A Study on the Relationship between the Use of Satellite TV and Modes of Religiosity among the Youth in Sanandaj Area

This paper is the result of a descriptive-explanatory and causal-comparative study on the rate of satellite TV use and the Sanandaji users’ preference of one channel to the others. The paper seeks to explain whether there is a causal relationship between satellite use and level of religiosity among 18 to 29 year old youth population in the great Sanandaj area. Theoretically we addressed the problematic of interaction between Satellite use and religiosity with a synthesis between cultivation theory and Peter Berger’s secularization theory. Methodologically, we used a field survey in 2012 and 2013 and worked with 583 samples taken from the city of Sanandaj and some nearby villages. Some of the findings indicate that variables such as socio-economic status, gender, and age have no significant relationship with rate of satellite use. Variables such as marital status, level of education, and occupation have significant relationship with rate of satellite use. In addition, we tested the hypothesis “the rate of satellite use has correlation with the rate of religious beliefs and practices”. The hypothesis tuned out to be true among the urban residents whereas what can be said about the rural residents is that satellite use has some minor effects on two dimensions of religious practices, i.e., the belief dimension and the consequential dimension and has contributed to their decrease. It should also be noted that the purpose of the satellite TV use (cultural use, political, entertainment, information) did not have any significant effect on the rate of religiosity. The result of the T test indicated that there was not any significant relationship between rural and urban residents in terms of the rate of satellite use. Nevertheless, using cultivation approach we can claim that a combination of satellite use and other factors affected urban youth than rural youth in all four dimensions of religiosity (belief, emotional, consequential, and ritual).