- 著者
-
榎本 香織
- 出版者
- 東京大学文学部宗教学研究室
- 雑誌
- 東京大学宗教学年報 (ISSN:02896400)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- no.23, pp.37-52, 2005
When radio broadcasting started in 1925, people often saw the radio as a "mix of science and religion" and described its character as "Radio-Kibun (a kind of numinous feeling)", indicating that people had hoped the new media would connect human beings to a new world. This feeling gradually faded over the ages, but it survived as a metaphor hidden behind culture. In 1950, when the Broadcasting Law was enacted and the ban was lifted on private radio-broadcasting, some religious groups started their own broadcastings out of a religious belief in the medium of the radio. In this paper, the different cases of Konko-kyo and Seicho-no-ie have been chosen for analysis; the former, because it had started broadcasting very early among new religions, and the latter, because it had a keen sense of using media. The staff of Konko-kyo saw the radio as a new means of propaganda and public enlightenment, but they were torn between these two uses in practice. Considering the social need at that time, they preferred a more enlightening program rather than a propagandists one, but their members thought it something missing and criticized them strictly it. The staff therefore had to seek a more effective way to balance the two, and put this dispute to rest by employing a narrative story about healing by unwavering faith. In the case of Seicho-no-ie, Masaharu Taniguchi, the leader, had a keen interest in radio not only as the tool of propaganda but also as a symbol of connection between human and mystical metaphysical object. His metaphorical remark about the radio can be seen as a reflection of the line of thinking which had been cultivated in the religious backdrops of Oomoto, New Thought, and Spiritualism, as well as in the social background of "Radio Kibun".Through these cases, we can see that they reflect their own religious colors.