The role of mass media and socio- cultural status of families on Iranian student's familiarity with Satanism

The purpose of the study was to investigate the role of mass media and socio-cultural status of families on students’ familiarity with Satanist cults. The sample of this study included 324 female and male students from Humanities, Engineering and Medical science faculties of Isfahan University. The researcher made questionnaire was validated by using explorative factorial analysis method. The reliability of questionnaire was calculated by Alpha-Cranach’s coefficient (0. 76). Findings indicated that male and female students were meaningfully different regarding general familiarity with Satanism. Male students were more knowledgeable about Satanism and its related terms and symbols. The sources of their familiarity were new technologies such as satellite, cell phones, internet and visual media such as cinemas, T-shirts, jewelries. The students of engineering faculties compared to other students had more familiarity with Satanism terms and symbols. Big source of their familiarities was related to mass media with western massages such as satellites and Internet. There was a meaningful relation between socio-economic status of families and the students’ general familiarities rate of Satanists’ cults, terms and symbols.