| he purpose of this study was to look at the medium of simplex television as an effective delivery system for religious distance education. Since one of the most apparent uses of simplex television today is in the area of televangelism, the Amazing Grace Bible Class, a television ministry of the Madison church of Christ, Madison, Tennessee, was chosen as a case study.;In regard to using simplex television as an effective medium for religious distance education, the following points are suggested: (1) Simplex television, as a tool to encourage and build up those who are already believers, seems to be effective. (2) Since 90 percent of respondents in group one attend most of the worship services, admonishing them could be better accomplished at that time without the massive costs associated with broadcast television. (3) Evangelism, if a primary goal of simplex religious television, is a dismal failure both for the Amazing Grace Bible Class and for other religious programs. (4) If simplex television is being used as a "door opener," or as a "public relations device," it also seems to be a failure. (5) The intended audience of religious simplex television should not be the "everyone audience," i.e., trying to reach everyone in all age groups who will listen. Demographic data should be analyzed, the actual viewing audience should be determined, and programming should be targeted to that specific group of viewers. (6) Based on the response from this study, a program design change could be made to see if another audience could be attracted to the program.;Demographic data collected in this study provides the following information for the typical viewer of the Amazing Grace Bible Class: a (1) white, (2) married, (3) female, (4) over 61 years old, (5) either retired or a housewife, (6) a member of the church of Christ, who (7) attends all, or nearly all, worship services, for which (8) religion is very important, who (9) has no more than a high school education, and (10) earns less than... |
