"This article is a study of mourning among Shi’a Muslims during the COVID-19 pandemic through a call-in talk show called #IAMHUSSEINI. By analyzing the discourses of callers and presenters and locating them within a visual context of the television studio, this article shows how the viewership of
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#IAMHUSSEINI constitutes a televisual majlis (Arabic: ‘assembly’) composed of more than passive asynchronous consumption and resembling what Patrick Eisenlohr refers to as ‘atmospheres’. This article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic drove #IAMHUSSEINI to recalibrate to expectations of a spatially proximate ritual, rather than sustaining a ‘natively digital’ aesthetic, repurposing Richard Rogers’ approach to digital methods. This change brought about a tacit understanding of the televisual majlis among #IAMHUSSEINI’s viewers. This article therefore posits a difference between ‘spatial intercorporeality’, in which bodies are mediated by spatial proximity, and ‘functional intercorporeality’, in which they are mediated by the material preconditions of a shared activity." (Abstract)
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"In Pakistan, religious talk shows emerged as a popular television genre following the 2002 media liberalization reforms. Since then, these shows have become important platforms where ideas about Islam and religious authority in Pakistan are developed and argued. In Religious Television and Pious Au
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thority in Pakistan, Taha Kazi reveals how these talk shows mediate changes in power, belief, and practice. She also identifies the sacrifices and compromises that religious scholars feel compelled to make in order to ensure their presence on television. These scholars, of varying doctrinal and educational backgrounds-including madrasa-educated scholars and self-taught celebrity preachers-are given screen time to debate and issue religious edicts on the authenticity and contemporary application of Islamic concepts and practices. In response, viewers are sometimes allowed to call in live with questions. Kazi maintains that these featured debates inspire viewers to reevaluate the status of scholarly edicts, thereby fragmenting religious authority. By exploring how programming decisions inadvertently affect viewer engagements with Islam, Religious Television and Pious Authority in Pakistan looks beyond the revivalist impact of religious media and highlights the prominence of religious talk shows in disrupting expectations about faith." (Publisher description)
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"Die Islamkonferenz hat kritisch nach dem Beitrag der Medien für die Integration von Muslimen gefragt. 2007 machten der SWR mit der Radio-Sendung „Islamisches Wort“ und das ZDF mit der TV-Sendung „Forum am Freitag“ einen Anfang. Der NDR folgte später mit dem „Freitagsforum“ und der „
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Deutschlandfunk“ mit „Koran erklärt“. Die Diskussion über Islam im Rundfunk konzentriert sich auf zwei Bereiche: auf die Einführung weiterer islamischer Sendungen, analog zu christlichen und jüdischen Sendungen, und auf Gremiensitze für muslimische Vertreter in den Rundfunk- und Fernsehräten. Der Artikel beleuchtet den Status quo islamischer Sendungen und Gremienvertreter. Deutlich wird: Nicht rechtliche Hürden sind oft Integrationshindernisse, sondern mangelnder politischer Wille." (Zusammenfassung)
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"Satellite TV and the Internet revolutions have reinvigorated religious discourse in public spaces. Across the world, religious TV channels and Internet religious websites have taken up the roles of traditional religious spaces such as churches, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras and temples. Islamic re
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ligious content through fatwa (religious verdict) programmes and other online and satellite TV genre has attracted considerable attention over the last fifteen years. Such programmes have become influential platforms in constructing people’s opinions. On Islamic-oriented satellite TV channels, fatwa provision has nowadays become a sophisticated phenomenon exceeding the traditional scope of religious teaching. To understand fatwa and its possible impact, it is necessary to gauge the plethora of platforms available for audiences and users as sources of understanding their religious needs starting with satellite TV programmes to the unlimited online platforms for the diffusion of their religious decree. This research attempts to understand the extent to which fatwa programmes on satellite TV and radio are significant in shaping people’s opinion. Through the implementation of an extensive survey questionnaire on a sample of the Qatari society in addition to interviews with experts and religious scholars, findings show that fatwa on satellite programme can be very important in helping viewers better understand their religion. The results also indicated that respondents included in the survey showed apathy when it comes to the implementation of rulings coming from muftis on TV. In short, respondents may watch fatwa or religious programmes on satellite TV or they may listen to them on the Qur’an radio in Qatar but they do not necessarily consider them as totally authentic. Authentic scholarly views on matters of religious seem to be more credible when they originate from a reputable Imam whom they see face to face. Moreover, results show that satellite TV has facilitated the emergence of the pan-Arab mufti or global Faqeeh. It has also facilitated the emergence of independent muftis and freed fatwa from the official religious authorities in various countries." (Publisher description)
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"Religious channels in the MENA region are approximately 10 percent of all free-to-air (FTA) channels from 2012 to 2014. This is a relatively high share compared to many markets outside the region, such as the U.K., where religious channels only represent one percent of FTA channels. Religious chann
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els increased by 50 percent from 2012 to 2014 [...] The market structure and trends in religious content follow the region’s faith demographics. This is why Sunni Muslim channels are more numerous. At an overall market level, 88 percent of religious FTA television channels are focused on Islam content and the remaining 12 percent on Christian content. Of Muslim channels, 83 percent are Sunni and 17 percent are Shia. The region currently has no FTA TV channels dedicated to other faiths. Growth in religious channels remains driven by the Sunni Muslim sub-segment, which contributed almost half of new religious channels (12 out of 25 from 2011 to 2014). At the same time, the region is also seeing significant growth in Shia and Christian channels. Over the same period, the number of Shia channels more than doubled from five to eleven, and the number of Christian channels expanded more than four-fold from two to nine." (www.mideastmedia.org/industry/2016/religious)
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"Television executives and producers are busy for 11 months of the year, preparing for the do-or-die one-month television season: Ramadan. This ninth month in the Islamic lunar calendar is at once a period of religious devotion and a time for the television industry’s best productions. It is a tim
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e when viewership soars, advertising rates peak, and television programs become topics of daily conversation. During Ramadan, programmers mostly provide Musalsalat (serials) that emphasize habitual viewing with the use of character development over multiple episodes, cliffhangers, strong emotions, and highly charged plots. Over the last few years, Ramadan programs have become popular with all segments of the society: young and old, rich and poor, females and males." (www.mideastmedia.org)
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"This report contains the collected, examined, and produced information on the fundamental characteristics of the media and communication industries, whenever possible, in the MENA region as a whole. It typically includes 14 countries from Mauritania on the Atlantic Ocean to Oman on the Arab Gulf. F
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ive MENA countries have been selected for more detailed information: Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In probing the media landscape, we examine large and small countries from North Africa and the Gulf; some that are quite stable, some more turbulent; media-rich and media-poor with different regimes and degrees of media regulation. So, this report finally complements our surveys of the media audience with a close and systematic look at the media content offering, its production, and distribution. This report consists of sections for each individual medium as traditionally defined: television, film, radio, magazines, newspapers, and recorded music. With the ongoing (but not total) migration of traditional media to digital platforms, digital has a section of its own." (www.mideastmedia.org/industry/2016/about/#s68)
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"Preaching Islamic Renewal examines the life and work of Muhammad Mitwalli Sha‘rawi, one of Egypt's most beloved and successful Islamic preachers. His wildly popular TV program aired every Friday for years until his death in 1998. At the height of his career, it was estimated that up to 30 million
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people tuned in to his show each week. Yet despite his pervasive and continued influence in Egypt and the wider Muslim world, Sha‘rawi was for a long time neglected by academics. While much of the academic literature that focuses on Islam in modern Egypt repeats the claim that traditionally trained Muslim scholars suffered the loss of religious authority, Sha‘rawi is instead an example of a well-trained Sunni scholar who became a national media sensation. As an advisor to the rulers of Egypt as well as the first Arab television preacher, he was one of the most important and controversial religious figures in late-twentieth-century Egypt. Thanks to the repurposing of his videos on television and on the Internet, Sha‘rawi’s performances are still regularly viewed. Jacquelene Brinton uses Sha‘rawi and his work as a lens to explore how traditional Muslim authorities have used various media to put forth a unique vision of how Islam can be renewed and revived in the contemporary world. Through his weekly television appearances he popularized long held theological and ethical beliefs and became a scholar-celebrity who impacted social and political life in Egypt." (Back cover)
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"Satellite TV channels from the Middle East started beaming into Eritrea from 1996, and the Eritrean youth are avid consumers of the global messages from across the borders. Following an in-depth interview method as a research technique, using an unstructured, openended questionnaire, the present st
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udy presents how ethnicity and religion play a role in making meaning out of the messages of Middle East-based Arabic TV channels among lowland Tigre-/Arabic-speaking Eritrean youth aged 18–25 years. The researchers have observed the way foreign TV channel programmes have influenced family norms, social roles for women, sexual norms, lifestyles and music preferences of young Tigre viewers. The study concludes that Islam and Arabic language are two important factors influencing the lowland Tigre youth in picking up Arabic channels as they reinforce the same culture and traditions apart from creating Pan-Arab identities among the Arabic-/Tigre-speaking youth, at the same time preserving the indigenous culture from the influence of the West." (Abstract)
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"New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa casts a critical look at Africa's rapidly evolving religious media scene. Following political liberalization, media deregulation, and the proliferation of new media technologies, many African religious leaders and activists have appropriated such me
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dia to strengthen and expand their communities and gain public recognition. Media have also been used to marginalize and restrict the activities of other groups, which has sometimes led to tension, conflict, and even violence. Showing how media are rarely neutral vehicles of expression, the contributors to this multidisciplinary volume analyze the mutual imbrications of media and religion during times of rapid technological and social change in various places throughout Africa." (Publisher description)
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"Today the relations between Arab audiences and Arab media are characterised by pluralism and fragmentation. More than a thousand Arab satellite TV channels alongside other new media platforms are offering all kinds of programming. Religion has also found a vital place as a topic in mainstream media
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or in one of the approximately 135 religious satellite channels that broadcast guidance and entertainment with an Islamic frame of reference. How do Arab audiences make use of mediated religion in negotiations of identity and belonging? The empirical based case studies in this interdisciplinary volume explore audience-media relations with a focus on religious identity in different countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, and the United States." (Publisher description)
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"This monograph provides a critical overview and assessment of the new and rising phenomenon of dakwahtainment or Islamic televangelism in post-reformasi Indonesia. This phenomenon feeds on the increasing materialist, consumerist, nihilistic and voyeuristic culture of celebrity that is currently eng
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ulfing Indonesia. It is set against a context where democratisation and media liberalisation are taking root in the Indonesian state and society. This work stems from action research conducted throughout 2012." (Introduction)
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"Within less than 20 years, the number of Arabic-language satellite channels has risen from zero to more than 500, including channels financed by the US, Russia, China, the UK and France. Some 50 of these channels label themselves as Islamic (and a handful are Christian), but Islamic programming is
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also present in many of the other channels, whether state-run or private. This massive proliferation of Islamic programming has also given rise to specifically Islamist and Salafist channels and programmes. This chapter will describe these developments and discuss their implications. Mass media and Islamic fundamentalism go back a long way in the Arab World." (Page 264)
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"Since the mid-1990s, the influence of satellite television broadcasting in the Middle East has become central to the shaping of public attitudes in the region and beyond. While many of the main influential mainstream satellite channels are news-focused, entertainment and religious broadcasting are
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also significant. Religious Broadcasting in the Middle East offers a synopsis of a conference held at Cambridge in January 2010. It focuses on the discourses of a selection of Islamic, Christian and Jewish religious broadcasting channels, as well as the wider factors and structures that sustain them." (Back cover)
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"Der Mainstream-Islam, der sich heute im arabischen Fernsehen und Internet präsentiert, hat [...] eine besondere Charakteristik: er hat eine moralische Botschaft, ist aber nicht vordergründig politisch und wird damit geduldet von den autoritären Regimes, die in populär-religiösen Formaten zumei
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st keine Bedrohung sehen, sondern glauben, die Hinwendung zur Religion vielleicht noch für die eigene Legitimierung nutzen zu können. Er ist alltagskompatibel, aber wertkonservativ, weil er durch transnationale SAT-Produzenten für ein breites Publikum in einer Vielzahl von arabischen Ländern konzipiert ist, ohne dabei Anstoß bei religiösen und politischen Autoritäten erregen zu wollen. Er ist äußerlich fragmentiert, bietet aber dennoch die Möglichkeit der (virtuellen) Vergemeinschaftung und erfüllt damit die Ansprüche von post-modernen Gesellschaften, deren Elemente auf unterschiedliche Weise nach Führung, Sinn und Halt suchen und deren Identität sich in einer globalisierten Moderne über den Islam scheinbar aufwerten lässt. Optimistisch kann man also zusammenfassend von einer Pluralisierung des religiösen Diskurses durch die Medialisierung sprechen sowie von einer verstärkten Alltagsbezogenheit des Islams. Den staatlichen Eliten und den strategisch an sie gebundenen orthodoxen islamischen Einrichtungen und Strömungen wurde mit den religiösen Formaten in den neuen Medien das Monopol der Verbreitung religiöser Wahrheiten prinzipiell entzogen. Aus einer eher pessimistischer Sichtweise lässt sich aber auch feststellen, dass durch die Medialisierung des Islams eine neue Orthodoxie Einzug hält. Denn auch in den ambitionierteren Formaten von Amr Khaled und Yusuf al-Qaradawi geht es nicht um eine Auseinandersetzung über religiöse Streitfragen oder die Gegenüberstellung verschiedener Positionen im Islam, sondern es wird eine individualisierte spirituelle Führung angeboten und von den Rezipienten auch gesucht, die kritisches Denken zugunsten von wertkonservativen Vorgaben vernachlässigt." (Seite 122-123)
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"[...] Vor diesem Hintergrund sei nun der heutige rechtliche Sachstand bei den religiösen Sendungen anhand einiger Gesetzesbeispiele etwas genauer beschrieben (unter 2). Daraus werden sich auch bereits erste Aufschlüsse über künftige allgemeine Entwicklungs- und Reformmöglichkeiten ergeben. Ein
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entsprechender innovativer Ansatz wird dann kurz umrissen, mit ein paar Seitenblicken auf Islamunterricht in der deutschen öffentlichen Schule als interessante Vergleichsmaterie (unter 3). Nachfolgend geht es um ausgewählte Fragen der Nutzanwendung auf die islamische Religion und deren Präsenz im deutschen Rundfunkwesen, und zwar auch über die Drittsendungen hinaus (unter 4), beginnend vielleicht mit einem redaktionell betreuten „Wort zum Freitag“ (unter 5)." (Einleitung, Seite 8)
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