Making religion relevant? Representations of religion in Nordic popular magazines 1988-2008

Abstract

Despite an increasing interest in the intersections between religion and media, few studies have been conducted on popular magazines' representations of religion. Based on 17 Nordic magazines from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, this article examines the presence of religion and analyzes its shaping in these media over the past two decades. Three questions are posed: What is the scope of religion in Nordic popular magazines in 1988, 1998, and 2008? What types of religion are represented? How are the representations of religion shaped by genres? While Christianity dominates in all the countries, astrology and parapsychological phenomena are prominent in the Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish magazines. Both categories decline throughout the period. The Lutheran majority churches are represented by referring to the sermon genre and adapting to the advice column genre. The representations of the paranormal validate its existence and provide a prediction tool for everyday issues. This shows that the magazines adjust the representations of religion to make them relevant to people's everyday lives.1.