Hjarvard, Stig, and Mattias Pape Rosenfeldt. ‘Giving Satirical Voice to Religious Conflict’. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, vol. 30, no. 02, Nov. 2017, pp. 136–152.
his study concerns the Danish public service broadcaster DR’s television satire and comedy show Det slører stadig Still Veiled and its influence on public discussions and controversies concerning religion. Whereas news media’s coverage of Islam is often criticized for having a negative bias and thereby serving to escalate conflict, the cultural programming of public service broadcasters may provide different representations and enable more diverse discussions. In this study we consider how and to what extent Still Veiled gave rise to discussion and controversy concerning religion in both the general public sphere and in smaller cultural publics constituted through various social network media. The analysis shows that several, very different framings of religion appear in these debates. These debates furthermore involve a significant proportion of minority voices. The analysis suggests that a cultural public sphere may work as a corrective to the political public sphere dominated by news media.