LAICISM IN MEDIA
Religion is generally defined in many sources as any specific system of belief about deity, often-involving rituals, a code of ethics, and a philosophy of life. In addition to this, Don Swenson defines religion in terms of the sacred: "Religion is the individual and social experience of the sacred that is manifested in mythologies, ritual, ethos, and integrated into a collective or organization" (Swenson, D. 1999). Therefore, religions have had huge effects on people in many areas like their cultures, life styles, etc. in all eras of history. With the formation of communication, interaction among people, cultures and also religions are accelerated, so people have tried to spread their ideas and beliefs with the help of communication in different forms such as mass media. However, people have used the mass media except for its real purpose for propaganda of religions or in contrast they used the religions as an object for mass media. Therefore, there are two kind of relationship between religion and media from the past up till now; pressure of religion on media and effects of media on religion.
The first relationship between religion and media is the negative effects and pressure of religion on media that restricted the freedom of ideas. It can be seen many examples that support this thesis in history and today. In Medieval Europe is one of the best-known and clear example for the pressure of religion in past. In this era, for example, church prevented the new scientific ideas against their religious ideology. As one of the illustration, “Galileo was called before the Inquisition in Rome and forced to take back his statements that the sun, not the Earth, is the center of the solar system”(The Age of Enlightenment, 2002). That’s why, church controlled mass media and prohibited the publishing from another hand in order to protect its power. Actually, there were not mass media as developed as today’s technology like newspapers, TV, and the Internet in this time. Nevertheless, they communicated and interacted in different ways such as books, sculptures, or arts. Therefore, media are instruments of transmission and they are necessary to the church so that people can deliver a message. Much like trucks or trains are used to deliver other types of products or merchandise. However, after the reform, church lost its power and many books that include free ideas published in the enlightenment age in Europe.
