A Study on the Role of the Media and Its Effects on the Identity of Muslims(Part 45)
Functions, Field of Activity, and Content of Religious Media
A society that is religious and morally oriented, and whose people are interested in Allah, spiritual, moral, and religious values, must have religious media. In Islam and Islamic society, media should be culture-creating tools, promoters of religion, and exponents of religious knowledge. Therefore, religious radio and television can achieve this with their artistic nature, and they should use their artistic mechanisms to strengthen godliness and religious value-centeredness in society. Knowledge has always been important for humans in every society, ensuring that individuals do not fall into sleepiness, self-forgetfulness, or Allah-forgetfulness in their mechanical and industrial life. Therefore, it requires continuous awakening and rational vigilance. Public media can constantly create and strengthen this awareness by using artistic tools. Religious and humanitarian media with a religious and Allah-centered vision and thinking can be realistic, value-oriented, truth-oriented, awakening, and guiding.
In these media, there is no power-seeking, humanism, censored utilitarianism and burning culture, desecration and sacrilege, nudity, sensuality, creating despair and hopelessness in the audience, promoting violence and moral vices, prostitution and abominations, undermining human values and moral virtues, ethnocentrism, indolence, and more because these are inconsistent with its accepted foundations, and never have any meaning or concept and are not advertised or published.
From another point of view, media from the perspective of religion can be in one of the following two ways: one is that the media from the perspective of religion is a tool for transmitting and spreading the message of religion and ethics; another is that the media is a reality in human life that should be based on dos and don’ts. In other words, religion affects the function and content of the media with its special teachings and rulings. In expressing these two meanings, it can be said: religion has worldview, ideology, insights, tendencies, and practices. Religion tells people how they should think and act. This is an inherent feature of religion, and it has no other choice but to communicate with the audience. The nature, life, thought, belief, and ideology are closely related to publication and expansion. Therefore, the concept of “religion” is tied to the concept of “prophecy” and sending messengers and preaching. The religion of Islam and the Holy Quran is a heavenly revelation, and a divine message sent to the prepared hearts of the Holy Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the susceptible audience. The audience of religion, like divine messengers, should in turn be a prophet for all people and invite everyone to listen to the message of religion, accept it, and finally act on it. Therefore, religion looks at the media as a tool to continue life and spread its message. In other words, media should be a tool in the Islamic and religious system to serve the religion and promote religious teachings and Islamic ethics.
