When looking at regulation on religious expression it is hard to say if there should be a lot of regulation in the MENA region. In the United States it is easier to have some degree of regulation. In a very religious area it may be harder to have regulations on religion. This is more in terms of religion being shown in media, it is harder to suppress religion in places that are more religious. Looking at Egypt for example, religion is divided as follows “The vast majority of the Egyptian population (90%) identify as Muslim, mostly of the Sunni denomination. Of the remaining population, 9% identify as Coptic Orthodox Christian and the remaining 1% identify with some other denomination of Christianity.” (Scroope, 2017)
Looking at the percentages we can see how the majority is in fact muslim, this would mean there may be more focus on the muslim view in media. Also a religion that is majority, this does not only apply to muslims, may not exactly be willing to give up the influence they have. In terms of what religious regulation there should be it can be argued that there does not have to be a complete lack of religion in media. It is okay and actually may be beneficial to see different points of view in media. However, there should be regulation on religion that promotes violence towards others, this could be based off of orientation gender etc, or other religions. There should be regulations on how many media outlets can be controlled by any one religion, there should not be a complete monopoly. In the ideal society each religion regardless of percentage would have an equal share in media presence. It may help prevent violence that stems from religions, this would be seen as some people being beaten or killed for not following all perimeters of any given religion. This again is in an ideal society, it is not guaranteed to work in the society of Egypt or any other place in the MENA region today.
Citations:
Scroope, Chara. “Egyptian Culture – Religion.” Cultural Atlas, 2017. https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/egyptian-culture/egyptian-culture-religion.