Introduction to the Special Issue on Journalism, Media and Religion: How News Media Ascribe Meanings to the Terms “Sacred”, “Secular” and “Authority”

Religious topics are increasingly addressed in journalism worldwide, including newspapers, television, radio and Internet news. The high visibility of religion in society and, inseparably connected to this, the increasing reappearance of religious themes in news media have come to the attention of recent academic research as well.This special issue offers new research material on the topic but also a new design and system of organizing the field. The novel approach of this special issue is threefold: (1) it focuses specifically and only on journalistic media; (2) it discusses a variety of religious and geographical contexts through case studies; and (3) it introduces a new structure of discussing journalism and religion by analyzing the three key concepts “sacred”, “secular” and “authority” through the lens of Laclau’s (1996, pp. 36) approach to terms as empty signifiers. The articles analyze how news media ascribe meanings to these terms.