Abstract

On February 11, 2013 Pope Benedict XVI resigned his position as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. For the first time in the history of the Church, the resignation announcement was transmitted to the general public via mass media. This paper explores the agenda setting and framing roles of the press in the coverage of the events following the papal resignation. Focus Group Discussions were held with lay Catholics to seek their views on the impact of the resignation and weigh in on their interpretations of the event.  Results from four focus groups indicate that participants acknowledge the mass media functions of surveillance, correlation, transmission, and entertainment as present in the papal news coverage.  However, participants also believe that the press set undue agenda by prioritizing the story for several weeks and framing the story in a negative light. This raised the question of the legitimacy of agenda setting and framing influences in today’s society.  Several alternative interpretations of factors that led to Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation were proffered by participants and those factors were oppositional to the mainstream media interpretations.

Key Words:  Agenda Setting, Framing, Pope Benedict XVI, Papal Resignation, Mass Media Functions.

^JCMRJournal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 5, No. 2, October  2013, 33–46

©Delmas Communications Ltd.

About the author

*Dr. Bellarmine Anthonia Ezumah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, Murray State University, Murray, KY 42071, U.S.A.

Full Article

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