Religion through the Local Media on Twitter. The Holy Week in Malaga

This research is part of the work of the Catedra de Estudios Cofrades, Culturales, Sociales y Economicos de la Semana Santa Malaguena (Chair of Brotherhood, Cultural, Social and Economic Studies on Holy Week in Malaga) of the University of Malaga. The main purpose of the study is to deepen understanding of this local festivity. The article addresses the question of how social networks, particularly Twitter, are being used as a new resource for the transmission of religious values. People are able to find out more about this festivity by interacting with the platform. Examples of this interaction have previously been seen in the World Youth Day in Madrid, the Pope’s Twitter profile and the case of Sister Lucia in Spain. This study aims to confirm the hypothesis that the local media makes a special effort to report on the event by means of Twitter while preserving its religious essence using the appropriate choice of words. The methodology is based on a detailed analysis of content found in the tweets of nine important local media organizations: three radio stations, three television channels and three newspapers. The content has been taken from 13th to 20th April 2014 (Holy Week) and classified into three categories of terms: religious terms, tourism terms and artistic terms. The results confirm that the local media use religious vocabulary on Twitter as compared to tourism or artistic terms, commonly used in general publications. Aquesta investigacio s’emmarca dins de la Catedra de Estudios Cofrades, Culturales, Sociales y Economicos de la Semana Santa Malaguena, l’objectiu principal de la qual es fomentar el coneixement en profunditat de la Setmana Santa a Malaga. L’article reflecteix com les xarxes socials, Twitter en especial, es converteixen en un nou suport per a la transmissio de valors i creences religioses, apropant la tradicio a l’interactiu, gracies a exemples com la Jornada Mundial de la Joventut de Madrid, el perfil de Benet XVI o el cas concret de Sor Lucia Caram a Espanya. L’estudi tracta de confirmar la hipotesi que els mitjans de comunicacio locals fan un esforc especial a Twitter per donar cobertura a aquest esdeveniment conservant-ne l’essencia religiosa pel que fa a la seleccio de paraules. La metodologia s’ha basat en una analisi de contingut dels tuits publicats al timeline de nou perfils de Twitter dels mitjans locals mes rellevants: tres emissores de radio, tres cadenes de televisio i tres diaris. La data de la seleccio dels continguts ha estat durant la Setmana Santa del 13 al 20 d’abril i se n’han creat tres categories de termes: religiosos, turistics i artistics.