Religion and the Media: The Cultural Role of a Church-Based Welfare Agent in a Norwegian Local Community

Abstract

This article analyses and discusses the mediation of the moral agency of a small church-based (Norwegian) welfare organisation from a media theoretical perspective. The main focus is on the relationship between the welfare organisation and its leader on the one hand and the local newspaper on the other hand. The relationship is conceived and analysed as a trust relationship and seen in the context of the local newspaper's agency manifesting the ideas of the public journalism movement. The article discusses whether the agency of the particular type of welfare organisation as mediated in the (secular) newspaper may contribute to ‘boosting religion’ or, more specifically, whether it might indicate that the church is still interesting as a source of moral authority.

Notes

NOTES

1. The project title is “Welfare and Religion in a European Perspective: A Comparative Study of the Role of the Churches as Welfare Providers within the Social Economy” (see Bäckström).

2. The CCM in Drammen is a member of a national family or network of city missions based on more or less common religious and social ideology. Until the early 1990s, there were two local newspapers: Drammens Tidende, which is characterised as politically conservative, and another paper which is more left-wing oriented.

3. A more detailed description and analysis of the role of the local church in welfare provision is provided by Angell and Wyller.

4. All quotations from interviews and newspapers are translated by the author.

5. The organisation that came closest to the CCM in having a positive reputation in the field of welfare work is (perhaps unsurprisingly) the Salvation Army.

6. We counted more than 70 hits for the electronic archive of the newspaper on the CCM in Drammen or its leader over the past five years.

7. The Norwegian Humanist Association is a relatively strong movement in Norway. For further details, see Angell, “Church-based Welfare”; Angell and Wyller.

8. This function may be associated with Casanova's analysis of public religion in modern society. For obvious reasons, the role of the church and the CCM in welfare may also be related to the wider question of the role of religion in contemporary society. This aspect of the CCM's role will not be pursued in this article.

9. A systematic analysis of the editorials over the past two years clearly demonstrates this role. See also Aagedal; Kristoffersen.

10. The original verb is ‘überziehen’, which refers to the economic term ‘overdraw’ (an account).

11. Luhmann's concept of trust as founded in the question of the order of society differs in this way from, for example, the Danish philosopher Løgstrup's conception of trust. For a comparison of the two, see Grimen.