The Impact of Religiosity and Mass Media on Student's Sense of Social Security

Security is one of the man’s fundamental needs and is considered as the first condition for sustainable development in a civilized society. One of the institutions which has an important role on the sense of social security is religion. Religion, religiosity and believe in God guide people to obey rules and prevent them from moral abnormality and anomy. Also, in today’s world, media exercises an extraordinary power on human’s life. Media has a paradoxical impact on society. It can change the truth or show the right, wrong and vice versa. Buzan introduces social security as a set of qualities upon which people consider themselves as members of a special group. In fact, social security is oriented towards dimensions of one's life and one's identity. Of course, feeling of security is related to one's state of mind rather than real life. Research show that religiosity and the rate of using media are the effective cultural factors that influence feeling of security. On this base, this study aims at investigating the impacts of religiosity and mass media on sense of social security. In fact, in this research sense of social security is the dependent variable. The method of research is survey. All Mazandaran’s students are research population, of whom a sample of 400 individuals were randomly selected. 57.6 percent of respondents were female and 42.4 percent were male. Also, the age mean is 22.63. The research data was gathered through questionnaires. Content validity of questionnaire was achieved. For reliability test, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was calculated. The analysis of data is carried out at descriptive and inferential statistics levels. It should be mentioned that the variables such as level of sense of social security, religiosity and using mass media are examined through Likert scale. Total scores in each scale is calculated and considered as interval variables. Discussion of results and Descriptive findings show that although rate of religiosity is high but the rate of sense of social security among respondents is low. The mean of sense of social security is 9.04 and the mean of religiosity is 21.36. Using media is at an average level with its mean being 9.99. Findings based on tests show that religiosity and all its dimensions (belief, emotional, outcomes, ritual) have a meaningful and direct relationship with sense of social security. Sense of Social security also has a meaningful relationship with using domestic media, TV, radio and satellite. However, it does not have a relationship with internet, magazines and newspaper usage. Generally speaking, sense of social security has a direct relationship with TV and radio (domestic media) but is in a reversed relationship with satellite usage. Findings on multiple regression technique show that, the rate of watching TV and dimension of belief in religiosity have the most impacts on sense of social security, respectively. R squared is 0/33 which shows that using TV and dimension of belief explain 33 percent of sense of social security variance. To sum up, the results show that religiosity has a great effect on sense of social security. That means by reinforcing religiosity among people we have a greater sense of social security. As Marx said religion is the heart of heartless world. Religion can control one's ambitions. Also, as we mentioned, there is a direct relationship between sense of social security and domestic media but, with satellite usage this relationship is negative. This finding is in line with Raff and Janbaz’s research (2011), who argued that satellite programs have negative effect on feeling of security and national interests. Among the domestic media, TV has the greatest impact on sense of social security. TV is one of the most effective media by witch society reproduce its values and norms. Comparing with TV, radio has less effect on dependent variable but still its role in sense of social security is important. Some people say it is the age of media which means truth would be made by the power of super media.