Do sagrado tribal ao sagrado midiático: o televangelismo e a formação identitária religiosa

Abstract

This paper deals with the changes that have come to man's relationship with the sacred, since the early days to the present. In prehistory this relationship occurred essentially to ensure the survival of the hominids in front the storms of nature. At a later stage, there was an intensification of this relationship, and the man of archaic societies began to assign a sacred meaning to everything that was around him, through hierophanies. Gods are worshiped through totems, taken from the environment itself. With the advent of religions of salvation, which had its greatest exponent in Christianity, arose the mediating element between man and the sacred represented mainly by the prophets and priests. For a long time, religious identities owned a character more fixed and permanent. Gradually occurred the process of secularization of society, a factor that, among others, led to substantial changes in the religious field, impacting greatly those identities. The heralds of the sacred were transmuting itself. With the increase of population, to reach to the faithful, became necessary the work of a more portentous mediator: the media. The focus of our research is the mediation televised and the weight it carries in the contemporary religious identity formation. We will consider in the analysis of tele-evangelicals programs, which represent annually about five thousand hours of open channels programming, according to the Obitel - Ibero-American Observatory of Fiction Television. In this vast universe, we have chosen as empirical cut the programs Fala que eu te escuto (IURD/ Rede Record) and Direção Espiritual (Catholic Church / TV Canção Nova). To dissect them we have used the principles of the Content Analysis, a methodology that traditionally, since its first application, is making possible a detailed analysis of religious messages.