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Religion in Newspapers in the Nordic Countries in 1988–2008

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Religion in Newspapers in the Nordic Countries in 1988–2008 NJRS 1-13.fm Page 5 Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:58 AM Nordic Journal of Religion and Society (2013), 26 (1): 5–24 Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen1 RELIGION IN NEWSPAPERS IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES IN 1988–2008 Abstract This article examines the coverage of religion in Nordic newspapers during 1988, 1998 and 2008. Through quantitative analyses of 5,000 articles in 14 newspapers, we examine the differ- ences between the five Nordic countries and changes from 1988 to 2008. The results show that the coverage of the Lutheran majority churches in newspapers is generally declining, especially in Sweden. This is the case also during major Christian holidays. Newspapers present religion differently, in the sense that regional papers present a more traditional view of religion and reli- gion is least covered in the tabloid press. There are differences between the five Nordic coun- tries. The newspaper media seems to serve both as a secularising force in society, contesting the role of the majority churches – especially in Sweden and Denmark – and as support for a greater visibility of religion in the public sphere. Keywords: religion, newspapers, Nordic countries, NOREL, mediatisation, secularisation Introduction For decades, secularisation theory has dominated the research and debate related to religious change. While it was first seen as an accepted explanatory model it has sub- sequently been seen as a model to be largely rejected (see Berger 2002; Wilson 1982; Swatos and Olson 2000). The current transformation in the religious landscape has been increasingly described in other terms such as «de-secularisation» (Berger 2002) and «deprivatisation» (Casanova 1994). Recently, there have been many claims that religion has become more visible, and perhaps more significant, in the public sphere (Casanova 1994; Habermas 2006, 2008; Taylor 2007). The debate about a «new visi- bility» of religion in the public life of Western European society has been a pervasive theme in the sociology of religion. A key issue concerns whether this debate is a result of empirically supported changes in the presence of religion or primarily a turn in the scholarly discourse (Casanova 1994; Davie 2007). Research on religious change in Europe has repeatedly given at least partial support to the secularisation theory (see e.g. Bruce 2011; Crocket and Voas 2006; Bertelsmann 5 NJRS 1-13.fm Page 6 Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:58 AM Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 26:1 Stiftung 2009; Pollack et al. 2012). It indicates that such changes have happened over the last few decades, also in the Nordic countries. By international standards the Nordic countries are decidedly secular. Nordic people do indeed belong to religious organisations, especially the Lutheran majority churches (Fin- land 77 %, Denmark 80 %, Sweden 69 %, Norway 79 %, and Iceland 77 % in 2011), but if religiosity is measured in terms of believing or religious participation, then the Nordic countries are among the least religious countries. An increasing share of the populations in these countries has no first-hand contact with religion at all. As religious participation has declined and there are an increasing number of people who have not been brought up reli- giously at home, media is for many the primary source providing religious knowledge and experiences. According to ISSP 2008, about half of Finns (45 %) and Danes (51 %) and two thirds of Norwegians (66 %) and Swedes (64 %) attend religious services less than once a year (Ketola et al. 2011). Sweden and Denmark especially stand out as two of the most secular countries in the world. Norway is slightly less secular and Finland a bit more religious, but both are still below the average among the various countries in the world (see e.g. ISSP survey 2008; World Value Surveys; Bertelsmann Stiftung 2009). Andersen and Lüchau (2011) have analysed the Danish data on the four ISSP waves since 1981 and show that church-going has changed during this period in Denmark. It is increasingly seen as a family tradition to attend church at Christmas, and there is also an increase in attendance at rites of passage. At the same time religiosity has become more individualistic, and people choose individually what beliefs to keep, and which beliefs to discard. For example, they discard negative beliefs such as belief in sin or hell, sometimes in favour of beliefs such as reincarnation. Simultaneously, religious diversity is increasing. The share of those belonging to the majority churches has declined in all five countries in recent decades. In the 1980s about 90 per cent of the populations belonged to the majority churches in their respective countries. In Sweden, Denmark and Norway the largest minority groups (outside the majority chur- ches) are the Muslims. Measuring adherence to Islam is complicated and varies according definition. In Sweden some sources estimate 450,000 to 500,000 Muslims, accounting for about five per cent of the population, although the number share of registered members of Muslim communities amounts to just 100,000 (Bureau of Democracy, Human rights, and Labor 2009). In Norway, just over 100,000 belong to registered Muslim communities (Sta- tistics Norway 2011). In Denmark, the number of Muslims is estimated to be over 200,000 and account for four per cent of the Danish population (Jacobsen 2011). In Finland and Ice- land, the largest religious minority groups are Christian groups outside the majority chur- ches. Those belonging to registered Muslim communities account for only about 10,000 thousand and the total share of Muslims is about than one per cent of the population (Palmu et al. 2013). Media Religious institutions are not the only ones to have changed in the Nordic countries. The media as social institutions have changed as well. During the 20th century media institutions became more autonomous and independent at the same time as media 6 NJRS 1-13.fm Page 7 Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:58 AM Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen: Religion in newspapers became integrated into the workings of other institutions. Hjarvard proposes a theory of mediatisation of religion (2008b) as part of a more general theory of mediatisation of society (2008a). According to him mediatisation is a process through which the core elements of a social or cultural activity assume media form. The theory of mediatisa- tion focuses on processes of social change and posits the media as the driving force of these changes. Following Joshua Meyrowitz (1993), Hjarvard distinguishes between three metaphors when describing the media. Media can be understood as conduits, lan- guages, or environments. The conduit metaphor refers to the fact that the media are used to deliver content and messages from senders to receivers. The language meta- phor refers to «the various ways the media format the messages and frame the relation- ship between sender, content and receiver» (Hjarvard 2008b: 12). The environment metaphor refers to the systems level, focusing on the capability of the media to facili- tate and structure interaction and communication (Hjarvard 2008b: 13). Hjarvard and others argue that the media have become the primary source of information on reli- gious issues and that the media themselves have an independent and active role in moulding religion and other cultural and social fields (Hjarvard 2008b, 2012; Hepp 2012). In this, article we primarily apply the first metaphor, although we also address the second when examining how the major Nordic newspapers deliver information about religion to their readers. Previous research This article partly follows up on an earlier study by Gustafsson (1985, 1987). This was a comparative study of religious change in the Nordic countries examined in 1938, 1958, and 1978. Secularisation was the theoretical point of departure for that study, and the lens through which religious changes in the Nordic societies was understood. Part of the study examined changes in media coverage of religion in the three selected years, and this model is applied in this study as well. Examining the coverage of reli- gion in 1988, 1998 and 2008 we are able to compare our findings with the findings reported in the first study. The research by Gustafson et al. analysed articles on religion published in four different newspapers before Christmas and Easter in 1938, 1958 and 1978. It showed that there were slightly different tendencies in the newspapers from 1938 to 1978 in the five Nordic coun- tries (see Gustafsson 1985). The Danish data showed that there was an increase in the number of articles from 1938 to 1978. In 1938 most of the articles were about the majority churches or Christian denominations outside these churches, but in 1958 and 1978 other religions were increasingly covered as well (Riis 1985: 56–58). In Finland the basic ten- dency was the same: in 1958 and even more in 1978 the newspapers had become more inte- rested in religions other than Lutheran Christianity. However, there was no clear increase or decrease in the coverage in general: more articles were published in 1958 and fewer in 1938 and 1978 (Sundback 1985: 102–104). Also in Iceland, there were more religious articles in 1958 and 1978 than in 1938. The general trend seems to be slightly different from that in the other Nordic countries: 1938 seems to be the year when the press expressed most criticism of the majority churches, but 7 NJRS 1-13.fm Page 8 Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:58 AM Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 26:1 in 1958 and even more in 1978, the newspapers were «church-friendly» and showed increasing support for these churches (Pétursson 1985: 140–143). In Norway, most of the articles published in the newspapers during the research period were about Christianity. However, there were changes: in one of the newspapers, articles on Christianity became more controversial, and the newspaper changed its political lea- nings from conservative to a more liberal position on church issues (Lundby 1985:188– 189).
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