Page 179 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

indicates the instrumentality of the media sphere in relations between religions
and the state, between religions, and between religious organizations and their
followers (Hackett 2003). Con®ict between religious groups is commonly linked
to rights of access to the national media. Because of the asymmetry of re-
sources, capacity, and in®uence, some religious organizations ¤nd themselves at
the head of the media table while others may not even enjoy the crumbs from
underneath it. These patterns of exclusion and inclusion, coupled with issues
of fair representation, have been exacerbated by the processes of democratiza-
tion and liberalization. While I am not addressing here media representations
of religion(s), nor the content of mediated messages, it is worth noting that
government and legal authorities can be in®uenced by negative portrayals of
non-mainstream groups (Richardson 2000, 125 n. 30) (Dillon and Richardson
1994). Bias and misinformation affect whether airtime is accorded to minority
groups. It is popular to oppose the “cult menace” (Richardson 2000, 115). We
should not underestimate the in®uence of globalizing discourses of Satanism
and anti-cultism which emanate principally from U.S. courts and the media, as
well as religious and para-religious organizations (Richardson 1996). Currently
several European countries, notably France, have jumped on the anti-cult band-
wagon (Hervieu-Léger 2001) (for Africa generally, see Hackett 2002; on South
Africa, see Faure 2000).
In most postcolonial African states the stakes of religious coexistence have
changed (cf. Haynes 1996, 1995; Gifford 1998). Mainstream religious organiza-
tions that enjoyed the patrimony of colonial and independence governments
now ¤nd themselves threatened by newer religious formations, notably of the
revivalist type. These minority groups are often acutely aware of their rights to
7
freedom of religion and freedom of expression. They claim these rights in the
new spirit of communal self-determination, constitutionalism, and the global
lingua franca of international human rights that is sweeping the African conti-
8
nent. In post-apartheid South Africa, this is commonly referred to as the new
“rights culture” or the new “human rights dispensation.” Furthermore, the lib-
eralization of the media sector has opened up all sorts of new outlets for ex-
pression, many of which escape government control in relation to balancing and
nondiscrimination. With the growing dominance of the market paradigm, air-
time is frequently bought rather than meted out. In other words, ownership and
commercial interests of media institutions increasingly trump respect for na-
tional diversity (Tomaselli, Tomaselli, and Muller 2001). This causes frustration
to many religious organizations that maintain a state-centric mentality; but
savvy religious leaders, usually of the younger and more entrepreneurial variety,
know that a good media presence is proselytizing writ large in a competitive
religious environment and are prepared to foot the bill (Hackett 1998).
The right to disseminate one’s religion easily surpasses the freedom to believe
and to practice one’s religion as the most controversial aspect of religious free-
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dom. African constitutions may not accord the same primacy to free speech as
is the case in the United States, where the judicial protection of free speech has

168 Rosalind I. J. Hackett