Framing Religion

In this study’s second empirical chapter, I address the questions of to what extent the four dimensions of the democratic approach are employed and which of these dimensions are absent from British and Turkish newspapers. I provide and compare quantitative data and 87 qualitative examples about the meta-frames and frames of religion overall, Christianity, and Islam in British and Turkish newspapers. This combination of quantitative data and qualitative examples brings the richness and depth of the research findings to the fore. I highlight three key findings from the meta-frame analysis. First, British and Turkish newspapers demonstrated a contrasting attitude to the dominant and the minority religions. Second, in both countries, despite the contrasting framing of the minority religions, even the dominant religions had a disproportioned employment of the four meta-frames, or they did not receive recognition of the importance of faith, its values, and practices in everyday life for their followers. Third, the different patterns of religion coverage in the four meta-frames show the proposed democratic approach’s potential for recognising all views and values. I discuss and compare all the findings with previous research on religion in the news and journalism studies.