Press Coverage of the Conclave as a Factor of Religious Socialization: The Case of Benedict XVI

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the public religious discourse in five major Lithuanian daily newspapers during the 2005 conclave that elected Benedict XVI as Pope. The analysis of the publications was based on the assumption that public information distributors reflect the reality that surrounds us, the phenomena that take place in it and their evaluation, as well as the behavioral patterns of the society, while the use of certain symbols, concepts, and rhetoric in the publications conditionally reveals the position of the distributor of the news. Daily newspapers are analyzed as a factor in the formation of societyʼs values and worldview, as well as a tool for modelling behavior, and the topic is therefore approached through the prism of socialization. The research presented in this paper has shown that during the conclave period, publications focused on the topic of the renewal of the papacy, with a predominance of informational, historical-cultural and social-psychological aspects, while the least attention was paid to the analysis of religious content; religious and cultural awareness, value-worldly engagement and critical-analytical thinking were not developed, and the process of religious socialisation was fragmented, inconsistent and irregular.