Pope Francis as a Media Phenomenon: Between Faith and Social Media

The Catholic Church seeks means and languages to help spread the faith in the cultural context of the 21st century, marked by the prevalence of image and digital communication. But can a pope be relevant today?

The pope's media value and visibility received a considerable boost during the pontificate of John Paul II. The media have been with Francis from the first day to the last. At the conclave that elected him in 2013 there were thousands of accredited journalists from 65 countries; the 600 journalists covering the Holy See were joined by 4,432 special envoys.

Original expressions

Francis showed a special ability to convey the message through language, gestures and symbols. His magisterium was full of graphic and original expressions such as ‘make a mess’, ‘liquefy the faith’, ‘smell like sheep’, ‘Church on the way out’, ‘walk through patience’, ‘airport bishops’, ‘the idol of money’, ‘throwaway culture’, ‘globalisation of indifference’, ‘world war in pieces’, ‘sanctity next door’, ‘culture of encounter’, ‘balconising life’, ‘young people on the sofa’ ..... These expressions have been shaping a singular discourse and, at times, have made an impression on public opinion, both inside and outside the Church.

In addition to the initial meeting with journalists, several milestones stood out in Francis' relationship with the media right from the start. The trip to the island of Lampedusa in 2013 was one of them. After learning of the death of another group of migrants who wanted to arrive from Africa, the pope went there on a trip that he himself considered to be one of the highlights of his pontificate.

In Lampedusa, Francis raised his voice:

"I felt I had to come here today to pray, to make a gesture of closeness, but also so that what has happened will not be repeated. We are disoriented, we are no longer attentive to the world in which we live, we do not care, we do not protect what God has created for everyone and we are not even capable of caring for one another".

The speech resonated strongly with world public opinion.

Press conferences with questions

Another milestone came with the trip to Brazil for World Youth Day (2013): the press conferences on the flights. On that first occasion, the Pope was asked up to 23 questions, which were published in full by some of the media. The frank and open style was characteristic of the interventions: ‘To make an armoured space between the bishop and the people is madness,’ he told the journalists.

In-flight press conferences have been a regular channel of spontaneous communication and sometimes ended with one-on-one conversations with journalists.

Time magazine named Francis ‘Person of the Year’, recognising what it called the ‘people's pope’, ‘who adopted the name of a humble saint’. Francis, Time said, ‘is called to transform a place that has measured change for centuries’. The publication's nomination, which John XXIII and John Paul II had already received, was yet another step in Francis' remarkable prominence in world public opinion.

Time magazine cover naming Pope Francis “Person of the Year” in 2013.

The Christmas cover of The New Yorker helped to underline this, along with other cover appearances in such unusual outlets for religion as Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone.

The pontiff has been a major player in the global media, which has accelerated the more social aspect of his figure and his leadership, inside and outside the Church. Initiated by Benedict XVI in December 2012, the pope's social media accounts (now add the one inaugurated by Francis on Instagram in 2016) have become global voices of reference in digital environments.

The nine Twitter accounts (in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, French, Latin, German, Polish and Arabic) have more than 40 million followers. The potential for dissemination of messages is striking: some of Francis' tweets have been retweeted more than 13,000 times.

Also striking is the number of messages that become ‘favourites’, another measure of the impact and engagement of audiences that is often used to measure the effectiveness of network communication.

His vision of communication

What did Francis think about communication? In 2016 and 2017 the Pope had twelve meetings with the French sociologist Dominique Wolton in which he held wide-ranging discussions on the great issues of our time, including communication. Francis pointed to a model that emphasises proximity: closeness to people is the crucial consideration, because in his view communication is, first and foremost, personal communication. "Communication is something that cannot be bought. You don't sell it. It is given," he said.

Proximity is precisely the reason he gives for using Twitter in his conversation with Wolton: "I have to use all means to get close to people. I write tweets as if to open doors, I am sure that these tweets touch hearts". He also highlighted humility as one of his priority characteristics: ‘The only key that opens the door to communication is humility’.

As for journalism professionals, Francis shared his vision already in 2016 in a speech in Italy to the National Council of the Order of Journalists. There he pointed out that it is up to them to write a ‘first draft of history’, which gives an idea of the transcendence of their mission.

In his view, the vocation of journalism was ‘to make the social dimension of a true citizenship grow’. ‘It cannot become a weapon of destruction: I want journalism to be, increasingly and everywhere, an instrument of construction, a factor for the common good, an accelerator of reconciliation processes,’ he said. The philosophy of ‘building bridges’ was key to his understanding of communication.

The strategy of the lack of strategy

Any assessment of Francis' pontificate is still premature. But some conclusions can already be drawn. In a way, his strategy consisted of a lack of strategy: freshness, spontaneity and proximity.

Difficult to pigeonhole into conventional media categories, he also stood out with a smile that has gone around the world. These qualities have allowed the Church to connect with freshness in less usual contexts, with audiences who were less comfortable with religion. Francis' message has been a source of opportunity for communicating faith in the 21st century and has enabled the Church to reach new forums with its mission.