Title:
Confession Radio Programs: What Utility for the Moroccan Audience

Authors:
Hamid Nabil, Morocco

Abstract:

In the era of globalization, social media seems to be the outstanding reflection of social reality and change. Social networks have become wildly used by the growing population of young urban, rural, and non-literate demographic groups in the developing world. This qualitative shift also shows a strong ability to amplify the voice of marginalised and excluded groups. It likewise contributes in the spectacular regression of the notion of privacy among people. Thus, most users of social media including journalists find no harm in probing in a number of issues that have been deemed sacred or tabooed. Journalism ethics seem to be changing and newcomers seem to be able to introduce new normative even audacious values. This development is not only concerned with social media, it also pierced the radio realm. The present paper therefore sheds light on the radio capacity to accede realities often taken as exclusively restricted and private.

Observers of the Moroccan radio landscape commonly agree that most Moroccan radio stations tend to favor social programs in comparison with, not to say to the detriment of other program types; the issue of what is now called “Confession Programs” which stand for the archetype of stations’ aura have become mostly solicited among listeners. The present study seeks to study this rising trend by unraveling the religious, psychological and sociological implications. It attempts to explore the Moroccan audience’ perceptions in relation to these programs and their impact on listeners’ behaviour. The three angles stated above find premise on a number of radio programs pretending, or at least aim to bring solution to purely psychological crises.

The research design is ethnographic; it focuses on collecting data basing on respondents’ personal views and experiences aloof from any convincing or orienting acts. In this respect, the study makes use of the semi-structured interviews as the main data collection instrument. The population sample comprises 50 respondents divided into two categories namely (i) the direct contact sample and (ii) the facebook sample. The study seeks to answer two research questions: (i) Do respondents have the same perception of confession programs. (ii) What are the religious, psychological and sociological implications of their prevalence? 

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.51505/ijaemr.2024.9305