Media 'demonize' African religions

[Editor's note: The following is an edited excerpt from a presentation by Professor J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu at our conference on journalism, ethics and religion in Accra. The full text is available for download at the bottom of the page.]

IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION AND MEDIA, a distinction needs to be made between ‘religion in the media’ and ‘media religion’.  The two are related but not the same. 

‘Religion in the media’ refers to situations in which ‘outsiders’ discuss, report, or put information about religion in the media. ‘Media religion’ on the other hand, refers to situations in which religious authorities, communities or their representatives either practice their religion through media or purposely place information about their activities in the media. 

African traditional religions (ATR), unlike Christianity and Islam tend to be at a serious disadvantage when it comes to media reportage.  The reason is that traditional religions do not have any central organizing authority.  Every shrine or deity is autonomous.  Thus much of what we know about ATR comes from outsiders.  These outsiders include scholars of religion and journalists who may not necessarily believe or consciously subscribe to the teaching and practices of any deity. 

The result is that the image of traditional religions has not been a very positive one.  Since the missionary era of the early nineteenth century, there has been a gradual demonization of traditional religions as belonging to the realm of what the Akan of Ghana call abonsam, the devil.  To come to Jesus Christ as preached and demanded in the Christian gospel, is to turn away from traditional resources of supernatural succor represented by traditional religions and culture. 

Thus in the early years of the modern Pentecostal movement in Africa, some patrons were even pressured to drop indigenous names linked to deities.  The situation was reinforced by testimonies of born-again pastors who spoke of pacts with the devil in their previous lives that enabled them to supernaturally harm others.  In the following quotation, Gerrie ter Haar and Stephen Ellis, articulate what we learn from media representations of traditional religions and their functionaries:

Throughout West, central and southern Africa, rumors abound of people being killed by politicians and businessmen especially who believe that they can acquire powerful medicines with parts taken from a human body, and that these would help them to achieve material success. …These rumors are one aspect of a widespread preoccupation with evil and its manifestations in daily life.  In markets all over the continent, pamphlets on the problem of evil, written by Africans and published locally are best-sellers.  There are widespread accounts of a spiritual underworld where people may make money through contracts that promise worldly riches in return for a pact with the devil.  Stories of witches and sinister ghosts and spirits are popular in television soap operas and video cassettes and are discussed in radio phone-ins.