Polish Nationwide Catholic Opinion-Forming Weeklies on Social Media—From Theoretical Introduction to Empirical Approach

Abstract

This paper is the first part of a cycle comprising five texts on the marketing use of social media by nationwide opinion-forming Catholic weeklies in Poland. Considering the state of the research so far, it is not completely clear how to classify Catholic media profiles on social networking sites. On the one hand, the media activity of the Church is typically evangelistic in nature, but on the other hand it takes place in typically secular conditions. The evangelising role of the Catholic media cannot be separated from the opinion-forming function. The main objective of the project is, firstly, to assess the marketing potential of social media used by the aforementioned weeklies and secondly, to complement the previously described online presence of religious entities in the context of the mediatization of religions. This paper—as the theoretical background of the research—presents the detailed interdisciplinary literature review on the issues crucial for the project, as well as the methodological introduction to our study.