Commodification of Pilgrimage to the Holy Land of Jerusalem Critical Study of Spiritual Tourism and the Advertising Power Based on Adorno's Critical Theory
Frengki Napitupulu *
Doctoral Program of Communication Studies, Postgraduate School of Sahid University, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Mirza Ronda
Doctoral Program of Communication Studies, Postgraduate School of Sahid University, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Mikhael Dua
Doctoral Program of Communication Studies, Postgraduate School of Sahid University, Jakarta, Indonesia.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Commodification as a shift from use value to exchange value does happen to various aspects of culture, including religious values and practices. Religions cannot avoid commodification. Almost all aspects of religions have experienced it - symbols, clothings, or rituals. One example is the commodification of the pilgrimage to the Holy City of Jerusalem by the producers of culture industry, resulting in "danger" with regard to the degradation of the essence of pilgrimage into a mere entertainment value (for pilgrims) and into a profitable business prospect. They use advertising instruments as the main promotional media.
Using a critical paradigm, this study seeks (1) to reveal the form and process of the commodification of values and the practices of pilgrimage to the Holy Land (2) how the power of advertising distributes the meaning and value of the pilgrimage in shaping, accommodating, and attracting interest, and meeting people's needs of spirituality and the implications to their sustainable reality. This research mainly uses the reference to Adorno's thinking about the critique of the commodification that ends in negativity. The ultimate goal of this study is to use the concept of reconstruction as a criticism of Adorno's deconstruction in overcoming total negativity by building emancipation, participation and communication that synthesizes rationality of enlightenment and philosophical reflection so that at the same time surpasses (aufhebung) claims of unilateral progress by rationality of the mind by opening the other side of enlightenment rationality, including rational emotion or irrational faith, as something rational.
This qualitative approach found that the capital owners of the pilgrimage trip to the Holy Land of Jerusalem and its surroundings commodify the content that is originated from religious values and practices, in order to obtain maximum profits. Advertising media power is the main instrument of promotion and the dissemination of new values in religious life is designed to transform existing values. This study found a dilemmatic and ironic conditions, thus an action plan and a struggle are planned, by increasing bargaining power with capital owners, emphasizing that they could survive if they accommodate and carry humanitarian development values; humans return to their nature.
Keywords: Commodification, religious practices and values, pilgrimage to the Holy Land, advertising inoculation, Adorno