Representation of satanism in the media: A qualitative study

The 6. of June 1992 the Fantoft stave church fell victim to an unknown arsonist, and only ruins remained of the then almost 800 years old church. Among the ruins police found a dead animal, and speculations concerning an satanic sacrifice became prominent in the Norwegian news media. Previous to the church burning satanism had been a minor issue and not something that was considered newsworthy. The goal of this master thesis is to investigate how satanism was represented in the Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende in the years 1991 to 1994, and whether or not satanism was subject to the process of mediatization through the use of the extensive coverage the paper had on the subject of satanism and the people involved with it. The data material consists of a selection of newspaper articles that contains information on satanism, spanning the entirety of each year. Through the use of the qualitative method thematic analysis the thesis shows how the representation of satanism changed, from a foreign problem that was seen as a minor nuance, to a national problem. The thesis shows that even though the data material shows clear signs of mediatization, the source material is too narrow to say with certainty whether or not the mediatization of satanism happened or not.Religionsvitenskap mastergradsoppgaveRELV350MAHF-LÆHRMAHF-REL