Christian religious radio production in Benin: The case of Radio Maranatha. (March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Grätz, Tilo
• Other Names: Pype Katrien guest-editor.; Mélice Anne guest-editor.; Van Wolputte Steven guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Social compass. Volume 61:Number 1(2014:Mar.)
• Page Start: 57
• Page End: 66
• Publication Date: 2014-03
• Subjects: Benin -- radio -- radio presenters -- religious knowledge -- religious media; animateurs de radio -- Bénin -- connaissance religieuse -- médias religieux -- radio; Religion and sociology -- Periodicals; 306.605
• DOI: 10.1177/0037768613513943
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0037-7686

Abstract

The author focuses on a Christian broadcaster in Parakou, northern Benin, and analyses its main production structures, its programming, and the actors and their motives involved. It demonstrates how religious media, themselves an assemblage of institutions, actors, significations and infrastructures, participate in consituting the religious domain. Religious culture in Parakou and, more generally, in Benin is not dictated by religious authorities alone: it is made by pastors, lay presenters and their listeners – especially when they participate in interactive radio shows, or join a listeners' club. Both producers and listeners find new avenues to live their faith. Radio producers and their listeners occupy new spaces to live their faith and gain new media experiences to valorise their skills and knowledge, as well as to experience themselves as part of a larger religious community.