Häufiger, schneller, variabler

Content analyses of German TV news (ARD, ZDF, RTL, SAT.1, Pro7) from the first weeks of December in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002 (with a total of about 40 hours of material and 18.000 shots) showed: The number and length of violent shots have been growing, singles shots have become shorter, and the size of shots as well as camera movements have become more variable. From 1996 to 2000 the commercial stations broadcast about twice as much violence in their news as the public ones. This ratio decreased to 1:1.5 in 2002 because of the public stations’ growing inclination to use violent material. A single violent shot in commercial TV news is shorter than a shot in public TV, and generally Tagesschau (ARD) is the news programme with the lowest share of violent content and the comparatively slowest pace in presenting it.     

Visuelle Kandidatendarstellung in Wahlkampfbeiträgen deutscher und amerikanischer Fernsehsender – Image Bites,Rollenbilder und nonverbales Verhalten

Political communication research still lacks indepth information about the role of visual information in television news. Based on a content analysis of 158 newscasts of two US and two German channels aired during national election campaigns in 2008 and 2009 respectively, this study examines visual representations of candidates’ performances that allow conclusions to be drawn about underlying campaign strategies. Furthermore, journalists’ reporting strategies are analyzed by coding so-called sound- and image bites as well as other selection processes related to nonverbal news of candidates. Results of our bi-national comparative study confirm expectations about a transnational convergence with regard to the increasing importance of image bites, whereas sound bite journalism is particularly prevalent on commercial TV channels. US news coverage reflects a highly professionalized approach by candidates, for instance by how they stage their ‘mass appeal’ and ‘closeness to the people’. German election news reflects a less populist approach towards campaigning with candidates preferring a public image as ‘statesmen’ and ‘party representative’.     

Politische Skandalberichterstattung: ein Forschungsüberblick und Systematisierungsversuch

Political scandals are a frequent feature of political communication around the world nowadays. Scandals serve important societal functions, e.?g., public discussion and reformation of norms in a society; holding political actors accountable for certain (political) behaviors. Scholars have argued that the news media are increasingly reporting about norm violations of political candidates. Surprisingly, no review of international research dealing with the dissemination and media coverage of political scandals is available. Thus, in the current paper the state-of-the-art in research on political scandals is systematically reviewed. Based on an extensive literature research a total of 20 relevant studies (published in German and English language) could be found. These studies were selected and examined in depth. The results revealed that – within the last two decades – there is an increasing number of political scandals around the world (data from 31 countries were examined). Besides increases in news reports about political scandals in Germany and the United States these studies show, for example, that there is a steep increase of political scandals in northern European countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden), and therefore in countries that used to be considered as rather “scandal-free” in the past. Furthermore, the results indicate that in specific countries (e.?g., United States, UK) political news are increasingly presented in a scandalizing way. Based on these findings, the number of political scandals (the number of individual cases published by the news media) has to be analytically separated from scandalization in political communication more generally (e.?g., the expression of public anger, the use of language of escalation, or the public condemnation of a behavior in political communication). Moreover, the results reveal that particular ownership structures, partisanship of a news organization, and the competitive context tend to influence news coverage about political scandals. The results also show that the definition and operationalization of political scandals – partially – remains unclear. More precisely, definitions used in previous research are either too unspecific and broad and thus do not allow for a precise operationalization and measurement of political scandals. In contrast, other definitions used in previous studies are too specific and needlessly restrict the measurement of political scandals. Thus, quite relevant cases are not accounted for. Therefore, an improved definition and operationalization of political scandals is proposed. According to that, scandals are defined as follows:Political scandals refer to real or conjectured norm transgressions of political actors or institutions. A particular norm transgression may occur in the context of political processes or in a politician’s private life and may or may not have legal consequences (e.?g., official investigation by the office of the district attorney). National scandals have to be repeatedly covered by two or more independent media organizations (e.?g., The New York Times and CNN in the U.S.). Regional scandals have to be repeatedly covered by two or more independent regional media organizations (however, the above-mentioned criterion for national scandals does not have to be fulfilled). News coverage about an alleged norm transgression must be framed as scandalous (scandal frame) and the scandalous behavior has to be unambiguously condemned.Based on the review, several research gaps are identified and a model for predicting the intensity of political scandal news coverage is introduced. The model comprises four central dimensions to predict the intensity of scandal news coverage (intensity is defined as duration, frequency, thematization, extent, and valence of coverage). The first dimension relates to the features of a particular scandal. Cases relating solely to verbal norm transgressions (talk scandals) are differentiated from cases involving other forms of scandalous behavior. Furthermore, cases with/without official investigations are differentiated and cases high/low in moral reprehensibility are distinguished. The second dimension relates to specific features of a particular politician (e.?g., type of position, popularity, if he or she has made moralizing/hypocritical statements in the past). As a third dimension, the model takes the particular reaction of a politician to scandal allegations into account (reaction appropriate/inappropriate). Finally, the fourth dimension takes the general context into consideration (e.?g., the particular media agenda, political leaning of a news outlet, social/cultural/economic context). Based on these four dimensions, as is argued, the intensity of scandal news coverage can be predicted and – in line with the model – specific assumptions are formulated that may be tested in future research. For instance, it is assumed that the news media will cover a case intensively when a political candidate is accused of transgressing a norm (e.?g., corruption) that engenders an official investigation (e.?g., state’s attorney) and is high in moral reprehensibility. Furthermore, the model predicts that the coverage will be intense when a politician’s popularity is rather low (compared to high), when a candidate made moralizing/hypocritical statements in the past (compared to no such comments), when he or she holds a high office (e.?g., president, minister compared to a back-bencher), and when he or she reacts inappropriate (e.?g., unconfident, contradictory, incredible statements) to an allegation (compared to more appropriate reactions). Finally, the model predicts that the news coverage of a political scandal will be more intense, when there are no other important topics (e.?g., terror attack, disaster) on the news agenda and when a potential norm violation is culturally especially relevant in a particular society (e.?g., sex scandals in the United States).     

Die Auswirkung des Schlüsselereignisses „Silvesternacht in Köln“ auf die Kriminalitätsberichterstattung

Key events captivate the attention of the news and the public. Previous research has shown that key events even influence news coverage that is not directly related to the key event. In fact, key events may increase the amount of news coverage about similar events. We investigated whether the key event “New Year’s Eve in Cologne” elicited a substantial effect on crime coverage. We hypothesized that the mentioning of foreigner-related attributes (foreigner, migration background, North African, and asylum seeker) has increased due to the key event. A content analysis of German news coverage supports this assumption. Therefore, the key event influenced journalistic selection decisions (i.?e., selection of events or selection of event attributes) that ultimately altered actual news coverage. This finding has important societal implications: The German press council recommends to only report on the nationality of offenders if there is a “justified reason.” As revealed by the present study, the key event influenced journalistic decision making and thus actual news coverage. This is an important finding because previous research indicates that the mentioning of foreigner-related attributes in crime articles can contribute to negative beliefs and attitudes toward foreigners and asylum seekers. This may ultimately influence the public debate about this issue.     

Dynamiken der WahlkampfberichterstattungDynamics of campaign coverage

This paper examines the TV coverage of the last three federal election campaigns employing two longitudinal perspectives: For one, we analyze long-term developments across several election campaigns. In addition, we study dynamics of media coverage during the course of each campaign and how they evolve over time. We use content analytical data from the “Kampagnendynamik” (campaign dynamics) project 2005 and the German Longitudinal Election Study 2009 and 2013. These allow for a fine-grained analysis of the main evening newscasts of the two public broadcasters ARD and ZDF and the main commercial stations Sat.1 and RTL. The results contradict the assumption of linear trends that have been discussed using catchwords like “Americanization”. Over the course of the 2005 to 2013 period, no increased focus on the competitive character of an election could be detected; quite to the contrary we can observe an increasing focus on policy issues. Neither can we detect an increasing personalization. Looking at the dynamics throughout the campaigns, however, an increasing focus on candidates as well as on politics can be observed. Moreover, public and private broadcasting stations differ in their style of reporting.     

Konvergenz von Nachrichtensendungen aus Zuschauerperspektive

Since the deregulation of the German broadcasting system, the possible convergence of public and commercial stations has been a research subject of significant interest in the field of communication science. But so far research on convergence has focused mainly on the program, whereas there are only a few consumer-centered approaches. This study takes up this deficit. The central question is: Has the program of public and commercial channels, with respect to content and design, become more similar over the years from the viewers’ point of view? Out of pragmatic considerations, this study concentrates on the news genre, represented by one public (»Tagesschau«) and one commercial television news magazine (»RTL aktuell«). Altogether 110 respondents evaluated 24 news stories each, originally broadcast on the two channels in 1986, 1990, 1995 and 2000. Respondents had to judge various quality aspects of content and design. The results clearly show that viewers are able to recognize differences between public and commercial news. As the quality of content of »RTL aktuell« has increased over the years, a slightly convergent development can be traced here. Regarding the quality of design, viewers consider »RTL aktuell« to have become better over the time considered whereas »Tagesschau« has remained on a constant level, resulting in a divergent development in this case.     

Politische »Kultur«

The presentation of cultural topics in the feature pages of German newspapers did change much during the past two decades. Above all, the »policialization« of cultural news coverage leaps to the eye. Nevertheless, there can be no talk of basically new cultural pages. This is demonstrated by a longitudinal analysis of four daily newspapers within the period of 1983 to 2003. The journalistic offer in the feature pages of all four newspapers has not been reduced but instead it has been strongly extended. The amount of articles as well as their size has increased considerably. »Politics« has become the most important topic. In 2003, its share of all topics is 15 percent, but it does by no means supersede the classical topics like theatre, music, the fine arts and literature. With a share of about 50 percent, those topics still are the core of cultural news coverage. Obviously, journalists are more open to popular and entertaining forms where musical topics are concerned compare to, e. g., the theatre. The most frequent genre in the feature pages in 2003 is undisputably still the review. An »end of the critique« in favor of strongly personalizing, entertainment and service-accentuated forms of presentation cannot be proven.     

Skandalberichterstattung in den Medien und die Folgen für die Demokratie

The worry that political scandals harm democracy is increasingly discussed whenever political affairs create public clamor. As people mostly learn about scandals by way of the media, the question arises whether intense coverage of scandals will have a detrimental effect on attitudes toward the legitimacy of the democratic system. Using survey and content analysis data, this research tests whether an influence of coverage on attitudes to the democratic system can be ascertained. It turns out that, aside from other factors, the use of certain newspapers and the use of informative media content with few political subjects negatively affect attitudes to the democratic system. Negative effects of scandal coverage were not found, though. Further analyses, however, revealed that the perception and evaluation of news coverage did have a clear effect on attitudes toward the legitimacy of democracy. Perception and evaluation of news coverage, the conception of politics, and attitudes to the political system form a complex cognitive texture that turns out to be rather delicate.     

Im Abseits oder aus der Tiefe des Raumes – Wie vielfältig berichtet das Fernsehen über regionales Sportgeschehen?

Sports shows are one of the most popular programs on television. Nevertheless, there are certain voices complaining about a lack of diversity of sports content on television. In this paper, it is argued why diversity of sports programs matters. Sports is not only a highly popular and entertaining media content. More than 23 million people are members of sports clubs and athletic clubs all over Germany. That makes sports an aspect of everyday life on a regional and local level. There it provides a lot of social functions, i.?e., social integration, promoting fairness, furthering health issues, and establishing social capital. These aspects should be considered when analyzing the diversity of sports on television programs.German legal rules for broadcasting services differentiate between commercial broadcasters and public service broadcasters (PSBs). The German Federal Constitutional Court has pointed out that commercial broadcasters cannot fulfill the same tasks as the PSBs in regard to the formation of public opinion. Therefore, the PSBs must provide a wide range of content regarding the diversity of social groups and the plurality of opinions. But there are no explicit regulations on the diversity of sports in television programs of PSBs. That is why this paper proposes a framework for analyzing the diversity of sports on television. This framework is based on the differentiation between sports broadcasting and sports journalism. Whilst monotony of sports broadcasting seems to be proven, little is known about the structures of sports journalism on television. It is argued that PSBs are obligated to public value. Therefore, they are obligated to cover sports and athletics comprehensively and it is up to sports journalism to bring to the fore the diversity of sports on television. There are three dimensions to be considered in analyzing the diversity of television sports journalism: diversification of sports content, social pluralism of sports, and regional diversity of sports news coverage. The aspect of diversification is met if sports journalism covers disciplines that are not regularly broadcasted on television. Social pluralism of sports considers how many people are organized in sports and athletic clubs dedicated to particular disciplines. E.?g., there should be more coverage of volleyball than of judo if there are more members in volleyball clubs than there are in judo clubs. Regional diversity of sports news coverage would be fulfilled by covering stories from a wide range of regions, districts, and cities from all over a designated television market area.These considerations lead to four research questions: (1) What are the subjects of regional sports journalism on television? (2) Do sports newsmagazine shows contribute to diversity and diversification of sports contents? (3) To what extent is sports journalism reflecting the diversity of sports and athletics in society? (4) How diverse is sports journalism content in regional aspects?In order to answer these questions a content analysis of sports newsmagazines from three German regional PBS television programs was conducted (“Sport im Osten”, MDR/“Sportclub”, NDR/“Sport im Westen”, “Sport inside”, WDR/“Sportschau Bundesliga am Sonntag”, all three programs). All issues of these sports newsmagazines aired in 2014 were sampled (sampling units). All news stories within the single issues were analyzed (coding units). The topic of the story was recorded for every coding unit. Additionally, the covered sports discipline, the region of the reported event, and the number of on-screen speaking persons were recorded.The data reveals the structure of sports journalism on German regional television channels. Television sports news shows are offering little diversification of sports content. There is a main focus on soccer on all three programs (nearly 80% of all stories presented on the programs of MDR and NDR). Other disciplines with a notable amount of reports are handball, hockey, and basketball. The sports news shows on the MDR program are covering a broad variety of 76 disciplines. The WDR sports news shows cover 62 different disciplines. The portfolio of the NDR sports news shows consists of 40 disciplines. The degree of diversity of the sports news shows is measured as relative entropy (Shannon’s Η’). Whilst sports newsmagazines of MDR and NDR offer little diversity of content (MDR: Η’?=?0.22, NDR: Η’?=?0.20), WDR’s sports newsmagazines present a much wider range of disciplines (Η’?=?0.43).Social pluralism of sports is not met in any of these programs. This is especially true for the representation of women in sports. Only 4.3% of over 111?h of sports news cover women competing in sports. 40% of sports and athletic club members in Germany are women but sports journalism is not reflecting this at all. Social pluralism is also lacking regarding members of different disciplines organized in sports and athletic clubs. E.?g., when ranking sports and athletic clubs by the number of their members, tennis clubs are ranked 3rd place amongst all sports and athletic clubs in North Rhine-Westphalia and Northern Germany. Yet, tennis is not one of the top 5 covered disciplines in the programs of neither the WDR nor the NDR.However, the programs offer a regional complementary sports news coverage. In all three television channels, the sports newsmagazines are reporting mostly from within their designated television market area.In summary, the current study reveals that sports newsmagazines are covering a relatively broad range of sports disciplines, but their focus is on the top-class sport. The public value of sports and athletics is not emphasized in sports journalism of regional television channels.     

Duell oder Berichterstattung?

Televised debates between the German Chancellor and his challenger were held for the first time in the election campaign in 2002. Hence we had the opportunity to examine the effects of debates as well as the impact of the follow-up news coverage of the debate. By combining a content analysis of debate coverage and a representative survey, we explored how voters’ reception of the first TV debate and their reception of the debate coverage interacted. Voters were influenced both by the impression they formed by directly viewing the debate and by the indirect impression they gained from follow-up media coverage. On the one hand we found an impact on voters’ views of the candidates’ appearance and of who won the debate. On the other hand we found an impact on voters’ general notions of the candidates’ personalities and competences. Furthermore there were — probably rather short-lived — shifts of candidate and party preferences.     

Politik mal anders: Die Politikdarstellung in „Harald Schmidt“ im Kontrast zur „Tagesschau“

Politics on television is no longer reserved for the news media; it is rather increasingly expanding into formats with their main focus on entertainment, e.g. late night comedy. However, so far research in German-speaking countries has more or less neglected these programs and their potential for political discourse. This article focuses on the specific characteristics in the depiction of politics in the German late night comedy Harald Schmidt and compares the results with the news-show Tagesschau. The interest is on the share of political issues, on the political actors and their depiction and on the presentation of the political stories. The quantitative content analysis includes all weekly episodes of one season of Harald Schmidt (2009/10), and for each episode the three preceding episodes of the Tagesschau. As expected Harald Schmidt has a lower share of political issues than Tagesschau. With regard to the selection of political actors, the late night comedy favors individual and national actors and focuses more frequently on private aspects. The presentation of the political stories is characterized by a lower degree of information, a higher degree of personalization and less balanced comments.     

Nachrichten und ihre kommunikative Qualität

German literature on the history of journalism in agreement relates as a certainty that the inverted pyramid in news writing was established as a professional standard during the American Civil War (1861–1865), along with, and because of, the use of the electric telegraph for transmitting news and its propensity, in its early days, to fail at times. Besides this technological thesis, three others are discussed: one related to political science, the other to cultural studies, and the third to economics. All four theses trace the diffusion of the «hard» news style, founded on the principle of relevance, back to factors that affected journalism from the outside. In contrast to this, a longitudinal study of innovative 19^th century New York daily newspapers shows that the principle of «lead and body» did not prevail before the eighties of the century, and its establishment occurred in an effort to make newspapers more readable and more attractive for readers by editing the copy received. The introduction of «inside editing» was not in the least based on economic calculations of cost and benefit. This provides a starting point for explaining the spread of the public sphere and the development of professional journalism by the dynamic of the capitalist market economy, rather than considering journalistic ethos and commercial calculation as opposites. In any case, the origin of the professional news style of the inverted pyramid is to be found in the striving for communicative quality in the journalists’ product. That it can be traced back to the telegraph’s propensity to malfunction is a myth, eagerly retailed but not at all substantiated.     

Der Einfluss des Tenors von TV-Nachrichten auf die wahrgenommene öffentliche MeinungThe effect of television news slant on public opinion perception

The Persuasive Press Inference is a theoretical approach that attempts to explain how the slant of single articles or programs influences perceptions of public opinion. An online experiment was conducted including N = 933 participants, who saw three versions of a public service TV news story on the “energy turnaround” in Germany. The three versions differed only according to their slant. The results confirm the central assumptions of the Persuasive Press Inference: The participants inferred the general tone of news coverage from the news item (extrapolation) and aligned their perceptions of public opinion to the perceived general tone (inference). The results even persist when participants’ attitudes towards the energy turnaround are controlled for (hostile-media-effect, projection of personal opinions). Besides the indirect effect of news item slant, a direct effect can be observed that was not considered by research so far.     

TTIP in den Medien

The global trade of goods and services is characterised by several disputes on policy, economic, and social issues. Especially the negotiations about the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US were highly discussed. In such controversies mass media plays a crucial role by shaping public discourses and democratic processes of opinion building. This study focuses on the deliberative media function and analyses the performance of German newspapers in the TTIP debate. Influenced by Habermas’ concept of deliberation, the public sphere is seen as an arena for rational debates and discursive interactions. According to this normative concept mass media should create a generally accessible, inclusive communication space where a diversity of political positions is argued and validated (input dimension of deliberation). Furthermore, public discourse should be based on a rational, responsive, and respectful way of communication (throughput dimension of deliberation). This leads to the empirical questions on how news reporting fulfills these normative demands of the deliberative theory.Although the concept of a deliberative public has been intensively discussed since the beginning of the 1990s, empirical studies on deliberative performance of mass media are relatively rare. Especially the conditions of a viable public deliberation need more investigation. To contribute to a deeper understanding of mediated deliberation, the present study examines different context factors which can be related to different degrees of deliberative media quality: (1) journalism type (quality vs. tabloid journalism), (2) partisan line (conservative vs. left-liberal papers), and (3) scandalisation, personalisation and emotionalisation as special characteristics of news construction. Particularly, the role played by these three patterns of journalistic news construction is unclear. On the one hand, it could be argued that substantial criticism and scandalisation of grievances is a fundamental element of public deliberation. On the other hand, scandalisation may reduce rational and respectful argumentation and create a hysterical public climate. In the same way it seems reasonable to assume that a strong emphasis on persons and their attributes rather than on issues and policy positions restricts the deliberative exchange of ideas. Otherwise, the focus on politicians and their positions could reduce the complexity of the discourse and report political concepts and abstract ideas within a personal story. Finally, emotions are ingredients of an empathic, responsive communication but also may harm the rationality of discourse at the same time. Considering these patterns of news construction, prospects for deliberative exchange are mixed and call for more empirical investigation.To investigate these contexts for a deliberative media performance, a quantitative content analysis of the debate on TTIP in German newspapers was conducted. The media sample included four quality newspapers (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, tageszeitung, Welt) and three tabloid newspapers (Bild, Hamburger Morgenpost, Abendzeitung München) which represent the left-right-wing spectrum of German print media. We analysed 531 articles about TTIP from June 2013 until January 2016. The coding scheme involved the deliberative criteria and the three discussed patterns of news construction. To measure deliberative media performance, two normative demands of the input dimension of public deliberation (inclusiveness of speakers and inclusiveness of opinions) and four demands of the throughput dimension were coded (justification, verifiable justification, responsiveness, and civility).Considering the input dimension of deliberation, it turns out that the discourse across all newspapers can be seen as inclusive. Speakers and opinions from different parts of the political system as well as actors from civil society and economic stakeholders are included in the news reporting on TTIP. However, for individual newspapers it can be shown that apart from this general conclusion partisan lines limit the diversity of the debate. Especially the left-wing newspaper tageszeitung rarely quotes and discusses positions pro TTIP while the most conservative paper of the sample Welt focuses more on pro opinions from industry actors. The moderate papers SZ and FAZ draw a balanced, inclusive portrait of the trade agreement. In sum, although the whole debate on TTIP is largely diverse, single papers give a biased picture of the conflict which limits the deliberative performance of these media outlets. On the throughput dimension of mediated deliberation, the study shows substantial differences between quality and tabloid journalism. The three tabloid newspapers of this sample show significantly lower performance. In particular, a comprehensive rational justification and responsive comparison of different opinions is mostly missing in this journalism type. For the three analysed patterns of news construction we find that personalisation, emotionalisation and scandalisation relate to low deliberative performance. In particular, the civility of communication is missing when media content reports on TTIP in a scandalised and emotionalised way. But also the rational and responsive exchange of ideas is limited in articles which show these characteristics. In sum, the study shows that the concept of public deliberation offers a fruitful benchmark to examine the performance of news coverage and evaluate different contexts of media content.     

Presidential Agenda Building and Policymaking: Examining Linkages Across Three Levels

To investigate the role of strategic political communication in governing, this study comprehensively examined presidential agenda-building associations at three levels during the first six months of U.S. president Barack Obama’s second term. Multiple presidential information subsidies, national news content, and policymaking activity were monitored. The results revealed solid support for all three levels of agenda-building (i.e., object salience, attribute salience, and network associations among objects or attributes), but the linkages with media coverage and policymaking were not uniform across information subsidy types. Based on the analysis, presidential news releases, blog posts, and presidential speeches were the most effective all-around strategic agenda-building tools for media management and policymaking purposes during this time period. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Akteursbeziehungen in der Zeitungsberichterstattung über die Online-Aktivitäten des öffentlich-rechtlichen RundfunksActor relations in the newspaper coverage about the online activities of public service broadcasting in Germany

Focusing on the media policy debate about the Internet activities of public service broadcasting in Germany this paper investigates in how far strategic interests of newspaper publishers impact upon the news coverage of their newspapers. Using a combined content and network analytic approach the study examines what further actors from the media policy field were presented in the media debate and how they are related to each other. Empirically, the study relies on a content analysis examining the news coverage about the Internet activities of public service broadcasting in three national daily newspapers (die tageszeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt). 156 articles were coded using the principles of relational content analysis that allow studying actors‘ interactions as symbolized networks. Results found indication of the assumed influence of publisher’s interest on their news coverage. Additionally it was found that the newspaper’s editorial line seems to have a moderating effect on this process. Results from the network analysis point to a very polarized debate that is dominated by private media corporations and their associations.     

Frames und Positionen zur EU-Osterweiterung

While framing theory is concerned with the way media content is presented, news bias theory concentrates on the evaluative aspect. The study integrates both approaches of news structuring. A detailed argument analysis of two German quality newspapers, Die Welt and Frankfurter Rundschau, representative for two opposite editorial viewpoints, was conducted to test the assumptions of both theories. The examination of news coverage related to the accession of Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania to the EU contradicts previous results of framing and news bias research. Apart from finding a pronounced focus on economical topics in both newspapers, they clearly differ in their frames of reference and political positions on the issues, staying in line with their editorial orientation. A comparison of the different accession times reveals a change in the frames of reference and the advocates of these frames.     

Der Intra-Extra-Media-Vergleich — ein wenig genutztes Analyseinstrument und seine methodischen Anforderungen

The article addresses the methodological demands which allow drawing conclusion about a potential change in news selection from a comparison of content analysis data and extra-media statistics. Based on arguments by Karl Erik Rosengren, the design and admissibility of such studies is discussed. Then the demands for the events to be analyzed, for the content analysis data and for the extra-media statistics are dealt with. The application of the standards developed and some problems in empirical procedures are illustrated with a small study. It asks whether news selection has changed over the past fifty years in a way that accidents and damage have drawn more attention to themselves in news coverage. With respect to some relevant events, data from a content analysis of three German national newspapers are related to external statistics. The analyses show that news selection in the papers studied has temporarily changed for the events under consideration, but that no long-term trend — primarily no trend towards increasing negativism — could be made out.     

Der CDU-Parteispendenskandal: Medienberichterstattung und Bevölkerungsreaktion

The general assumption about political scandals is that they have mostly negative consequences. One of the most important negative effects seems to be that the scandalized parties and politicians loose electoral support (e.g. measured by voting intentions). Unfortunately, current empirical studies analyzing the link between political scandals and electoral reactions only found limited support for this simple causal relationship — especially if they focus on individual attitudes and behavior. Using content analysis and survey data on the party financing scandal of the CDU (one of the biggest political scandals in the history of post-war Germany), this article analyzes the connection between media coverage of the scandal and public reactions on both the aggregate and the individual level. While a strong media effect on public opinion exists on the aggregate level, such a relationship does not appear on the individual level. This again raises the question of whether political scandals do affect public opinion as postulated.     

Demokratischer Wert von Medienpublika

Against the background of the discussions about the normative demands and the reality of democracy, about a decreasing newspaper readership, and about the critical quality of political communication, the authors deal with the question of whether the audiences of the news media possess a specific “public value” by contributing differently to the scope and quality of public discourse. Using the example of the subscribers to a left-liberal German newspaper, die tageszeitung (taz), the authors analyze data from a representative readership survey to assess this public value. In this, the authors focus in particular on attitudes and behaviors relevant to the public sphere and democracy, such as political participation, acceptance of responsibility and public engagement.