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.     

Aufmerksamkeit und Geld, schenken und zahlen

In recent years economic influences seem to have grown stronger in the media system. This general impression, however, is not supported by general systems theory. Analytically it is possible to distinguish a market trading attention from a market trading money. The interplay of both markets shows a different kind of interdependence between the media system and the economic system. The eminent importance of the market of attention and the far-reaching consequences for media economics are revealed. The latter is a promising area which should incorporate traditional mass media as well as new communication technologies such as the internet.     

Mediennutzung und Umweltbewusstsein: Dependenz- und Priming-Effekte

In a comparative perspective, the article is concerned with the contribution of media use to EU citizens’ levels of environmental knowledge and awareness. Mass media are the most important source for environmental information, and media use contributes considerably to the amount of information people hold on environmental issues. In addition, media use bears upon the perception of the burden to the environment, the worry about the state of the environment in one’s own country, and the worries about the environment in general. The explanatory power of media use is largest for those judgments that relate to the parts of the environment that cannot be directly experienced. Besides this result, which is in accordance to the dependency theory of media effects, the analysis corroborates a priming effect: The media affect judgments on the environmental burden one has to suffer and on the state of the environment even if these judgments can be based on one’s own perception. EU citizens, however, complain much less about the burden on their own environment than they worry about the state of the environment in general. This gap also, as is demonstrated, can be traced back, at least in part, to an influence of the media. Results for single EU countries partly differ from these general results, most likely due to differences in how much environmental issues are politicized in the media and how intensely they are covered.     

Medientransformationen und Entwicklungsprozesse in Mittel- und Osteuropa

15 years after the beginning of the epochal changes in Central and Eastern Europe, it seems increasingly disputable to speak about »Eastern European media« and to regard them as a whole. In analogy to the general transformation, every country has its own typical transformation path, also with respect to the media, creating a broad variety of such paths in the region. Therefore, analyses of the media in this region not only require to assume a differentiated perspective, but it appears also to be important to identify relevant factors that flank and shape the general transformation, and to complement the media analyses by these external parameters. This approach led to the development of a multi-dimensional methodological instrument for media analyses in post-communist countries. It is suitable for mapping three dimensions of media transformation: first, the different transformational stages that document transformational progress; second, the specific historical and cultural as well as political and socio-economical conditions; and third, the diverse levels of the transformational process and the development in the media.     

Medienwirtschaft und Gesellschaft

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Medien und Integration

Although attention to the relationship between social integration and media has increased over the years, a gap remains in terms of quantitative content analysis on this topic. This applies particularly to the content of foreign-language media, probably due in part to the difficult operationalization of the concept of ??integration??. The paper outlines an action theory-based framework for the identification and empirical analysis of integration-related media content. The ??integrative function?? of the media can be understood as the dissemination of matching definitions of stereotyped situations to support individuals in successfully coordinating their actions. Of particular importance are four processes that grant access to societal resources: (1) Culturation, (2) Placement, (3) Interaction, and (4) Identification. These processes represent a logical point of reference for an empirical operationalization and analysis of integration-relevant media content (conceived as meta-messages). To test this framework, a focus study of Turkish-language media was conducted. The results provide evidence that the concept allows a broader perspective and detailed analysis of media content concerning integration and the processes involved. Overall however, integration-related content only plays a marginal role in Turkish-language media, at least in times of routine coverage.     

Empathie und Medienempathie

Empathy is the capacity and tendency of a person to recognize, understand, and be sensitive to other people’s emotions. The roots of this construct go back to the psychology of emotions and personality psychology. Communication science frequently makes use of it to describe the experiences and emotions during media reception. However, the question can be asked whether empathy and media empathy are two different constructs requiring different measuring instruments. To begin with, this question will be discussed theoretically with important arguments being presented both in favor of and against the thesis of congruent constructs. Subsequently, a measuring instrument for media empathy will be introduced which is constructed following precisely the tried-and-tested operationalization of empathy. It was employed in two studies, and their findings will be compared with one another. The results display both similarities and marked differences, especially with regard to reception variables. Since communication science uses media empathy to explain the effects of reception, different references to reception variables represent a particularly apt argument for the broad independence of the construct and thus for a separate measuring instrument. The present measuring instrument, developed in the context of a pilot study, will be suggested as a provisionally valid operationalization.     

Medienforschung und Anthropologie

Ohne Zusammenfassung