Continuity with the Past and Uncertainty for the Future

Abstract

The article examines the newspaper constructions of religion in Danish newspapers in a quantitative longitudinal analysis from 1750 to 2000 and a more qualitative analysis of recent news production from the last forty years. For the longitudinal part, the database of the digitization of Danish newspapers project is used. Using the available tools for quantitative data analysis, the article shows that the category of religion and world religions has been visible in Danish newspapers since 1750. The coverage of world religions is often related to the coverage of international news. Overall, the article documents a remarkable continuity of the presence of religion. Examining the more recent material qualitatively, the article shows that although many religions have been historically visible in the news, they have most recently become more frequent in the debate sections than in the news sections. It is primarily Islam that is debated. This is connected with a shift from religious diversity as part of foreign news coverage to domestic news coverage, related to changes in the surrounding Danish society. Nevertheless, the coverage of Islam also displays a remarkable continuity.

Conflictual Diversity and Contested Cultural Heritage: Newspaper Coverage of Religion in Norway 1938–2018

“…The two scholars of religion, Cora Alexa Døving and Siv Ellen Kraft, observed new usages of 'the Christian cultural heritage' from the later 1990s, linked to being Norwegian and with an edge towards immigrant cultures. Similar changes took place in the Danish and Finnish media (Christensen 2019;Taira 2019b). In Norway Christianity began to be connected with nationality in political debate, and this was often played out in the news media, online commentary fields, and in social media.…”

“…Sixty per cent of this foreign news was about Islamic terrorism, IS, foreign fighters, or radical Islam (Retriever 2017). The increased coverage of Islam and Muslims in the three capital papers leans towards debate pieces rather than news, as in Denmark (Christensen 2019). In 1988 this was the case with 5 per cent of all debate pieces in the three Oslo papers, while the share had risen to 38 per cent in 2018.…”

“…while the papers avoid taking a stand on religion in editorials, the share of debate pieces on these issues is growing, as in Denmark (Christensen 2019). The growth in the Norwegian papers was from 8 per cent in 1988 to 23 per cent in 2018.…”

“…The most remarkable trend is the increasing attention paid to Islam and the declining coverage of the Lutheran majority church, as in the other Nordic countries (Christensen 2019;Lövheim 2019;Taira 2019b). In Norway in 1988 the Lutheran majority tradition was covered in 62 per cent of the articles, while Islam accounted for 3 per cent.…”