Religion in the Media

Religion in the Media

1. a. Describe the variety of specifically religious programmes on the four main television channels.

The four main types of religious programmes are mainly Christian. The BBC is the main channel for religious programs, there are more and more programs that are based on Christianity and now they are trying to make some comedies like The Vicar of Dibley and Father Ted. The vicar of Dibley is on the BBC and Father Ted is on channel 4, they contain actual Christian things that happen in church. They are both filmed in actual churches and get a lot more viewers than most other programmes. These are on most weeks and are trying to attract a younger audience and keep the viewing ratings high. There are some movies that are based on comedy in religion like Bruce Almighty and Life of Brian. The religious programmes are mainly on the BBC like Songs of Praise and The Big Question and The One Show. These are more religious based programmes. The Songs of Praise is just singing in church and is one of the first programmes. The others are trying to get a younger audience. They are all in the god slot, on a Sunday afternoon/early evening. It is the time when most religious programmes are on the TV. British broadcasting is multi faith nature. It is mainly Christian as that is the actual religion of Britain. Religion is discussed on TV and now there is an actual radio station and newspapers. In the �god slot’ there are programmes like Highway ad songs of praise. They have now got younger presenters and stations have to include religious programmes to cater for all the public interests because there is more people who attend church than those who go to football matches. There is more programmes that are just one off’s and only happen every year, like Christmas, Easter or Divalli. There are also other shows on one off occasions like hajj and letting in the New Year.

b. Analyse and explain the way in which a religious or moral issue has been dealt with in a television soap opera.

Soap operas tend to avoid bringing in religious issues in case it offends a religious person. There was an issue about Jesus being interpreted in a newspaper in Russia and there was a riot because it had said something that had offended lot of people. The issue lasted a long time and the newspaper company got sued. In soaps they don’t really say too much about the religion because a lot of people watch them and if they do do something bad they will offend a lot of people, lose a lot of viewers and get a bad reputation. There is always a few characters who are quite religious and they tend to keep together in a group. They are normally always talking about church groups. When there is an abortion on a soap they avoid telling religious people because they fall out because the religious people don’t believe in abortions because they believe that it is killing a human life. They normally are older people who are church goers and accept that religion plays a major part in their life.

c. Analyse and explain the way in which a religious theme has been dealt with in a film.

In a film like Bruce Almighty, god is betrayed as a black man and he was supposed to be looking after everybody (according to Bruce) and he said that he blocks everyone’s prayers and lets the world heal itself, Bruce thinks that he can do better and takes control. He uses all of his power on himself and forgets to use it on others. He loses his friends and his job and he finds out that it is a hard job, he gives up and learns his lesson. God did it to have a break for a while. This is a big issue as god is supposed to be watching all of the time and not have a break. It also makes it seem as though he is a human and not some other form of animal or spirit. In the film he tells Bruce that he doesn’t listen to the prayers and he just ignores them. This is also a big issue