RELIGION IN NEWSPAPERS IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES IN

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1 Nordic Journal of Religion and Society (2013), 26 (1): 5 24 Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen 1 RELIGION IN NEWSPAPERS IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES IN Abstract This article examines the coverage of religion in Nordic newspapers during 1988, 1998 and Through quantitative analyses of 5,000 articles in 14 newspapers, we examine the differences between the five Nordic countries and changes from 1988 to 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 religion is least covered in the tabloid press. There are differences between the five Nordic countries. 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 subsequently 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 visibility» 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

2 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 (Finland 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 religiously 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 churches) 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 (Statistics 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 Iceland, the largest religious minority groups are Christian groups outside the majority churches. 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

3 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 mediatisation 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, languages, 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 metaphor refers to «the various ways the media format the messages and frame the relationship between sender, content and receiver» (Hjarvard 2008b: 12). The environment metaphor refers to the systems level, focusing on the capability of the media to facilitate and structure interaction and communication (Hjarvard 2008b: 13). Hjarvard and others argue that the media have become the primary source of information on religious 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 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 religion 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 It showed that there were slightly different tendencies in the newspapers from 1938 to 1978 in the five Nordic countries (see Gustafsson 1985). The Danish data showed that there was an increase in the number of articles from 1938 to 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 tendency was the same: in 1958 and even more in 1978 the newspapers had become more interested 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: ). Also in Iceland, there were more religious articles in 1958 and 1978 than in 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

4 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: ). 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 leanings from conservative to a more liberal position on church issues (Lundby 1985: ). Finally, examination of the Swedish media showed both an increase and a decline in the coverage of religion. Debates related to the majority church increased, whereas some other topics related to religion declined (Dahlgen 1985: ). Therefore, there were slightly different tendencies in the newspapers in the five Nordic countries: the trend was generally towards a more diverse view of religion, with less coverage of the majority church, and both towards a more controversial view of Christianity and the majority church on the one hand, and in one of the cases, in the opposite direction (in Iceland) on the other. Overall, the majority church received by far the most coverage in the newspapers. Research questions In this article, we examine the coverage of religion in a number of Nordic newspapers in 1988, 1998 and Through quantitative analysis we examine the differences between the five Nordic countries and changes occurring in that period. More specifically we attempt to answer the following questions: First of all we map the coverage of religion in the newspapers. Which religions are covered in the Nordic newspapers and how much coverage do they receive during the research period ? Are there different trends in the five Nordic countries? Second, we examine whether the coverage reflects the changing situation of religion in the Nordic societies. Do the articles reflect the increase in religious diversity from 1988 to 2008? Do changes in the representation of religious diversity in the media correspond to the actual differences between the Nordic countries? We anticipated that the growing religious diversity and the declining number of people belonging to the majority churches would be reflected in an increase in the coverage of other religious traditions. Third, we were interested in the timing of the coverage. When was religion present in media? We anticipated that the presence of religion during major Christian holidays would change. As the populations of the Nordic countries have remained interested in religion as a (family) tradition more than as a dogmatic worldview, we anticipated that coverage of Christianity would decline around Easter, but less around Christmas. On the other hand, we assumed that, in a more religiously diverse setting, religion would be increasingly covered during Ramadan. Finally, we examine the differences between newspapers. We assumed that regional papers would present a more traditional view of religion and that the religious transformations and the changes in the media would appear first in the more urban newspapers rather than the regional ones (see Mikkola et al. 2007). In light of our findings, we then discuss whether the changes lend support to the notion of a new visibility of religion in the public sphere or whether they support the decline of 8

5 Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen: Religion in newspapers religion in the Nordic countries found in population surveys. We will also discuss how the results reflect the increasing religious diversity in the Nordic countries and whether changes in the media follow the current trends in the religious field. The data The research is based on articles published in a total of 14 newspapers in the five Nordic countries during selected periods of time in 1988, 1998 and Our original aim was to analyse the leading quality daily paper, a tabloid, a regional newspaper and an additional newspaper in each of all the five Nordic countries. We succeeded in doing so in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Regarding Iceland, we only examined one, Morgonbladid, the only newspaper published during each of the three years of interest due to massive changes in the newspaper industry in that country. With respect to Denmark, only articles from the newspaper Politiken were collected and coded due to a lack of resources. Table 1 shows the newspapers from each country. Table 1. Newspapers analysed in the Nordic countries and their circulation in Sweden Norway Finland Denmark Iceland Leading quality daily Dagens Nyheter ( ) Aftenposten ( ) Helsingin Sanomat ( ) Politiken ( ) Morgonbladid Tabloid Aftonbladet ( ) VG ( ) Iltalehti ( ) Regional paper Göteborgs- Posten ( ) Stavanger Aftenblad (66 343) Ilkka (54 668) Other Svenska Dagbladet ( ) Dagavisen (29 041) Huvudstadsbladet (51 162) We analysed the newspapers during four different periods of the year in 1988, 1999 and These time periods included religious holidays and a regular season: Two weeks before Easter (19 March 2 April 1988, 28 March 11 April 1998 and 8 22 March 2008) Two weeks before Eid, the end of Ramadan (2 15 May 1988, January 1998 and September 2008) Two regular weeks (10 23 October 1988, 5 18 October 1998 and 6 19 October 2008) Two weeks before Christmas (11 24 December 1988, 1998 and 2008) Following Gustafsson s study (1985), we included the days before the major Christian holidays and did not include days after the holidays, even though some articles that could 9

6 Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 26:1 be relevant were published on these days. In contrast with Gustafsson s study, we added two regular weeks and two weeks before the end of Ramadan, which means that a total of eight weeks were analysed in each of the three years in all five countries, i.e. a total of 24 weeks during the three years, yielding more than 2,300 issues of newspapers collected either from databases or manually from original newspapers or microfilms. The articles were collected on the basis of a predefined list of key words. 2 To be coded, an article had to include clear content on religion and refer to at least one of our key words in the headline or the lead. If an article only included keywords as a reference to the time of year or a place, it was excluded: for example, articles on food, presents, or holiday decorations were not included. Consequently, we cannot examine whether representations of the holidays are increasingly found in non-religious articles. On the other hand, we can compare the amount of coverage of religion across holidays and non-religious periods of time. We included editorials, news, feature articles, religious columns (e.g. a prayer or a sermon written by a representative of a religion), debates and letters to the editors, and we excluded advertisements, death announcements, and obituaries. Articles were classified, coded and analysed using SPSS. We coded the following information from each article: country, date (and period), size (main articles, middle-sized articles and notices/paragraphs), genre (religious columns, editorials religion, debates religion, news on religion and features), prominence of religion (main or additional topic), and the religious tradition covered in the article. We also coded two optional items for Finland and Iceland: the representation of religion (whether the article represented religion as a negative, positive or neutral issue, or whether religion was seen as contributing to society or as a threat to society) and the orientation of the article (whether it was a domestic or international story). The data has been collected and coded by different people in the five countries, which may have influenced the coding process. 3 Results Similarities and differences between the countries Table 2 below shows that the 14 newspapers analysed in the five Nordic countries included a total of 4,919 articles that we coded during the research period using SPSS. In Finland the total number of coded articles was 1,603; in Norway 1,740; in Sweden 736; in Denmark 353; and in Iceland 487; but these numbers are not comparable, as the Danish and Icelandic parts of the sample were each based on a single newspaper, as noted above. The average number of articles per newspaper was highest in Iceland (487), almost as high in Norway (435) and Finland (401), slightly lower in Denmark (353) and notably lower in Sweden (184). 10

7 Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen: Religion in newspapers Table 2. Total number of articles analysed in the five Nordic countries in 1988, 1998 and Total Finland ,603 Norway ,740 Sweden Denmark Iceland Total 1,512 1,917 1,490 4,919 The table above shows that the number of articles published was highest in 1998 and lower in 1988 and This tendency was visible in all countries and in all newspapers. However, any of these three years may be deviations from a pattern we cannot see. Research by Teemu Taira (2012a, 2012b) shows that there is a great deal of annual fluctuation in the number of articles: he analysed editorials on religion in the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat between 1946 and For this reason, we will not draw any far-reaching conclusions only from the total number of articles. Turning to the four research periods before Christmas, before Easter, before Eid and during the normal weeks religion was covered most during the Christian holidays. The research material consists of about 1,400 articles published before Easter and Christmas respectively (28 29 per cent of all articles) and about 1,000 articles published before Eid and during the regular weeks (21 22 per cent of all articles). However, there are notable and interesting differences between the five Nordic countries, as Table 3 shows below. Table 3. Percentage of articles published in the five Nordic countries in 1988, 1998 and 2008 during the different research periods. Before Easter Before Eid Regular weeks (weeks 41 42) Before Christmas Total Finland ,603 Norway ,740 Sweden Denmark Iceland Total ,919 n 11

8 Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 26:1 The two weeks before Easter was when articles on religion was published most often in Sweden, Norway and Finland. In Iceland, the greatest number of articles were published before Christmas, followed by Easter in second place. In Finland and Norway, Christmas came second. Consequently, Easter and Christmas were the research periods with the highest counts of articles on religion in these three countries. In contrast, Denmark and Sweden had the lowest counts of articles during Christmas, and the two weeks before Christmas was when the smallest number of articles appeared in both the Swedish newspapers, but also the time of lowest coverage of religion during Christmas in all the countries. There are several factors that might explain this. Research has shown that these two countries are the most secular of the Nordic countries and Sweden is more secular than Denmark (see e.g. Halman and Pettersson 2003; Kääriäinen et al. 2005). It is possible that indifference to traditional religion might explain some of the observed variation. Another indication is the internal variation in the coverage. Here, Sweden shows the least variation across the four research periods, with a six percentage-point difference between the periods with the most and the least coverage, quite different from the 26 percentage-point difference in Iceland. Finally, some of the difference should probably be attributed to the special cases of Denmark and Iceland. If we look at the highest and lowest share of articles in a given period, Denmark or Iceland is always one of these cases. It is possible that this is due to the fact that only one newspaper was chosen from each of these countries, and that these newspapers could be biased in ways that the inclusion of other newspapers might have mitigated. To summarize, Christian holidays seem to influence newspaper writing much more clearly in Finland, Iceland and Norway than in Denmark and Sweden. This is also in line with the differences in religiosity between the five Nordic countries: Sweden and Denmark stand out as countries in which the position of traditional Christianity is weakest, with Finland and Iceland being less secular. Regarding the question of religious diversity in the newspapers, there were similarities and differences as well. In all countries except Denmark, the share of articles on the majority churches was clearly the highest. In Iceland, 72 per cent of the articles covered the majority church, which is notably higher than in the other countries. In Finland, the share was second-highest, with 59 per cent, followed by Norway with 53 per cent, Sweden with 42 per cent, and Denmark with 14 per cent. On the other hand, the percentage of articles covering other Christian denominations was very similar in all the countries. Of all the countries, Danish newspapers featured the most stories about Islam: as much as 39 per cent. Sweden came next, with eleven per cent of its articles about Islam. Islam was covered least in Iceland, where only 0.2 per cent of the articles were about this topic; such coverage was also very seldom in Finland (3 %). Articles about other world religions were also most common in Denmark. Articles about non-institutional religion and religion-critical groups were fairly uncommon in all five countries. 12

9 Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen: Religion in newspapers Table 4. Religious traditions featured in articles in four selected newspapers in 1988, 1998 and 2008 during the research periods in the Nordic countries (by percentage). Lutheran church Other Christianity Islam Other world religion Noninstitutional Religioncritical Unclassifiable * Total Finland Norway Sweden Denmark Iceland * Including articles that feature more than one religious group. Again Denmark and Iceland distinguish themselves from the other countries by respectively having the highest and lowest share of articles on the majority churches and Islam. Other research has shown that Islam has become a highly contested issue in the Danish public sphere (Madsen 2000; Hervik 2002; Christensen 2007; Rosenfeldt 2007). A comparison of recent newspaper coverage in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden also shows that in Denmark, Islam is covered more than Christianity in Denmark (Christensen 2010). The change over time? How have the newspaper articles changed from 1988 to 2008? We saw earlier that the number of articles was highest in 1998 in all countries, but, as noted, we cannot on this basis conclude either a decrease or increase of the coverage of religion in the daily press in these countries. However, not only the number of articles but also the space devoted to religious issues is of interest. In all countries except Iceland, articles on religion were more often main articles in 1998 and 2008 than in In Denmark the increase is very clear. To measure the total amount of space devoted to religion in the newspapers during the research periods, we constructed an index multiplying the number of articles by their size. 4 Table 5 shows that the basic trend did not change from the trend we discovered simply by comparing the number of articles published each year. In all five countries, 1998 is the year with the most coverage of religion. In Finland, Iceland and Sweden, 2008 is the year with the least coverage of religion, whereas in Norway and Denmark 1988 saw the least coverage. Even though the share of main articles is 60 per cent in Denmark in 2008, there are fewer articles in general that year, so the coverage index is lower than in The same goes for Finland and Sweden. In these three countries, the share of main articles is larger in more recent years, even if the general coverage of religion is not, indicating that religion is less often covered, but covered at length when it happens. 13

10 Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 26:1 Table 5. Share of main articles on religion in 1988, 1998 and 2008 in the five Nordic countries. In parentheses is the index of religious coverage: number of articles * size (3 = main/large articles, 2 = middle-sized articles and 1 = notices). Finland Norway Sweden Iceland Denmark % (1103) 40% (1033) 24% (521) 26% (326) 29% (222) % (1154) 56% (1552) 37% (688) 13% (379) 41% (327) % (954) 54% (1435) 38% (319) 16% (209) 60% (243) When we looked at which religious traditions were represented in 1988, 1998 and 2008, we saw that changes generally follow changes in society. In line with the decline in membership in the majority churches in Sweden, Norway and Finland, the share of articles covering these churches declined after 1988, which is illustrated in Table 6. Table 6 shows that the coverage of the majority church was greatest in Sweden: from 57 per cent in 1988 to 34 per cent in 1998 and only 15 per cent in Even when taking annual fluctuations into account, this indicates a clear decline. In Finland and Norway, the decline is more moderate. In Iceland, the percentage of articles covering the majority church was highest in In Denmark, the share was highest in Apart from Iceland and Denmark, this suggests that the findings of this study at least partly follow the trend reported by Gustafsson from 1938 to 1978: a general decline in the public visibility of the majority churches. The percentage of articles that were about other Christian denominations remained at about the same level from 1988 to 2008 in Finland and Norway; the percentage was highest in 1998 in Sweden and Denmark. The share of articles that were about Islam increased very slowly in Finland and Iceland, but more rapidly in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Common to all countries was the rising numbers of immigrants and Muslims, and we argue that this is reflected in the newspapers. Islam is not only a contested issue in the Nordic countries, but in most Western countries in what has been called a «clash of misconceptions» (Hussain 2007). Consequently, the differences between the Nordic countries are not only in line with the presence of Islam in these countries, but highlight them. In Sweden, Norway and Denmark, the Muslim population has increased more than is the case in Finland and Iceland. That Islam is covered so extensively in Denmark could be due to less success in integrating immigrants. According to the Migration Policy Index, Denmark ranks lower than Finland, Norway and Sweden with respect to integration of immigrants, which causes more problems and probably more public debate (See British Council Migrant Integration Policy Index 2004, 2007, 2011). Finally, it is also interesting to note that the percentage of unclassifiable or unclear articles is largest in all countries in the more recent years. As this category includes articles in which a specific religious tradition is not identifiable and articles in which several traditions are equally prominent, it is highly likely that the numbers indicate that religious diversity is visible through coverage of several religious traditions in the same article. 14

11 Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen: Religion in newspapers Table 6. Religious traditions addressed in articles in newspapers in 1988, 1998 and 2008 in the Nordic countries (percentage). Finland Norway Sweden Denmark Iceland Lutheran church Other Christianity Islam Other world religion Non-institutional Religious critical Unclassifiable Why is the Lutheran majority church so actively covered in the media in Iceland (and also partly in Finland) and not declining like it is in the other Nordic countries (especially in Sweden)? Is it because it is more contested in Iceland (and Finland)? When trying to find possible explanations, we wanted to take advantage of the extra items we collected in Iceland and Finland. In these two countries we also coded the representation of religion in newspaper articles with respect to whether the articles portrayed religion in a positive, negative or neutral light. Our data show that the image the majority churches have is more positive than that of other religious groups, with few negative articles: five per cent in Iceland and three per cent in Finland. This indicates that the active coverage of the majority churches in Icelandic (and Finnish) newspapers is not related to the majority churches being heavily contested. 15

12 Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 26:1 In Finland, Norway and Sweden, religious articles were more often main articles in 1998 and 2008 than they were in In Iceland, the trend was the opposite, with more main articles in 1988 than in 1998 and In Finland and Sweden, we see an especially marked increase in the share of main articles about Islam. Even though we saw above that the number of articles dealing with Islam rose only slowly in Finland, the fact that these articles were increasingly main articles shows that the coverage of Islam in newspapers increased in Finland as well. Table 7. Percentage of main articles on the Lutheran majority churches, other Christian denominations, or Islam in 1988, 1998 and Finland Norway Sweden Denmark Iceland Lutheran church Other Christianity Islam All articles When does religion appear in the media? As noted above, we analysed the coverage of religion before Christmas, Easter and Eid. In addition, we analysed two ordinary autumn weeks. We assume that, in a more secularized setting, the presence of religion during major Christian holidays would decline, especially during Easter. However, since people have remained interested in religion as a (family) tradition, the situation should remain more stable during Christmas. Furthermore, we assume that in a more diverse setting, religion would be increasingly present before Eid. Table 8 shows the relative share of articles in a given period in a given year in each country. We can thus identify which period in which year has the highest or lowest share of articles in each country. We have eliminated the weight of each year by comparing on an annual basis. This means that the absolute number of articles before Christmas 1998 might be larger than in 2008, but smaller if compared to the total number of articles that year. For Finland, Easter and Christmas 1998 have the highest percentages of articles on religion, and the percentage is relatively stable. For Norway, it is also Easter and Christmas that have the highest percen- 16

13 Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen: Religion in newspapers tage of articles, and these figures are also stable. In Denmark, it is the Ramadan period and Christmas, except for 2008, which displays very different figures for all periods. Finally, in Iceland it is during the Christmas periods that coverage of religion is greatest, but similar to Denmark there is greater variation than in the other countries. As regards the hypotheses above, our data does not confirm any of them. There was no noteworthy decline in articles on religion during Easter and Christmas in any of the countries. Additionally, there is no clear indication that Ramadan leads to larger shares of articles on religion. Table 8. Percentage of articles about religion during the different periods in the five Nordic countries. Before Easter Before end of Ramadan Weeks Before Christmas Total Finland Norway Sweden Denmark Iceland n 17

14 Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 26:1 Moreover, we analysed more closely whether coverage of the majority church declined or increased during the Christian holidays. The results from Sweden show a very clear decline from 1988 to 2008 in coverage of the majority church during all periods, including the Christian holidays. In Denmark, the majority church had a very limited presence in the newspapers as early as In Iceland there was a slight increase in the share of articles about the majority church during the holidays, and in Finland there was only a minor decline. The results from Norway show a moderate decline in the number of articles only before Christmas. Therefore, our hypothesis that the presence of religion and especially Christianity and the majority churches would decline most during Easter and less during Christmas is not supported. National vs. regional newspapers As we pointed out earlier, we can assume that changes in the public presence of religion and subsequently the media s coverage of these changes appear in more urban and national newspapers first. Thus, we analysed differences between different newspapers in Finland, Sweden and Norway with respect to what religious groups they report on and to what extent, and whether they follow the patterns of change we have identified so far as shown in Table 9. Table 9. Percentage of articles on religion in different kinds of newspapers in three Nordic countries. Leading daily Tabloid Regional paper Other paper Total Finland Norway Sweden n There were clear differences in how much the newspapers published on religion. Religion generally received the most coverage in the regional papers Stavanger Aftenblad in Norway and Ilkka in Finland. During the research periods, there were almost three times more articles on religion in these newspapers than in the newspapers that featu- 18

15 Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen: Religion in newspapers red the smallest numbers of articles. The numbers of articles published on religion in the main quality dailies are in line with the numbers published in other newspapers in the same country. In general, tabloids published less on religion than other papers. There were also clear differences in the representation of religious traditions in the different newspapers. The regional papers published more on the Lutheran Church than all the other papers in the three countries. In Finland and Norway, these papers wrote less about Islam than all other papers. In Sweden, the leading quality daily wrote notably more about other world religions than did the other Swedish papers analysed. Table 10. Coverage of religious tradition in different kinds of newspapers in three Nordic countries (percentage). Leading quality daily Tabloid Regional newspaper Other newspaper Total Finland Lutheran Church Other Christianity Islam Other world religion Non-institutional Religious critical Unclassifiable Total Norway Lutheran Church Other Christianity Islam Other world religion Non-institutional Religious critical Unclassifiable Total Sweden Lutheran Church Other Christianity Islam Other world religion Non-institutional Religious critical Unclassifiable Total

16 Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 26:1 Summary and discussion In this article, the coverage of religion in the newspapers in the Nordic countries from 1988 to 2008 is analysed. The research material consists of nearly 5,000 articles published in 14 newspapers in 1988, 1998 and 2008 in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. We analysed newspaper coverage of religion from various perspectives. When we look at the results of our study, we can see differences in the way religion is presented in newspapers in the different countries, from one year to the next, during the different research periods in a year, and in the different kinds of newspapers. First of all, we simply analysed the number and sizes of articles about religion published in the Nordic countries in 1988, 1998 and The results show that, in all countries, there was an increase in the number of articles on religion from 1988 to In 1998, the number of articles published rose in all five Nordic countries compared to However, from 1998 to 2008, the number declined again and, in 2008, there were fewer items on religion in the newspapers than there were 20 years earlier in four of the countries. It is possible that this is due to a fluctuation in 1998, but then it is a fluctuation common to all five countries. This basic trend was the same when we combined the size of the articles and their numbers. This trend may suggest an increased interest in religion by the media between 1988 and However, since we analysed only three years during the research period, we have to be very cautious in drawing far-reaching conclusions based solely on the number or size of the articles dealing with religion. Moreover, we analysed which religious traditions were presented in newspapers in the five countries. During the research period, the majority churches were the most covered religious tradition in every country except Denmark. In Gustafsson s study (1985) they were the most covered in all countries. The case of Denmark is in many ways notably different. A possible explanation is the limited data from Denmark, as the data only stem from one newspaper known for its critical stance towards conservatism, including the majority church. In Denmark, Islam is the religion receiving the most coverage. Only 14 per cent of the articles in Denmark were about the majority church, whereas the corresponding figures in Norway, Finland and Iceland were more than 50 per cent and in Sweden almost half. In all five countries, the newspapers reported second-most often on Christian denominations outside the majority churches. Overall, however, the presence of the majority churches in the newspapers seems to be generally declining, so the general trend found by Gustafsson (1985) between 1930 and 1980 seems to have continued. Only in Iceland has majority church coverage in newspaper articles grown. The decline was greatest in Sweden: in 2008 the share of articles about the majority church in Swedish newspapers was almost as low as it was in Denmark. This church was a topic in only 15 per cent of the articles in Sweden in 2008; 20 years earlier, the share was more than half. It is possible that the separation of church and state in 2000 explains some of the clear decline in coverage of the majority church in Sweden. We also studied when religion appeared in the media and how this has changed over the years. We anticipated that religion and, more specifically, Christianity and the majority churches would receive less coverage during major Christian holidays, especially around 20

17 Kati Niemelä and Henrik Reintoft Christensen: Religion in newspapers Easter, due to a more secularized and more diverse religious setting. On the other hand, we assumed that in a more diverse setting, there would be more articles on religion before the end of Ramadan. None of these hypotheses were supported by the data. However, the countries were quite different with respect to the presence of religion in the media before religious holidays. In Sweden, religious holidays did not seem to influence media reports: there was little difference in the numbers of articles during the different time periods studied. Denmark, too, saw little impact of the Christian holidays on the coverage of religion. In Denmark, religion more often appeared in the media in the two weeks before Eid than before Easter and Christmas. Different newspapers also portray religion differently. We anticipated that regional papers would present a more traditional view of religion and that religious change and the change in the media would manifest itself first more in the urban newspapers than the regional ones. This hypothesis was supported in all three countries in which we were able to compare different kinds of newspapers. Religion was generally most featured in regional papers, and the articles were most often about the majority church as well. Religion typically appeared the least in the tabloid press. Are the five Nordic countries similar? All the five Nordic countries have Lutheran majority churches to which the majority of their populations belong. However, the newspaper data shows that religion is covered in different ways. In Iceland, the newspaper primarily portrays traditional religion and reports mostly about the majority church. Furthermore, articles about the majority church are seldom critical: we argue that in Iceland the media might well serve as a supporting factor for traditional religion, a pattern that is also, to lesser extent, found in Finland. In all other Nordic countries, the newspapers portray a less traditional and more diverse cast of religions. Especially the newspapers in Sweden and in Denmark seem to portray religion as more diverse and also more as a contested issue, which is reflected in the media coverage as well. These newspapers function not as precise mirrors of society, but rather as selective amplifiers identifying and informing the general public on various issues. According to the theory of mediatisation, the media do not simply mirror what is happening in society: they are themselves an active and independent actor moulding religion and other cultural fields. The media do not only reflect the changes that have taken place, but can also serve as a secularising force in society, contesting the role of the majority churches or presenting a post-secular society in which religious diversity is a fact that needs to be addressed and debated. Notes 1 2 The article has been done in cooperation with Árni Svanur Danielsson, Mia Lövheim and Knut Lundby. These include terms such as religion, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism (as well as the term for individuals, elites, places of worship and scriptures, i.e. Muslim, Imam, mosque, and Koran), Jesus, God, Prophet, Buddha, congregation, worship, Satanism, angels, meditation, spiritual, New Age and Ramadan. All key words and any derivatives were collected. Christmas and Easter were not used as key words because many articles on these holidays did not deal with religion at all. 21

18 Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 26:1 3 In Sweden the data were collected and coded by Anna Row and Mia Lövheim; in Norway by three graduate students (Astri Gryt, Ole Jakob Michelsen and Beate Solli); in Denmark by Henrik Reintoft Christensen. In Iceland, the data were collected and coded by Árni Svanur Danielsson and in Finland by Katriina Järvenpää. The fact that different individuals did the coding may have influenced the results, especially when determining whether an article should be coded as a main or a middle-sized article, and whether religion was a main or additional topic. In Norway, the share of main articles was notably higher than in Sweden and Finland. On the other hand, the share of articles in which religion was seen as a main topic was lower in Norway and higher in Sweden and Finland. This may be due to real differences in the material, but it could also be due to the fact that different individuals interpreted either the coding guidelines or the handbook for scanning differently or used different search techniques. This should be kept in mind when comparing the results between countries. 4 It is only possible to do a precise word count for the most recent and electronically available articles. Thus we have constructed this simple index. It is kept simple on purpose, to avoid problems with inter-coder reliability. Main articles are front-page articles of any size (except teasers) as well as articles of three or more columns. Notices are small fillers from news syndicates, and middle-sized articles are articles larger than a notice and up to two columns. We multiplied the number of articles by their size, i.e. main articles = 3, middle-sized articles = 2, notices = 1. We realize that some of the differences between the countries are due to differences in column length from newspaper to newspaper as well as the material being coded by different individuals in all five countries. References Andersen, Peter B. and Peter Lüchau Individualisering og aftradionalisering af danskernes religiøse værdier (Individualization and detradionalization of the Danes religious values). I Små og store forandringer: Danskernes værdier siden 1981, Peter Gundelach (ed.), København: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Berger, Peter L Secularization and de-secularization. In Religions in the Modern World, Linda Woodhead, Paul Fletcher, Hiroko Kawanami and David Smith (eds.), London and New York: Routledge. Bertelsmann Stiftung (ed.) What the World Believes. Analyses and Commentary on the Religion Monitor Gütersloh: Verlag Bertelmans Stiftung. British Council Migrant Integration Policy Index 2004 [online]. Available from: [Accessed 30 December 2012]. British Council Migrant Integration Policy Index 2007 [online]. Available from: [Accessed 30 December 2012]. British Council Migrant Integration Policy Index 2011 [online]. Available from: [Accessed 30 December 2012]. Bruce, Steve Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bureau of democracy, human rights, and labor International Religious Freedom Report 2009, Sweden [online]. Available from: [Accessed 15 June 2012]. 22

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