Pope Francis’ Communication Strategy on Instagram: Taking Stock of a Decade of Spiritual Leadership in the Digital Sphere
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/ryf.vol290.i1468.y2026.009Keywords:
religious communication, digital culture, spiritual leadership, Catholic Church, digital public sphereAbstract
The communication of the Catholic Church has undergone a profound transformation in the context of digital culture, where social networks have been consolidated as relevant spaces for religious mediation and public presence. This study analyzes Pope Francis’ communication strategy on Instagram during the tenth anniversary of his pontificate, based on a corpus of 226 publications and more than 64,000 comments (March 2023—March 2024). Using discourse analysis and natural language processing (NLP) techniques, predominant topics, tone, and levels of interaction are examined. The results show a coherent strategy focused on evangelical values such as peace, mercy and hope, with the capacity to generate emotional participation. Instagram is thus consolidated as a key symbolic space in the digital communicative legacy of the pontificate.
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