The conflict between religion and media has deep roots
August 27th, 2016
Dr Abby Day
Reader in Race, Faith and Culture in the Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London where she convenes the interdisciplinary BA Religion programme. She also teaches sociology of religion, religion and gender, and religion and crime on both undergraduate and MA programmes. Her book ‘Believing in Belonging: Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World’, OUP 2013 (2011) explores religion in the public sphere.
A recent report into the place of religion in public life presented a gloomy picture of the relationship between media and religion. Whilst media misrepresentations usually concern Muslims, the most vocal complainers are Christians. Abby Day argues the reason for this may lie in more fundamental, ancient and even ontological concerns.
Recent attention to mainstream media reveals that relations between religion and media appear to be breaking down. A two-year investigation into the role of religion in public life reported that virtually everyone involved expressed concern about how religion and belief is portrayed by the media. That’s perhaps not surprising, considering that most who participated voluntarily in the investigation probably did so because they were concerned.
That concern is being further explored by a new All Party Parliamentary Group on religious literacy in the media, led by Bolton MP Yasmin Qureshi. Their stated objectives are: ‘to work for greater religious literacy in both media and politics; to foster a better understanding and representation of religion in media coverage of news and culture, noting the priority of religion as a prime motivator of individuals and communities; to encourage more diversity in media representation of religion; to work towards a Seventh Public Purpose for the BBC in Charter Renewal: to promote religious literacy’.
Religious representation in the media
There are a number of failings with how religion is represented in the mainstream media, many well documented. The media needs to be held to account, for example, for incorrect stories about particular religious groups. The Independent Press Standards Organisation needs to be tougher and make sure that corrections and retractions are given weight equal to the original erroneous article.
The unfair treatment of Muslims by certain journalists is another failing of the media. In particular that media attention to religion often consists of stories about ‘extremist’ Muslims, ignoring the high levels of Christian extremism that could also be described as such.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-conflict-between-religion-and-media-has-deep-roots/