News coverage of Christian churches and other religious bodies dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspapers in German and English

Figures & data

Table 1. Number of dominant frames highlighted in the research sample, in individual newspapers⁵.

Frames	FAZ	The Guardian	NYT	SCMP	Total
Sanitary rules imposed by competent state authorities and respected by religious institutions	29	23	57	13	122 (30%)
Restrictions on worship and public religious activity	24	16	33	13	86 (21%)
Dialogue and joint initiatives run by ecclesiastical and governmental authorities	6	7	25	8	46 (11%)
Online sacraments and liturgies	5	10	18	4	37 (9%)
Fanaticism (denialism of the pandemic)	2	2	7	17	28 (7%)
Conflict between political and religious authorities (clericalism, secularism)	7	7	4	7	25 (6%)
Social activities promoted by religions	4	7	6	1	18 (4%)
Other	5	19	19	4	47 (12%)
Total	82	91	169	67	409 (100%)

Source: own compilation.

Table 2. Examined characteristic: Relations between church and state authorities.

Press title/category	Total	Cooperation	No cooperation	Other
FAZ	82	63 (77%)	9 (11%)	10 (12%)
The Guardian	91	53 (58%)	9 (10%)	29 (32%)
NYT	169	122 (72%)	11 (7%)	36 (21%)
SCMP	67	38 (57%)	24 (36%)	5 (7%)
Total	409	276 (67%)	53 (13%)	80 (20%)

Source: own compilation.

Number of publications assigned to individual categories (percentage share in brackets).

Table 3. Examined characteristic: Church activity during the pandemic: number of publications assigned to individual categories (percentage in brackets).

Press title/ category	Total	Volunteering and acts of charity	Liturgy and sacraments	None	Other
FAZ	82	4 (5%)	5 (6%)	10 (12%)	63 (77%)
The Guardian	91	7 (8%)	10 (11%)	11 (12%)	63 (69%)
NYT	169	6 (3%)	18 (11%)	12 (7%)	133 (79%)
SCMP	67	1 (1%)	4 (6%)	26 (39%)	36 (54%)
Total	409	18 (4%)	37 (9%)	59 (15%)	295 (72%)

Source: own compilation.

Table 4. Number of natural topoi for each newspaper title.

Common places	FAZ	The Guardian	NYT	SCMP	Total
Responsibility for human life	41	40	108	18	207 (50.6%)
Common good	15	22	35	8	80 (19.6%)
Moral obligation to love one’s neighbour	13	11	9	13	46 (11.2%)
Death	5	9	11	8	33 (8.1%)
Religious freedom	3	4	2	10	19 (4.6%)
religious leader’s authority	2	2	1	7	12 (2.9%)
Complementary character of faith and judiciousness	1	1	1	1	4 (1%)
Respect	1	1	1	1	4 (1%)
Human dignity	1	1	1	1	4 (1%)
Total	82	91	169	67	409 (100%)

Source: own compilation.

Table 5. Number of common cultural places for each newspaper.

Common places	FAZ	The Guardian	NYT	SCMP	Total
State-church relations	9	9	17	9	44
Mediatisation of religion	8	6	13	4	31
Abuse of power in relation to religion	7	6	5	6	24
Canon and religious law	5	4	6	1	16
Church finances	3	3	4	2	12
Fake news	1	1	2	3	9
Religious fanaticism	1	1	1	1	4
Religious denialism			1	2	3
Total	34	30	49	28	141

Source: own compilation.