Abstract

The paper aims at analysing the problematic issue of religious communication via the television media. As the positions of media theorists and the church to the use of media in religious communication differ, the paper seeks to compare those two perceptual perspectives. Thus the first part of the paper discusses the nature, impact and communicational role of media, the second analyses television as media from a philosophical perspective and the third part focuses on the analysis of the church documents concerning the practices of existing “tele-evangelization”. The paper examines the insights of the key media theorists and philosophers – Marshall McLuhan, Vilém Flusser, Jean Baudrillard, Neil Postman. McLuhan said that the qualitative changes in human history are associated with the emergence of new communication tools, so it is important to gain the proper knowledge of them for every human being. Since we are inevitably linked to the digital environment in which we live, an essential condition to enable a conscious existence in this environment is reached thorough knowledge of the defective media nature. Church openness to media is a result of different approach to media reality rather than poor absorption of the media nature.