The controversial establishment of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Portugal was the subject of many news reports during the s, in which accusations of serious crimes β from charlatanism to connections to drug trafficking and child abduction β filled the pages of newspapers G.
Dias, ; R. Many of these news reports linked the Church with stereotypes about Brazil and Brazilians and referenced Brazilian soap operas, which were quite popular in the country at the time.
In turn, the reference to soap operas manifests in the fabric of journalistic discourse, with a hybridisation formed between the melodramatic and informational genres.
DOI: That was not smooth and caused some conflicts, which were widely reported by the media. Two facts can be referred to as significant events of the arrival of the Church in the country: the purchase of the Coliseu concert hall in Porto, which caused numerous protests, and the aggressive attack on worshippers who were attending a meeting in a shopping centre in Matosinhos G.
Dias, Both events, which took place in , had wide repercussions in the media and marked the moment in which news media coverage of UCKG became recurrent.
