Religion as sensation. The analysis of religious mass media headlines in the daily newspaper “Lietuvos rytas”

Abstract

Mass media discourse has a strong impact on the public opinion about various religious communities. Needless to say, mass media’s content is created with news framing rules in a space, where all mass media channels are competing for audience attention. Headlines often become one of the most important part of the article, which not only attract readers’ attention and present the content of the article, but also, with the help of various rhetorical strategies and emotional words, strengthen certain representations of various religious communities. The analysis of 1990 – 2015 Lithuanian daily newspaper “Lietuvos rytas” headlines demonstrates that the headlines are more expressive than neutral. The percentage of negative rhetoric headlines has increased proportionally since 1990. Various rhetorical strategies were found in the analysed headlines: metaphors, irony, critique, assumptions, hyperbolization, subjectivity, and modality. There were also inaccurate and misleading headlines. The results enable to disclose the rule of news selectivity – most of the foreign news had negative rhetoric headlines. Roman Catholic community has double-sided portrait: it is shown as a part of Lithuania’s society, which creates a sense of belonging and contributes to a various social issues; and as a community with clergy who justify human sins. The headlines portraying other traditional or non-traditional religions communities highlight strategies that symbolize fear, threat and otherness of these communities.