Аңдатпа
Introduction: Creative economics has become one of the principal environments in which religion and worldview exist publicly today. The religious and worldview sector – confessional and non-confessional alike – is represented as a part of the cultural economics of the modern days: its repertoires are realised in mass media and creative industries, where coverage of religion and worldview has shifted from a peripheral subject to an active commentary zone shaping audience expectations, cultural-industry branding and public-policy debate. The aim of the research is to show the place and input of the religious and worldview sector in the country’s cultural economics development. The study compares confessional (Islam, Orthodoxy and others) and non-confessional (Tengriism) approaches and influences within this sector. The Tengriist worldview – a pre-Islamic Turkic system that since 2019 has moved from cultural reference to candidate religion – serves as the focal non-confessional case: institutionally unrecognised yet mediatically salient. The study examines how representation of the religious and worldview sector is shaped by, and shapes, Kazakhstan’s media-cultural economy between 2017 and 2024. Methods: Sequential mixed-methods design: content analysis of 487 publications across 14 outlets in Russian and Kazakh (2017-2024); secondary-data analysis from the Bureau of National Statistics of Kazakhstan, Committee on Religious Affairs of Kazakhstan, AIFC and Statista; qualitative frame coding. Inter-coder reliability Krippendorff’s α = 0.81. Monetary values are given in KZT with USD equivalents at the National Bank of Kazakhstan annual average exchange rates: KZT 326.0 (2017), KZT 456.2 (2023) and KZT 469.1 (2024) per USD. Results: The Tengri-resonant share of creative-economy GVA is 39% of KZT 1.34 trillion (≈ USD 2.9 bn) in 2024, with folk crafts (88%), theatres-museums-libraries (71%) and architecture-fashion-design (62%) showing the highest loads. In 2017-2024 the advertising market grew 2.55-fold (KZT 39.5 bn to 100.7 bn; ≈ USD 121 mln to 215 mln), while Tengriism-related items grew 9.5-fold (4 to 38 per year). Against confessional benchmarks, non-confessional Tengriism shows a Representation Asymmetry Index of 33.70 – three orders of magnitude above Sunni Islam (0.016) and Russian Orthodoxy (0.024). Editorial framing is dominated by cultural-historical (54.6%) over religious (18.3%). Discussion: Mediated salience is generated by the creative-cultural economy rather than by religious institutional weight. The June 2024 petition for state recognition collected 811 of the 50,000 signatures required (1.62%), while Spirit of Tengri festival attendance exceeded 108,000 by 2024. Confessional traditions (Islam, Orthodoxy and others) enter public discourse primarily through institutional infrastructure, whereas the non-confessional Tengriist worldview enters through the creative-industry channel – a contrast that locates the religious and worldview sector inside cultural economics. Scientific Novelty: The study formalises a Representation Asymmetry Index and a Tengri-resonance load coefficient for creative-economy sub-sectors – the first empirical mapping of the religious and worldview sector onto Kazakhstan’s media-cultural economy. Practical Implications: Results inform creative-industry investment screening, editorial strategy in heritage outlets, media-regulatory policy in transitional secular states, and inter-religious communication. The framework is portable to post-Soviet contexts where non-doctrinal worldviews enter mediated discourse without confessional registration.