Television and the Da’wah Supermarket

Abstract

In the Muslim world within the Southeast Asian region, despite leading the Islamic television drama market as indicated by the volume of production, not much has been written on Indonesian Islamic television programmes. Informed by global television formats formulaic to high ratings, in Indonesia Islam has been married with reality television shows, talk shows, music shows, and television drama—offering a da’wah supermarket to its audience. In effect, the relationship between Islamic teacher and congregation has been both democratised and commercialised by television stations. ‘Television: A Da’wah Supermarket’ concludes that this development has limited the kind of Islam that appears on television, resulting in ‘mainstream’ portrayals, which essentially means it is first and foremost commercially safe.