hymns, listening to sermons; this is the ritual dimension. McGuire points out many
symbolic representations of religion in terms of discourses that we can observe and
analyze, such as rituals, symbols, religious experiences (McGuire 2002 : 124–125).
The mass media audience tends to follow the notion which Festinger ( 1957 )
proposed about cognitive dissonance, that people tend to avoid adopting messages
and information that are not congruent to their existing worldview. Hence, people
are looking for a confirmation of their bias, rather than for genuine information.
Sets of cultural products shared among many localities are what constitute“popular
culture”(which was in the past labeled as“low culture”—as an opposite to“high
culture” shared by the elites such as classical music, opera, and ballets). The
concept of popular culture has been discussed by scholars such as Burke,
Evans-Prichard, and Geertz (http://www.answers.com/topic/popular-culture.
Accessed January 25, 2012). Nachbar et al. ( 1978 :6–8) explain that examples of
popular mythologies are beliefs, values, superstitions, and actual myths; popular
artifacts are, for example, product packaging, architecture, toys and icons, and
logos; popular arts and performing arts such as rock and roll, andfilms; and popular
rituals such as the Olympics, concerts, holidays, and festivals. Therefore, Holmberg
summarizes popular culture as follows:
...popular culture includes the human activities, languages, and artefacts that grow and
nourish people in communities and that generate observable, describable interest about its
events and artefacts, within a community and between communities (Holmberg 1998 : 15).
The production and distribution of communication controlled by the commu-
nication industry promotes popular culture. The industry, according to Macbride
et al. (1980: 96–97), consists of printed media enterprises, radio and television
companies, news and features agencies, advertising and public relationsfirms,
syndicates and independent companies producing and distributing print, visual and
recorded material for print and broadcasting conglomerates, public or private
information offices, data banks, software production, manufactures of technological
equipment, and so on. Productions from the communication industry are also
known as the cultural industry because they record and reproduce cornucopia of
social interactions, representations, and organization systems in diverse media
forms such as books, arts,films, recordings, television, radio, the internet, plays,
concerts, and music. With the breakthrough of the new media as a consequence of
the digitization revolution, the symbolic representations of popular culture rapidly
transmitted by the information super highway create diverse interpretations of self
and identity, sex, gender, sexuality, religious practices, beliefs, etc. The emergence
of modern Buddhist institutions and social roles, worldviews, ethics was a reflection
and inflection of the politico-socio-economic ideologies (Schober 2012 : 16).
I would like to contribute this effect to the framing and rituals of the communication
industry. With the help of new media such as the internet and satellite TV, many
new religious movements target their audience to world peace and social harmony
(Schober 2012 : 22, Agarwal 2014 : 357–359).
Without the mass media as weaving threads in the globalization process, the
beliefs, religious practices, values, and cults would not have had a great impact.
10 1 Thai Buddhism, the Mass Media, and Culture Change in Thailand