This post will present our results one more time and conclude our blog for this class.

All in all one can say that we have found out many interesting things about religion during the elections in the United States 2008 and in Germany 2009. One can say that religion is not covered in Germany as much as in America. Mostly Religion is not covered at all in Germany, but most people do not seem to be interested anymore which would be a result of religion in Germany in general. About 50 years there were more people religious than today which could also be a reason why there are not as many people interested in religion in politics and do not necessarily assume that they both belong together.

On the other hand the people in the United States seem to be very much interested in religion in politics. Most people care about religion a lot which is due to the high number of religious people in the U.S.. Since many people value religion a lot, more people care about what is done in politics with it as well.

Is Obama Muslim? Germany

This post will try to figure out in how far the media in germany covered the topic that Obama is a muslim. I researched on the internet to look for some articles and I have also talked to some people and asked if they nkew something about this rumor.
First, I thas to be said that not many people know something about this rumor in germany and if they do know something it is often that they only heard once or twice in very short articles about that. This is also what I have figured out by looking for articles in the german newspapers. There were a few articles which covered this topic but they do not really ask the question if Obama is a muslim. They only pointed out American's reaction to that rumor.
I have found one article which tells the numbers how many people in the U.S. believed the rumor. It says that 14 percent of the republicans, 10 percent of the democrats and 8 percent of the independents believed in this rumor. Furthermore it says that mostly those who do not want Obama to be president believed in this rumor.http://www.welt.de/politik/article1845642/Jeder_Zehnte_haelt_Obama_fuer_einen_Moslem.html
All in all you can say that in germany there was no big debate about this topic and it was not interesting for the people if Obama is a muslim but if the Americans think so.

Obama Muslim? U.S 2008

During the elections 2008 in the U.S there was this rumour about Obama being a muslim. People paid much attention to this rumour. It started already in 2004 but during the elections 2008 during the general election phase it could be read everywhere. There was a high presence of it in the media as well as in the minds of the people. It never fully disappeared throughout the election and about 30% of the religion-related campaigns covered this topic.
After this rumour most people paid attention to the Obama's campaign's efforts to set the record straight. Two women wearing head scarves were removed by staff members from the camera view at a campaign rally in order to get rid of the belief about Obama being a muslim.

Furthermore did they set up a website to help people identify and root out inaccuracies about the candidate's religious believes.

This rumour shows how much people pay attention to religion in the USA especially during the elections and how political careers could possibly be ruined by such rumours as well, because people tend to believe them and care about them a lot, too.

How the media covered religion during the german election 2009

In the following post I'm going to deal with the media and how it covered religion during the elections 2009 in Germany.

Since you have read my example about Angela Merkel and religion you will certainly assume that religion does not play a signifikant role in Germany, not even during the elections in 2009. During my research I found out that religion does not play a huge role in Germany in politics but it is asked in interviews. (as you have read in my example as well)

Germans do not necessarily see politics and religion belonging together and most believe that religion is separated from politics without seeing that in Germany we have many parties based on Christian values and other religions. Even Merkel's party is based on Christian values (CDU) and in interviews she is often asked about it.

This could be explained by analysing the religious history of Germany. During the last couple years the two biggest religions Catholic and Protestant have lost many members and the number of people who do not believe in anything has risen. This could be a reason why religion does not play a big part in the elections 2009, because it does not play a big part in the people's lives anymore so they do not car about it during the religion and do not tend to think about it as far as politics is concerned.

How the media covered religion in the U.S.

The following post will deal with the topic how the news media covered religion in the general elections.
During my research I found out that in the U.S. religion plays a significant role during elections but it was even more important during the election in 2008. But that was only that important because of Barack Obama who was the first black candidate. So religion got as much important as race during their election campaigns. This is one result of a new study of thecoverage of religion in the campaign coducted by the Pew Research Center’s project for
Excellence in Journalism and Pew Forum on Religion and Life.
Furthermore it got obvious that religion campaign coverage focused more on Obama’s campaign than on any other candidate. But it was also very striking that religion-focused campaign stories were far more often used in a very negative way by the mainstream press. For example there was the rumor that Obama is a Muslim. This topic will be covered later on in an extra post because it was a very big topic in the U.S. Another example of that media coverage of religion is that there was a huge debate about Obama’s relationship with his former pastor. But it was not only Obama who had to face these kinds of religion focused campaign stories.Although Obama’s campaign was the most religion-focused campaign.
But the problem with all these stories was that the media did not take a closer look to these words and what the candidates really believe in.

In the following post I'm going to deal with an example about Religion during the elections 2009 in Germany. As far as this example was concerned it was hard to find anything about the chancellor Angela Merkel and her religion and beliefs.

I did a little survey among my friends and family members to find out what they know about the religion our chancellor is part of and if they are even interested in it. Not surprisingly NOBODY knew what religion Merkel is part of. Most guessed it would be catholic or protestant because she belongs to the CDU, a christian party. I need to admit that this did not surprise me, because I do not know myself and I cannot remeber anything written in the newspaper in 2009 during the elections.

But what really surprised me was that I could not find anything about that topic on the internet anywhere. I looked it up on several different websites, but what religion she is part of could nowhere be found even though I was sure to find it when I first started my research.
I did find an interview where she talked about religion in general and that she would not be able to deal with the responsibility she has without her trust in god.

All in all I concluded that Germans do not seem to be as much interested in religion as they used to. Appearently it is an issue not dealt with in the newpapers especially as far as politics is concerned.

So there is one questions left:

Is this going to be Angela Merkels secret forever or will anybody be brave enough to find out?

Changes between 2008 and 2009

In the following text I will deal with the topic Changes betwee 2008 and 2009. After noticing that there are nearly no information on religious voters in Germny I will only concentrate on the U.S.. That means that I will take a look at some religious groups and minorities and how their votes have changed.
During my readings it became obvious that the biggest changest were in the Democratic vote among the religious minorities. Namely, these minorities are the Hispanic Catholics, Hispanic Protestants and other minority Catholics and Prostestants. Furthermore, Obama made also gains among the Jews.
In contrast to that there was no essential change in the vote of regular worship-attending white evangelical Protestants, which is one of the strongest voting groups. To sum it up, most of the religious groups stayed with their votes or moved only further in their direction by a few percentage points. So the shaoe between the voters got clearer but there were not very big changes.
These small changes could be explained with partisanship. It does not change very fast. So it is not very suprising that it changes during the election not very much. But I learned during my research that some people see this little changes as an important beginning of important changes in the future.