How and why increased media use
creates both openness & animosity among religious communities in Africa and beyond.
Understanding religion through the realm of media is one that is simple yet complex. There is no one through-way into exploring the increased use of media in modern-day Africa. The transformation of the media in Africa has been one of radical change, “since the early 1990s, with the end of one-party rule and many authoritarian regimes and subsequent political liberalisation in many places in Africa, the media landscape has changed radically” (Hackett & Soares 2015, 1). The media as we know it controls the realities of its so-called, free speech. Ironically, life today would cripple without the use of media. Just as the media is in constant development and transformation so is religion, especially within the African continent. African societies are developing not parallel to the media but rather through the media and so is religion. Because the media is largely a space of which anyone can access and use, I argue that the modernization of the media and accessibility thereof allows for both its openness and animosity. These two terms therefor cannot be explored as separate entities. One will have to see these terms in tandem. Firstly, I will explore the terms, openness and animosity individually in the context of the increased media use in religious communities within Africa. Then discuss how the terms work in tandem in creating animosity through openness.
The media in all its different forms can be accessed virtually by anyone. Because the media is such a versatile entity, its versatility spans and knows no borders. Through this, the media creates an open space through which anyone can consume and produce content. In this case, openness can translate into freedom. So, through its easy accessibility the increased use of media, it allows for openness to preach what you want to preach as individual or collective. This permits for ‘freedom of expression’ and freedom to choose your target audience. Through openness, the media also forms virtual religious communities on a global scale. However, this was not always the case, as Nyamnjoh states;
Places and spaces demarcated and delineated as holy and for worship (churches, mosques, shrines, sacred monuments, etc.) were understood to be where one went to pray seriously and where the spirit world, regardless of beliefs about omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence, was most likely to be present or accessed, to answer prayers, and to demonstrate power, benevolence, and munificence (2015, vii).
Hence, the global advent of media usage and the permission of freedom of expression for many religious groups across Africa and beyond, this sort of transparency sets precedent for animosities that comes to be through its openness. In researching and exploring dialogues that speak of the notions discussed in this article, it becomes clear that the openness creates or rather leads to the animosities existing, and vice versa. There are, yet again, numerous aspects that produce and generate animosity in mediated religious groups.
In understanding how and why the animosities are created in the media, one firstly needs to regard the way in which the media operates. The media today, has become more business orientated than any other aspect or purpose thereof. Hence people using it to, “strengthen and expand their [religious] communities and to gain public recognition for their [religious] organisations, activities and various agendas” (Hackett & Soares 2015, 2). This business-tization of religious communities within Africa can be seen in the way they advertise through media. For instance, in the billboard below, a Detroit pastor, Spencer T Ellis, has utilized the phrase, “No Pimpin’ Straight Preachin”.
This speaks directly to the notion of business-like operation within the religious/media relationship. This refers to the in-tandem relationship of openness and animosity caused in the media. Because the media allows for pastors, such as Spencer T. Ellis, to technically say what they want and how they want, this causes the animosity among other communities within the same society and even beyond.
(http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/detroit-pastors-no-pimpin-straight-preachin-billboard-gets-attention)
Misrepresentation of respective religious groups, which are subjective points of view, is one such animosity. Religious persons within the media sphere appropriate media services with effect mentalities are immediately altered in business-orientated state of mind(s).
Because much of global media are not stand-alone and independent entities they have influence predominantly from conglomerates to be within the same ideological threshold of what each player is standing for or would want out of each other. The media holds the power of mediation and what gets put out there. The media works through a hierarchy alike to the food chain and through what was an aid in this article, religion takes on the same form. Those who are at the top will most likely stay there.
REFERENCE LIST:
Hackett, Rosalind I. J. & Benjamin Soares. 2015. “Introduction: New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa”, in Rosalind I.J. Hackett & B. Soares (eds), New Religious Transformations in Africa, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press): 1–16
Nyamnjoh, Francis B. 2015. “Forward” in Rosalind I.J. Hackett & B. Soares (eds), New
Religious Transformations in Africa, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press): vii-xii.
Spencer, Dave. “Detroit pastor’s “No pimpin’ straight preachin’” billboard gets attention”. Posted 22 May 2015. http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/detroit-pastors-no-pimpin-straight-preachin-billboard-gets-attention
