religious rationale, assuming good and evil, church and state, Christianity and African spirituality, which, however, remain abstract since there is no overall faith-based guidance for political behaviour beyond a secular constitution that still appears utopian. The critical discourse analysis suggests that complex relationships exist among the various faiths, causing diverse religious interpretations of political events. This suspension of Cartesian thinking results in a continuing circular logic of blame and prayer, disaster and prophesy instead of the use of constitutional democratic institutions to hold politicians accountable. Such logic seems sustained by politicized interpretations of spiritual entities, spiritual interpretations of political events and by the perceptions of the Zimbabwean public, who, as believers of one or other faith, is equally at the mercy of opportunistic ‘prophets’ from many denominations as it is targeted by the political powers of the day." (Abstract)
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"Les médias reflètent-ils les sociétés telles qu’elles sont aujourd’hui ou bien ne reflètent-ils que les tendances majoritaires ? Comment mettre en lumière les différences et les particularismes sans encourager le communautarisme et contribuer aux divisions ? Le rôle des médias est-il d
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e rapporter les faits ou de contribuer activement à une certaine vision de la société ? Les critères professionnels du journalisme sont-ils suffisants pour éviter les discours de haine et les messages exacerbant les tensions communautaires ? Lancé par CFI et le centre SKeyes pour la liberté de la presse et de la culture (de la Fondation Samir Kassir), le projet Naseej – qui signifie « tissage » en arabe – s’appuie sur les médias pour restaurer et maintenir un débat équilibré autour de ces questions. En examinant ce que les médias libanais, syriens et irakiens publient et diffusent, le langage utilisé, les concepts promus, les groupes qui y sont représentés et ceux qui ne le sont pas, Naseej tente de promouvoir une vision inclusive du journalisme. L’objet n’est pas de demander aux journalistes de restaurer la paix ou d’éviter les conflits, mais de contribuer à l’émergence de conditions plus propices au dialogue à travers une meilleure qualité d’information vérifiée et professionnelle, évitant les généralisations et les stéréotypes. Il n’est pas de demander aux médias d’accorder un traitement privilégié aux minorités face à la majorité, mais de mettre en lumière les difficultés auxquelles font face les citoyens, tous les citoyens, quelles que soient leurs appartenances. Ce livret présente la synthèse d’une étude, réalisée en octobre 2017, sur la couverture médiatique de la diversité dans les médias irakiens, libanais et syriens, réalisée par la Fondation Adyan et la Fondation Samir Kassir." (Introduction)
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"The monitoring and the analysis carried out for the purpose of this study found out that the media and the institutional channels of mass communication of religious communities have behaved correctly while carrying out their duties, and have established a climate of communication that emits and fos
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ters mutual respect among the faithful, tolerance and harmony that have prevailed the Albanian religious tradition. On the other hand, alongside media institutions of religious communities or organizations operating in the country, the Albanian online world has been infiltrated by a relatively large number of websites which appear to have been created and operated by Islamic religious organizations based in Turkey or other countries in the Middle East. Some of these websites promote schools of Islam that do not match the tradition of the Albanian Islam, and provide a more radical interpretation of the Islamic doctrine. Especially problematic are some websites that promote in Albanian the schools of Salafism and Wahhabism as well as other extremist schools or sects. Meanwhile, the monitoring of the mainstream print and broadcast media in Albania, revealed that they report on religion and activities of religious background mainly during religious festivities, on cases of religiously-motivated clashes or conflicts, on controversial statements regarding religion, its history and religious cohabitation in Albania, as well as cases of scandal and controversy among the ranks of religious authorities." (Page 3)
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"Die ARD-Themenwoche 2017 hat ihre Ziele, nämlich möglichst viele Menschen mit einem besonderen Themenangebot vertieft in Kontakt zu bringen und Angebote zur Reflexion über den eigenen Glauben und den Glauben anderer Menschen an zu bieten, erreicht und damit erneut einen Beitrag zum Public Value
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geleistet. Mehr als 33 Millionen Zuschauer bzw. 45 Prozent aller Fernsehnutzer wurden zwischen dem 11. und 17. Juni 2017 mit mindestens einer Sendung der ARD-Themenwoche „Woran glaubst Du?“ erreicht. Von Ende April bis Ende Juni 2017 wurde die Seite www.themenwoche.ard.de fast zwei Millionen Mal aufgerufen. Sehr hoch war die Beteiligung an den interaktiven Angeboten – entweder direkt auf der Webseite oder in den sozialen Medien –, bei denen Menschen ihre persönlichen Ansichten zu Fragen des Glaubens einbringen und mitdiskutieren konnten. So griffen 43 000 Nutzer und Nutzerinnen auf den Liveblog zu und posteten eigene Beiträge, um Einiges höher noch war die Beteiligung via Facebook und Twitter. Erfolgreich war auch das Zusammenspiel der verschiedenen ARD-Medien, um Menschen in verschiedenen Zielgruppen mit den Inhalten der Themenwoche anzusprechen." (Zusammenfassung)
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"It is quite obvious that cultural and ethical questions have a potential to stir public discourse in countries which claim to be a part of the Western civilization. The ongoing public discourse on these questions has been tagged as ‘culture war’. The conflict itself appears irreconcilable and c
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oncerns have been raised as to whether a dialogue between the two opposing parties is useful or even possible. The author of the study seeks answers to this question against the backdrop of communication of religious message on marriage, family and homosexuality. Drawing on her previously published studies on media discourse prior to the Slovak referendum on family, as well as previous researches into the key argumentation bases (including ‘human nature’ and ‘manipulation’), the author examines the question using a method of in-depth interviews with the most influential journalists. The study focuses on how to effectively communicate religious messages in public discourse and presents the findings about the misunderstanding on both sides of the dispute. The study also suggests possible solutions. The author affirms that dialogue can make the form of discussion more enjoyable, however it does not lead to resolution of the differences. The study suggests that the ability of communicators to discern between political and non-political advocacy of ideas critical as the former require tougher forms, while the latter softer forms of communication. When used in incompatible contexts, these messages may backfire." (Abstract)
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"The present study is part of a complex research of media language to spread religious messages. It deals with the nature of the communication channel of the mass-media. It is based on the qulitative research carried out especially by means of the methods of focus groups and Delphi Techniques. Start
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ing with the key issue of the function of journalism, the study gradually investigates the attributes of the media communication channels according to their approach towards religious topics. Based on this criterion, the research divides media into two groups: secular and religious media. The study carefully investigates their internal motivation, commerciality, democratic nature and publicity, agenda setting and capacity to change people. (Abstract)
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"There can be no doubt about the high relevance of public media for the image we have of religion in general and certain religions in particular. Yet, it seems that the topic has long been neglected in academic research and discourse. This volume brings together multi-disciplinary perspectives, pres
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ented by internationally reputed experts. They offer illuminating analyses on the various interrelations between media and religions in the fields of human rights, anti-Islamism and anti-Semitism, on religions’ potential to foster peace and to contribute to media ethics and media education in pluralistic societies. The book also provides helpful orientation and concrete suggestions for journalistic and educational practice, academic research, political and social involvement." (Publisher description)
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