Representation of religion in media

  • Religion and media are world apart. What do we really understand by them both? Media: the definition changes with time. First came the printed media in the early times (1040 AD) when digital media was not so popular among the civilizations, it was regulated among the elite for them to be aware about the on royalty or the head of the states at the time. As time changed the print media was made common among all class of people and then came the time of digital media, where the game changed from giving people information to making it a business for own personal gain and propaganda. Religion: when we talk about religion we could easily say that when a large group of people have a particular set of beliefs that defines the relation between them and the higher power, they believe that the Power has the will to change day to night, summer to winter and such as. In more sampler words believing in a greater power then themselves. Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and those who don’t believe in any religion “atheists”, 84% of the world’s population follows these religions. If now we look a little more closely at both, religion and media they are not so apart after all. They both talk power.

    A balance has to be maintained of good and bad in the universe, if it all were bad nothing would be left in universe and if it were all good we would never know the value of what we have unless there is an opposing force to tell us what will happen if we are ungrateful. Same principle is applied to the media, the positive and the negative impact of media on the society.

     

    Representing religion in media has both the effects of positivity and negativity. In this age everything has an agenda. The representation of religion is media has to be monitored very closely as not to offend anyone who is practicing religion. But as its said it’s the age of agenda and everyone wants something may it be power or some selfish reason. This is what is happening in today’s world.

    For example some people may do it for fame or to defame a nation, the one example we can take is off asia bibi in Pakistan who was wrongly accused of using foul language against the great Prophet (PBUH), but later on as a few organizations working against our country took her and her family under there protection and starting working against it, in order to remove the blasphemy law from Pakistan. Media played a vital role in this they showed the bad side of Islam without seeing the long term effects of it but in reality that was the agenda to show a particular religion bad and negative right. BBC, worlds most watch international news channels showed aisa bibi as a victim when in start she was but later on she turned against in greed and the BBC showed that the muslin’s of this country were a threat to her.

    Islam is one of the religions targeted most by the media. Always a bad image is shown. Whenever in the countries with the majority of Christians, if there is an act in a public place or school or shooting and the person or people behind that are found to be Muslims, they are declared as “Terrorists” right away but same case senior happens and the shooter or person is found to be non-muslim they are said to be mentally ill because GOD forbid their religion cannot be driven down in dirt. We Muslims have also done nothing to make our image better among the society and the rest of the world. 

    Let’s take the example of home land season, in which Pakistan is shown as country filled with barbarians. The capital of Pakistan, which is ranked in the top 5 most beautiful capitals in the world but in homeland its shown as a desert and the women wear burkas and men long turbans with breads and how speak Arabic when in reality nothing is life that. That is how media shows Pakistan and its religion. Yet we did not stand up and speak against them all we did was shut down Startworld channel during that time. Our media did not speak against it nor did our leaders. But when India was shown as a terrorist country, they spoke up no one talk’s badly out their religion why, because they used the power of media to change that. There are countless examples of how media represents a religion. Another example, the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995 is another example. This is widely described by media as the killing of 8,000 ‘Muslim’ men and boys by ‘Serbs’, without noting their religion as Christians. The Serb military and political leaders charged with war crimes are not referred to as Christian terrorists. That is apparently not ‘the story’.         

    Agenda setting, that what’s it’s all about these days, Christianity is shown so holy and peaceful in media, while Hinduism and Buddhism are shown full of life and color and last but not least Islam is shown full of hate and killings and anyone practicing is a terrorist.