A Place for Salvation or Torture: The Image of the Russian Orthodox Church in Secular Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Hjarvard in his work “Mediatization and religion” noted that it is becoming increasingly difficult to control public representations of religion in the media. The difficulty is that religious media, religious journalism, and “banal religion” speak very different languages. During the pandemic, a deb...

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Main Authors: Елизавета Валерьевна Родионова, Юлия Паулевна Байер
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) 2020-12-01
Series:Monitoring Obŝestvennogo Mneniâ: Ekonomičeskie i Socialʹnye Peremeny
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.monitoringjournal.ru/index.php/monitoring/article/view/1748
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author Елизавета Валерьевна Родионова
Юлия Паулевна Байер
author_facet Елизавета Валерьевна Родионова
Юлия Паулевна Байер
author_sort Елизавета Валерьевна Родионова
collection DOAJ
description Hjarvard in his work “Mediatization and religion” noted that it is becoming increasingly difficult to control public representations of religion in the media. The difficulty is that religious media, religious journalism, and “banal religion” speak very different languages. During the pandemic, a debate broke out among believers and non-believers about whether to close churches and parishes on the quarantine period. By the decree of the Patriarch, all services in churches were to be performed without the participation of the parishioners. The secular media did not stay away the discussion either. In our study, we analyse a number of texts (articles) from three major news portals: Fontanka.ru (regional level, Saint Petersburg), the newspaper "Arguments and Facts" (Federal level) and the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" (regional level, Moscow). Articles were analysed for the period from March 15 to June 15, 2020. The main working hypothesis was the assumption that the image of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in the secular media would change depending on the actions of the Church itself during the pandemic, but in general it would be reproduced rather in a negative way. The content analysis of the data confirmed this hypothesis, both for the media and for their audience. The desire of the ROC to perform services during the pandemic was considered in the media as a wrecking activity that threatens the lives of parishioners. Also The Russian Orthodox Church in the pandemic intensified the process of digitalization of interaction with parishioners
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spelling doaj.art-d496ff9055164696a9923c6abae7126f2022-12-21T21:28:41ZengRussian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM)Monitoring Obŝestvennogo Mneniâ: Ekonomičeskie i Socialʹnye Peremeny2219-54672020-12-01610.14515/monitoring.2020.6.17481138A Place for Salvation or Torture: The Image of the Russian Orthodox Church in Secular Media During the COVID-19 PandemicЕлизавета Валерьевна Родионова0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1787-4025Юлия Паулевна Байер1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1866-3633Saint Petersburg State UniversityNorth-West Institute of Management, branch of RANEPAHjarvard in his work “Mediatization and religion” noted that it is becoming increasingly difficult to control public representations of religion in the media. The difficulty is that religious media, religious journalism, and “banal religion” speak very different languages. During the pandemic, a debate broke out among believers and non-believers about whether to close churches and parishes on the quarantine period. By the decree of the Patriarch, all services in churches were to be performed without the participation of the parishioners. The secular media did not stay away the discussion either. In our study, we analyse a number of texts (articles) from three major news portals: Fontanka.ru (regional level, Saint Petersburg), the newspaper "Arguments and Facts" (Federal level) and the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" (regional level, Moscow). Articles were analysed for the period from March 15 to June 15, 2020. The main working hypothesis was the assumption that the image of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in the secular media would change depending on the actions of the Church itself during the pandemic, but in general it would be reproduced rather in a negative way. The content analysis of the data confirmed this hypothesis, both for the media and for their audience. The desire of the ROC to perform services during the pandemic was considered in the media as a wrecking activity that threatens the lives of parishioners. Also The Russian Orthodox Church in the pandemic intensified the process of digitalization of interaction with parishionershttps://www.monitoringjournal.ru/index.php/monitoring/article/view/1748mediatizationrussian orthodox churchsecular mediadigitalizationsocial stereotypes
spellingShingle Елизавета Валерьевна Родионова
Юлия Паулевна Байер
A Place for Salvation or Torture: The Image of the Russian Orthodox Church in Secular Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Monitoring Obŝestvennogo Mneniâ: Ekonomičeskie i Socialʹnye Peremeny
mediatization
russian orthodox church
secular media
digitalization
social stereotypes
title A Place for Salvation or Torture: The Image of the Russian Orthodox Church in Secular Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full A Place for Salvation or Torture: The Image of the Russian Orthodox Church in Secular Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr A Place for Salvation or Torture: The Image of the Russian Orthodox Church in Secular Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed A Place for Salvation or Torture: The Image of the Russian Orthodox Church in Secular Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short A Place for Salvation or Torture: The Image of the Russian Orthodox Church in Secular Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort place for salvation or torture the image of the russian orthodox church in secular media during the covid 19 pandemic
topic mediatization
russian orthodox church
secular media
digitalization
social stereotypes
url https://www.monitoringjournal.ru/index.php/monitoring/article/view/1748
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