Biographies and the Mediatization of Religion

Abstract

ABSTRACTSince the genesis of democracy in South Africa, religious broadcasting has constituted an important national pedagogical site for presenting the state’s vision the character and function of religion in public life. Regulated by the institutional policies of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, religion on public broadcast television is conceived of as both a site and tool for nation building. While this arrangement might imply that actors working in the field of religious broadcasting are merely animators of policy, this article presents a glimpse of the biography of Munier Parker, a prolific South African filmmaker and television producer in order to show some of the ways that the complexity of religious mediatisation is interpreted and negotiated within the context of religious broadcasting in the post apartheid context. For the past sixteen years Parker has been solely responsible for the production of the public broadcasters only Islamic magazine program, An Nur The Light. By drawing on the personal and professional experiences of Parker along with the material he has produced, this paper contends that in his capacity as a filmmaker Parker and subsequently a national religion educator Parker has played an unofficial yet significant role in interpreting and producing stories, discourses, and images of Islam and Muslims in post apartheid South Africa.