Religious Broadcasting
In this essay I am going to talk about how the media portrays religious broadcasting. There are two main types of religious broadcasting these are worship and magazine, a religious programme will usually broadcast an entire Christian service. This service will include hymn singing, prayers, interviews and testimonials. A magazine programme will include a number a reports, interviews and features. Most religious programmes will be shown during a timeslot called the God slot. This time slot is positioned between 10:30am to 6:00pm on Sunday’s.
Religious broadcasting is broadcasting religious organizations, usually with a religious message. In the United Kingdom, Christian organizations are by far the most widespread compared with other religions. Religious broadcasting is targeting a whole range of people, It depends on what programme you are watching. For example a programme like ‘Songs of praise’ could be targeting viewers who can’t go to there Sunday church like they would normally do. On the other hand programmes like ‘Tricks of the Bible’ could be targeting viewers who are not Christians but are curious into looking up Christianity.
An example of a magazine type program is ‘Heaven and Earth’. In this program a women presenter presents a range of reports, interviews and discussions. This program is not completely Christian based; there are other religious views on certain subjects. Heaven and Earth are trying to use current affairs that could link in with religion. For example the program is using the topic of the football world cup. They are talking about Wane Rooney’s broken foot and how the tabloids and supporters are thanking God that his food was healed. In this topic there are several reports, two interviews and a chance for the viewers at home to email in and voice their opinion. The program is using viewer interaction which is very common in a magazine style program.
Viewer interaction is when the presenter or presenters use technology like e-mail and phone to ask the viewers opinion on a certain subject. This shows that the program is not old fashioned and that they are up to date with modern aspects of human life. Most people believe that religious programmes are old fashioned are only about people singing and praising god, this program has defied this view. The presenter of the show is Gloria Hunniford, she is roughly in her 60’s and has appeared in many other programmes like; ‘This Morning’, ‘This is your Life’ and...