There are many religions in the world. Some, such as Christianity and Islam, have a large number of adherents, while others include a myriad of spiritual beliefs and folk religions. The first major opportunity to acquire knowledge about religions with which one does not usually have close contact is in the classroom, but another major opportunity is through the mass media. Therefore, the media coverage that we casually see and hear in our daily lives may have a significant impact on our interest in and image of each religion. Therefore, by analyzing the amount of coverage by religion and the context in which each religion is reported, we decided to identify trends in coverage of religion in Japan's international press.

First, we extracted the percentage of articles "on religion" in all international news reports by the three major national newspapers, Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, and Mainichi Shimbun. (For details on the analysis method, seeFootnote *1.See also). The following graph summarizes those articles, categorized by religion. (For more information on the analysis methodology, seeFootnote *2See also).

As you can see, all three companies have by far the largest number of articles on Islam. The Yomiuri Shimbun has more than 85% of the articles. The next largest number of articles on Christianity is also a common trend among all three. Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism are next in line with only a few articles on Christianity. Let us now look at the percentage of the world's religious population.

31% are Christian, 23% are Muslim, 15% are Hindu, and 7% are Buddhist.As can be seen from this, there is a discrepancy between the size of the percentage of the number of believers and the amount of media coverage. It does not appear that the amount of coverage varies with the number of believers.

So why is there such an overwhelming number of articles about Islam? One of the main reasons is the Islamic State militant group that occupies parts of Syria and Iraq. In this analysis, articles that include words that allude to religion in their headlines are judged to be "about religion," so articles about the Islamic State are counted as falling into the category of Islam. However, the content of those articles is often related to the activities of the armed forces and their expansion of power, which is distinct from articles on pure religion itself, such as Islamic doctrines and customs. Therefore, if articles that include "Islamic State" in the headline are excluded, the volume of coverage by religion is as follows.

Even excluding articles with "Islamic State" in the headline, articles on Islam were the most common, accounting for more than 40% of the articles in the Mainichi Shimbun and more than 50% in both the Asahi Shimbun and the Yomiuri Shimbun. Furthermore, articles about the Islamic State made up a large portion of the articles on religion in all three newspapers. Specifically, 47.9% of the Asahi Shimbun, 39.4% of the Mainichi Shimbun, and 72.0% of the Yomiuri Shimbun. Here again, we can see a major bias in the way religion is treated in the press.

Having looked at the amount of coverage of articles on religion, let us now consider the content of coverage of each religion. For example, in reporting on the Islamic State, religion is often mentioned in a negative context, involving acts of violence and destruction, such as terrorism and conflict. Therefore, GNV has set up an item in its own database called "Violent or Not" and classified the articles based on the headlines of each article. (For more information on the analysis method, seeFootnote *3(See also). Based on this, the percentage of articles featuring violent topics in the total "articles on religion" was 48.9% for the Asahi Shimbun, 47.6% for the Yomiuri Shimbun, and 37.2% for the Mainichi Shimbun. 40% to 50% of articles on religion by all three companies were "Bad" news reports with violent elements. In all three newspapers, about 40% to 50% of the articles on religion were "Bad" news reports involving violence.

We also compared violence separately in articles about Christianity and Islam. Results are as follows.

As can be seen at a glance, there were more articles with violent content on Islam than on Christianity. Similarly here, the analysis was conducted when articles about the Islamic State were excluded. The Asahi Shimbun showed a decrease in the percentage of articles with violent content when articles about Islam were excluded (58.31 TP3T → 51.91 TP3T), while the percentage increased when articles about Islam were excluded for the other two newspapers (Yomiuri: 52.21 TP3T → 54.51 TP3T, Mainichi: 42.41 TP3T → 53.51 TP3T). 53.5%). This result is thought to be due to the fact that the balance of coverage on the Islamic State differs from one newspaper to another, as many of the reports on the Islamic State include measures taken against them.

It is important to note here the context in which Christianity appears in articles with violent content. Of the 13 articles across all companies that were judged to have violent content, the Christian side appeared as the "victim" in 12 articles. (Example 1: "90 Christians Abducted in Attack on Minority Village in Northeastern Syria" (Asahi Shimbun, February 26, 2015); Example 2: "70 Dead in University Attack, Extremists Target Christians in Kenya" (Asahi Shimbun, April 3, 2015)). On the other hand, in the context in which Islam appears, more than a majority of articles depict the Muslim side as the "perpetrator" (Mainichi: 74%, Asahi: 70%, Yomiuri: 59%).

This trend is unsettling. This is because it too often emphasizes the biased oppositional structure in which Christianity is always on the victim's side and Islam is always on the perpetrator's side. In other words, there is a danger of spreading the erroneous and biased perception that Muslims = people with dangerous ideas. Here, one might think that Muslims are in fact the perpetrators in many cases of conflicts and incidents involving violence. But is that really true?

Therefore, it is necessary to consider conflicts in which followers of other religions are perpetrators and Muslims are victims. For example, in the conflict in the Central African Republic, one of the world's largest armed conflicts that caused the greatest humanitarian damage in 2015, a large number of Muslims were victims of massacres by armed forces, mainly Christians, in 2015. Also in Myanmar, the Muslim Rohingya people are persecuted by the mainly Buddhist community and regime. Furthermore, in many cases, conflicts related to Islam are not solely the result of religious conflicts. To begin with, armed conflict is a social phenomenon in which various factors, such as power struggles and relationships over the distribution of wealth, are extremely complex. Therefore, there are an overwhelming number of cases in which both the perpetrators and victims of conflict are Muslims. It would be somewhat oversimplistic to label these conflicts as "religious conflicts.

This analysis revealed, in the first place, that there is a large bias in the amount of coverage of each religion, and that there is also a large difference in the context in which Christianity and Islam are reported. Considering the significant role of media coverage as a source of information on religion, highly biased coverage can directly lead to the formation of highly biased (i.e., erroneous) perceptions of people. Religion is not only an object of faith for believers and communities, but also plays a variety of roles in their daily lives. If we do not consider this and try to view it from one extreme aspect, as a factor in conflict and violence, we will lose sight of the facts surrounding religion. It is of course necessary for the media itself to change so that it does not get caught up in images and conflict structures. However, there is something we can do as recipients of information. We should not just rely on the context of news reports and label specific religions and their followers as good, bad, or scary, but we should make an effort to have a correct understanding of each religion and the circumstances surrounding it.

Writer: Sota Dokai
Graphic: Hiro Kijima