Newspapers' coverage of the religious aspects of the integration and the European Union debates

Abstract

This dissertation analyses the newspapers' coverage of the "religious" elements of the Integration and EU accession debates in the light of the relationship between papers and their owners as well as literature on the process of secularization. Besides this, the literature review also looks at the research on the political events in both periods and the role of newspapers in society. Content analysis of a sample of newspapers during the relevant electoral campaigns were analysed using four hypothesis. The results indicate that the religious elements of the Integration debate were emphasised in newspaper coverage but only scantily covered during the EU accession debate. It also showed that the position of institutions owning newspapers were reflected in their respective press.