Monks Or Merchant: Research Of Shaolin Temple's Media Image

Shaolin Monastery(or Shaolin Temple), known as the birthplace of Chan(Zen)Buddhism, is a world-renowned ancient temple, which was built during the Northern and Southern Dynasties on Songshan Mountain in Dengfeng, China. In ancient China society,Shaolin Temple served politics as Buddhism group and played an important role in maintaining the stability of the feudal monarchy by reconciling the contradictions between the ruling class and the ruled class. Therefore, it developed an economic model of relying on government, believers and monks farming for supply. However, in modern times, without political engagements and a large number of believers, Shaolin Temple is facing the shocks of market economy and pressure from the government. Hence, it is unavoidable to change its role in the society and to seek a new development model. As Shaolin went down the commercialization road, a series of business moves and negative news, instead of the “cradle of Zen Buddhism”, became the target of the media.For most people, understanding of “Shaolin Temple” and “fighting monks” mainly come from literature and movies that portrait monk as “Kong Fu master” who live an ascetic life in remote areas. However, Shaolin Temple challenges this entrenched stereotypical image by putting socio-economic functions as top priority, leading to wide misinterpretations of Shaolin by mass media. In the 1980 s and 1990 s, Shaolin image crisis first started to emerge, as Shaolin failed to maintain its social functions and image as a “religious organization” during the heavy promotions of Kong Fu and economic development. Shaolin found itself labelled as“Kong Fu Academy” and “Martial Arts Holy Land” in news reports, as well as being questioned for registering a company as a religious group.Shi Yongxin, as the Abbot of Shaolin Temple, is ahead of his time in temple governance philosophy, but lacks the initiatives to maintain Shaolin Temples' media image. Even though Shaolin Temple is facing questions from all parties, monks rarely speak up the truth, nor do they defend the Temple's image in public. This results in increasing negative news on Shaolin Temple and a ruined sanctity of religions. “Monks marriage”, “monks driving sports cars”and “monks fighting commercial boxing match” became the headlines and focuses of the media. The image crisis of Shaolin Temple is therefore deteriorating and the monks almost become synonymous with “liars” and “play-acting”.At the same time, Buddhism organizations overseas and in Hong Kong and Taiwan regions find their ways through the changing society to safeguard their religious and social images on media as well as to seek reform and development, which should arouse domestic temples represented by Shaolin Temple to reflect over. To learn the experiences of maintaining self-images and religious authority from overseas Buddhism organizations is crucial to the development of domestic temples. Shaolin Temple should seek a balance between its social functions, economic development, spiritual solace and cultural exchange,which is the essence of Shaolin's image restoration. In the future, Shaolin Temple should be serious in regulating how monks speak and behave in their daily life, as well as in making a strict distinction between real monks and martial arts actors hired for performance, so as to improve the overall image of monks. Last but not least, Shaolin Temple should take the initiative to participate in building topics on mass media and also establish effective feedback channels for quick and powerful responses to rumors online. Thus, Shaolin Temple could really step out of its image framework and reinvent a new media image.