Mediated Messages
Religion and Internet Advertising: Similarities and Differences in the Perceptions of Religious Animists, Muslims and Christians about Entertainment Products
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Stover Eduardo Ezequias
This study comparatively examines the perception of the main predominant religions in Angola. Islam, Christianity and Animism were analysed. Based on the research objective, a mixed methodological approach was adopted. We analysed 305 responses from the surveys applied to religious people in four provinces of Angola, namely Luanda, Benguela, Huíla and Huambo, as these are the cities with the largest number of religious institutions. There were also 21 interviews with the leaders of the three religions under study and 4 focus groups with a number of participants ranging from 6 to 12 in each group. The ANOVA test showed that the means of the religious groups (Christian religion - Roman Catholic, Protestant, other Christian churches; Islamic religion and animist religion) are different. Therefore, there is a difference between the religious groups in the perception of advertising on the internet, particularly adverts on social media [F(7.297)=2.101; p< 0.05] and websites [F(5.297)=3.930; p< 0.001]. Perceptions varied according to religion, suggesting that religious groups do not all have equal averages. Multiple linear regression was used to check whether the degree of religiosity and the degree of spirituality of religious people are able to predict the degree of trust in the adverts available on the internet. The analysis resulted in a statistically non-significant model [F(2.302)=1.762;P>0.01;R²=0.012], i.e. the model is no better than chance. Degree of religiosity (β= -0.102;t=-1.563;P>0.01) and Degree of spirituality (β=-0.011;t=-0.167;P>0.01) are not predictors for the degree of trust in internet adverts.
Abstraction and Application of Quranic Concepts in the Realm of Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mohsen Ghamarzadeh
In the religious media, there is a need for general and inclusive concepts that go beyond their specific structure and are flexible in various media formats. The theory raised in this paper resulted from a field study and aims at extracting and creating scenarios and formatting the concepts of the Quran in the realm of media; abstraction of general concepts and its application in media. The study is after taking a deep (yet, feasible and procedural) step towards “religious media” through which several activities can be mentioned totally creating a combined act: one is what issues should exactly be taken into consideration by the media to be dealt with in the form of a survey study and how is classification of verses and extraction of general concepts from Qur'anic verses are performed, which are given special attention in a deep religious study based on basic jurisprudential research. And according to what indicators and models is scenario creation and then in what frames is media formatting done? From all of these, a staged and combined process work is done. This theory moves away from the discussion of direct concepts in the field of Quran and moves towards indirect concepts. The result is that these indirect concepts increase the power of religious flexibility, and media absorption and processing.
