ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a content analysis of newspaper coverage of two forms of occultism—witchcraft and satanism. It focuses on four dimensions of coverage: how the media depict the participants, sources for the stories, images of the two phenomena, and connotations of deviance. However, stories about satanism, like all news stories, represent the media's social construction of reality through news frames. The media's constructed reality tends to reinforce existing stereotypes and dominant ideologies. The media's depiction of the participants of satanism and witchcraft differs markedly, affecting news consumers' identification with them. Newspapers relied on participants as sources in only 15 percent of articles on satanism. The vast majority of articles relied on experts as sources: police, therapists, religious specialists, school authorities, and parents. Both satanism and witchcraft are deviant belief structures that differ considerably from mainstream religions.
