University Professor: Media is a Driving Force for Culture, Tool for Strengthening Proximity of Sects
According to the news agency Taghrib(TNA), Dr. Maleki, in her sociological analysis of the role of media during the webinar held in honor of National Communication and Public Relations Day and organized by the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought, stated that producing cinematic works centered on proximity can lead to the formation of a peaceful and proximity-oriented society.
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In her speech on "The Role of Modern Communication Tools in Promoting Islamic Unity," she added: "Media is the unique reality of the present century, characterized by rapidly changing dynamics, making it difficult to predict its impact given the potential changes and capacities it may have in the future. No other phenomenon in the world has had as much effect on realizing a global village as media, bringing people closer together and intertwining their lives."
Dr. Maleki pointed out the influence of liberalism on lifestyle, stating: "The principles of liberalism, such as individualism, self-centeredness, and freedom, have shaped a specific lifestyle for humanity, and the emerging communication technologies and media have imposed these on our lives. The lifestyle that media continuously reproduces serves as a sociological subject, demonstrating how the values of a social class—often the class associated with extravagance, fashion, or diversity—dominate all levels of society."
She identified media as the most important platform for the dominance of lifestyles and aesthetic judgments, saying: "Visual, auditory, and written media convey a vast amount of information, knowledge, normative and non-normative matters to their audiences, with images having a greater share, as they impact sensory perception, the brain's nervous system, and emotions."
Dr. Maleki continued by discussing the cognitive and emotional impact of media: "Sometimes, media directly convert concepts into mental frameworks and then into norms, while at other times, they silence certain concepts, removing them from the public's attention."
She regarded the role of media in instilling and institutionalizing concepts as very serious, asserting: "The repetition of concepts within an interconnected semantic system at various representational levels leads to the instillation and creation of desirable or undesirable habits. Media is essentially a driving force for culture, and the dominant culture is the one that controls the media."
Dr. Maleki also referred to the Western roots of media and the role of entertainment within it, stating: "Since media originated in the West, one of its undeniable goals is to generate wealth through the development of entertainment and leisure, making its instrumental nature the primary philosophy of media."
Emphasizing the importance of cinema, she noted: "Currently, cinema is a profitable industry and one of the important tools for message transmission available to thinkers and cultural figures, and it can be used as a tool to promote the culture of proximity on both micro and macro levels."
She added: "The issue of Islamic unity and the proximity of religions is one of the important cultural issues in our country. While some may view it politically, it is primarily a cultural challenge. Various religions and sects coexist in our country. If screenwriters, directors, and producers consider the topic of proximity as a concern, the main focus of their films will be on proximity. This requires communication and reconciliation between artists and researchers in the field of proximity."
Dr. Maleki concluded: "Directors, producers, and screenwriters should draw on thinkers in the field of proximity as intellectual resources to base their scripts on. In any society, cultural changes occur gradually. If we want the discourse of proximity to become the dominant discourse in our Islamic society, we must make the topic of proximity a concern of cinema and culture over a period of 10 to 15 years."
