“The institution of the Church disappointed me” – religion in the discourse of right-wing online information portals during the presidential campaign in 2020

Abstract

This paper examines the discourse of four Polish right-wing news and political commentary services on religion and the Roman Catholic Church. The aim of this text is to identify the contexts in which references to religion occur. It is assumed that media representations of religion, religious practices, and religious institutions demonstrate the social significance and the role of religion. At the same time, those representations either sustain or redefine it. The study is exploratory in nature. It covers the period of the campaign before the 2020 presidential election. The analysis shows that in the discourse of right-wing news portals in the period covered by the study, religion was presented as marginalized in the political, cultural, and social dimensions.