Representation of Religion on Television (Study of the most watched series of the last three decades on IRIB)

The Television of IRIB has broadcasted on a wide range of programs over the past decades that have been religious.These three series, as the outstanding products of these three decades, have had the most attention of the radio and the highest level of viewers and satisfaction during the broadcast, and therefore have been a way of showing the religious approach of television. In order to identify the main approaches to religious television programs, three historical TV series, namely Sarbadaran (60s), Imam Ali (70s) and Mokhtarnameh (80s) has been studied. These series have been reviewed many time, and the signs have been extracted based on the semiotic method, which is one of the qualitative methods, and its findings have been analyzed by semiotic techniques. Based on the results, the religion represented in the three series has such approaches: Very bold socio-political manifestations; Faint manifestations of worship and morality; The emergence of ritual and symbolic religion, usually for political purposes; Using religion to deal with suffering and calamity with the promise of divine reward; Transcendental and cultured leadership and a kind of fascination and affection of the followers with a kind of mythical expression; Legitimizing government, usually through religious hierarchy; Anti-oppression approach; Obligatory view of jurisprudence-fatwa; Existence of some kind of relationship of attachment and obedience; The appearance of bold Shiite themes; Rejection of ethnic and tribal tendencies; Existence of justice-seeking manifestations and the contradiction of poverty and wealth, rejection of manifestations of aristocracy; The declining presence of women in public.