Witnesses of Faith as a Key Element in Media Presentation of the Religious Message

In this paper, the author draws attention to the importance of witnesses of faith in the coverage of religious message in the media. By witnesses of faith he means people who draw media attention in connection with various events and for various reasons. They obtain the attention of the media for their testimony. The author analyses four groups of witnesses - the Pope, faith believing individuals, the faith believing mass of people and faith believing journalists - and illustrates the possibilities of effective mediation of religious messages using the examples from media practice. Not only does verbal testimony seem to be important, but also non-verbal testimony, with an emphasis on testimony based on experience from one's own life.

Keywords: Witnesses of faith; Religious message; Media; News values