After mentioning the above, it would be thought that religion has to be broadcasted through media, even though people may feel offensive towards it, or may feel obliged to take their anger out on an innocent citizen (as mentioned on the example above.). This is strongly believed because people should have the opportunity to understand about different religions all over the world, whether it is news related topics or generally about different cultures, rituals etc. They should have the opportunity because people can then accept to live in a multi-cultural and ethnic society, without being racially offensive. In effect, broadcasting religions over media does then mean that being offensive to other religions can not happen as it can easily cause conflicts between people or even countries as the past can tell. Broadcasting religion sensitively can therefore encourage people to respect everyone and anyone the same as each other. Ideally, there should not be any form of racism anywhere around the world and if it means that people who are part of the media have to be extra aware of not being offensive, it is a far better solution to overcome religious and ethnic differences.
When watching terrestrial TV channels on Sundays (in particular), many religious programmes are shown. Two Examples of this would be ‘Heaven and Earth’ and ‘Songs of Praise’. Both programmes are different as ‘Heaven and Earth’ is directly based on religious issues in a multi-religious view whereas ‘Songs of Praise’ deals with Christian religious issues.
‘Heaven and Earth’ is a programme, which tries to encourage people in thinking more broadly and is in a sense a non-confessional program. If ever watching the show, it is clear to think that the show focuses on a wide range of beliefs and needs of different communities, which means that it is in fact a pluralistic show. The people who run the show are very intelligent as they invite celebrities every week, which in effect attracts more viewers to the show as they share interesting thoughts. This show is very successful as it is shown from an objective view. This means that people who talk about religious issues gives the viewer to decide on topics, rather than stating the truth. This programme is a very good example of a specifically religious programme because it interacts with anyone whose watching the show and gives anyone an opportunity to state their own views on certain issues by emailing or by having phone in’s. The fact that the show uses a magazine style format means that many viewers will not lose interest as many different short magazine style features are involved.
‘Songs of Praise’ is quite different to Heaven and Earth as it is a confessional show so that Christians are able to worship on Sunday’s if they do not go to Church. This show is the complete opposite to Heaven and Earth as it focussed on Christians singing Hymns and is solely for all Christians (it is a ecumenical show). However, as ‘Heaven and Earth’ the show uses celebrities to attract more viewers. In addition, the show even shows modern forms of worshipping so that even younger viewers become interested in watching it. Lastly, ‘Songs of Praise’ also discusses topical issues but the only difference is that the show is based on only exploring Christian topical issues
