The news media frames the Pope and the Catholic Church in ways that will fit their own interests or be beneficial to them. In answering a question, Dr. Nardella stated that the way the media frames the Pope “is strategical in a sense and on the other hand, it is journalism” (research presentation, April 16, 2019). By this, he meant that journalists who make media will frame the actions of the Pope in a way that will strategically benefit their benefit, getting them more views. An example that Dr. Nardella used that explains this idea is how the media interprets his facial expressions and correlates these interpretations to the Pope’s feelings in a given situation. By simply looking up images of the Pope, it is apparent that he rarely smiles for photos, but, like Dr. Nardella presented, media can frame his lack of a smile in a way that links it to negative feelings about the individual or the situation (research presentation, April 16, 2019). An article from the Vatican News discusses the Pope’s reaction to youth reliance on cell phones. This article states that “girls and boys, accompanied by family members and teachers of Rome’s Visconti High School clapped loudly when the Pope turned his attention to their ever-present digital devices” (Bordoni, 2019, p. 1). This news source is run by the Vatican, so it fits their interest to frame the Pope strictly in a positive light. The article crates this frame of the Pope by explaining the excitement of the crowd as he began to talk about the topic of cell phones. Below is a snapshot from the Pope page from the Vatican News website. On this site, the Pope is not portrayed in a negative light, which is reflective in the images of the Pope and the headlines of the articles in the snapshot. This example specifically speaks to how the Vatican News frames the Pope, but the idea of news framing him to match their interest is evident in other media news sources as well.
References
Bordoni, L. (April 13, 2019). Pope to students: ‘don’t be slaves to your mobile phones’. Vatican News. Retrieved from https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-04/pope-francis-audience-students-mobile-phones.html
Vatican News: Pope. (2019). [website page]. Retrieved from https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope.html