The construction of Pope Francis’ image

The aim of this study was to understand how the NH newspaper may have influenced the construction of the image-concept of Pope Francis during its coverage of World Youth Day (WYD) in 2013. The specific objectives were: (a) To investigate the production context of the articles published by the NH newspaper in its coverage of World Youth Day; (b) To analyse the discursive formations of the NH newspaper during its coverage of the event, in order to identify the construction of meanings in the texts about Pope Francis; and (c) To understand whether the discourse of the NH newspaper, during its coverage of World Youth Day, may have influenced its readers in the construction of a positive or negative image-concept of Pope Francis. In order to contextualise the research object, the social actors that made up the corpus of analysis were presented, including the Catholic Church, WYD, the role of the Pope in the Catholic Church, youth and the NH newspaper. The NH newspaper's discourse represented the Pope as a simple and humble person, a new phase in the Catholic Church. This possibly led to the construction of a positive image-concept of Pope Francis.