Gender Comparison of Religious Identity and its Relationship with Media Consumption (TV and Satellite); a Case Study of the High-School Students of Marvdasht

Gender gap is one of the most important phenomena in every society which causes differences in the people's values, views, and behaviors. Among the important differences are the degree of religiousness and the kind of media consumption in both men and women. However, the relationship between religious identity and the kind of media consumption has not been sufficiently surveyed. The present article, through survey and cultural methods, has investigated into the religious identity of male and female high-school students of Marvdasht and its relationship with the kind of media consumption (TV and satellite). The results indicate that girls have shown to be more religious-bound than boys regarding the three dimensions of religious identity, i.e. emotion, belief and practice. Also, girls mostly watched TV while boys mostly watched satellite programs. In other words, there was a model of gender-based media consumption. The correlation of TV and satellite variables with the dimensions of religious identity was positive and negative respectively. The independent variables of the research, media consumption and gender, could determine more than 50% of the variance of the respondents' religious identity and its three dimensions. Variance analysis of both sides showed that although TV and satellite have some effects on the religious identity, the effect of the gender variable on the three dimensions, especially the emotional one, is significantly more. TV mostly modifies the effects of gender on belief and emotion, while satellite programs mostly modify the effects of gender on practice.