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What Is Talked About and How When It Comes to Catholic Topics
After mapping the key actors and platforms in the first phase, researchers of the project “Representation and Analysis of Catholic Topics in the Digital Media Space” at the Catholic University of Croatia have now published a second, even deeper set of results. Using advanced natural language processing (NLP) methods on more than 27,000 media articles, the analysis addresses a crucial question: what is being said, and how, when it comes to Catholic topics?
The research identified 16 key thematic categories, creating a kind of “anatomy of discourse” that reveals the fundamental narrative structures of the Croatian digital space.
Two Separate Worlds: The Pastoral and the Socio-Political Cluster
One of the most important findings is the existence of two clearly separated thematic “worlds.” Network analysis shows how topics group into distinct narrative frameworks:
Pastoral cluster: topics such as Spirituality and Liturgy, Caritas, and Church Institutions form the core of intra-Church and spiritual discourse. They are closely interconnected but largely separated from day-to-day political debates.
Socio-political cluster: topics such as Politics and Relations with the State, History and National Identity, and Bioethics and Culture Wars make up a second, tightly interwoven cluster. Their interconnectedness points to a high level of politicization of these issues in the public space.
The analysis went a step further, measuring the emotional pulse of each topic through Facebook reactions. The results confirm the existence of two different emotional registers:
Topics from the pastoral cluster, such as Spirituality, predominantly generate positive reactions (Love).
In contrast, topics from the socio-political cluster—particularly Bioethics and Culture Wars and Politics—trigger the highest share of negative (Angry) reactions, confirming their role as focal points of social polarization.
“This analysis allows us to go beyond simply counting articles. We can now see the ‘DNA’ of each topic—its emotional charge, its potential for engagement, and the narrative frameworks in which it is placed,” explains project leader Assoc. Prof. Luka Šikić. “We showed, for example, that history in mainstream media is most often framed through politics, while in religious media it is more frequently connected with spirituality. These are crucial insights into different agenda-setting strategies.”
By applying such innovative methodological approaches, the project not only provides valuable data about the media landscape but also develops new tools for understanding the complex relationships between media, religion, and society.
A detailed interactive analytical report is available at this link.
Learn more about the project, methodology, and future analyses on the project’s official website.
