”Hej bestie, välkommen till kyrkan! Det är en otrolig vibe där inne” : En kvalitativ analys av Svenska kyrkans underhållande kommunikation på Instagramprofilen @svenskakyrkan

Sammanfattning

Digitalization has increased the use of social media by religious organizations, including the Church of Sweden. Social media has evolved from providing information and knowledge to serving an entertaining function as well. This study aims to examine the Church of Sweden’s entertaining posts to understand how mediatization can influence communication in media. The study is based on two research questions: Which themes can be identified in entertaining posts on the Church of Sweden’s Instagram account, @svenskakyrkan? How can the results be analyzed using Stig Hjarvard’s theory of mediatization? The study is conducted as a qualitative content analysis with an abductive approach. The empirical material consists of transcribed Instagram posts by the account @svenskakyrkan over approximately one year. The analysis is based on Hjarvard’s mediatization theory and the concepts of media as conduits, media as languages and media as environments. The results show that five themes can be identified in the posts. During the categorization, several posts could be classified under multiple themes, depending on what the text expresses. The analysis based on mediatization theory shows that the posts can be categorized under the three concepts. However, several posts can be classified as all three media functions. The study concludes that the Church of Sweden publishes various forms of entertaining content that can be categorized according to Hjarvard’s three concepts. The three concepts of media affect the Church of Sweden’s posts in terms of content, form and function.