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Abstract

During recent decades violence against Christians in India has increased significantly. In spite of this development the issue has received relatively little scholarly attention. Likewise, despite the massive transformation of the newspaper business, which has made contemporary India one of the largest newspaper markets in the world, only few studies have been done on the news coverage of religious minorities in India. In this article, we aim to contribute to both these areas of research. Using a critical discourse analysis, we examine the everyday representation of violence and harassment against Christians in the two largest English daily newspapers in India, Times of India and The Hindu. As pointed out by David A. Stout, news media is one of the main channels through which people gain knowledge about religion. They thus influence attitudes and ideas that may play a significant role for the intensity of conflicts and can facilitate or endanger the possibility of peaceful coexistence. We, therefore, consider the study of media representations to be an important tool to gain a better understanding of the underlying dynamics of violence against Christians in India.

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