Themen der Publizistik — Wie entsteht die Agenda öffentlicher Kommunikation?

Aside from information, sense, etc., issues are a structuring element of human individual communication, of societal and of media communication. To date media science has been studying issues and their topical formations in context with agenda setting or news value research. What issues are, and how they evolve, remains unclear. The discussion of sociological models — such as the arenas modell — does not help either. Communication research is called upon to analyze issues in their factual, temporal, and social dimensions on the various layers of communication. Issues prove to be structured items of knowledge which are relatively stable but partly modified by social change. Their topical formation always connects with the stock of meaning and sense, with experiences and memories, which may vary more or less among the partners in communication and which are mostly inherited in socialization processes. Mass communication, i.e. primarily journalism, has generated sections for categorizing issues. With the future in view, however, their functionality may be questioned.     

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.     

BA-/MA-Studiengang »Medien und Kommunikation« an der Universität Augsburg

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Demokratische Internet-Öffentlichkeit? Ein Vergleich der öffentlichen Kommunikation im Internet und in den Printmedien am Beispiel der Humangenomforschung

The importance of the internet has increased significantly in recent years. The easy access of this »new« medium sparked many hopes for a democratization of the public sphere and of public debate: Many authors argued that the internet will make actors and interpretations of topics visible to those parts of the broader public who are usually marginalized in »old« mass media. In an empirical analysis, we compared print media coverage and internet communication to assess these claims. For the case of human genome research — i.e. a bioscientific topic that reseived extensive media attention in Germany —, we analyzed which actors were given public standing and which frames came to the fore. In contrast to the claims mentioned above, our findings indicate that the debate in the internet does not differ to a significant extent from the offline debate in print media. We could not find a more egalitarian, democratic communication in the internet.     

Propaganda als ideologische Kommunikation

In view of the many military and warlike conflicts, the term »propaganda« is often used in both press coverage and in scientific analysis. It is widely ambiguous though what exactly is meant by propaganda, and to what extent it can be distinguished from similar forms of communication, such as public relations and advertising. Reviewing previous approaches concerning propaganda and using the totalitarism approach, this article argues that propaganda can only be defined as a process of communication that puts forward extensive claims which are to be enforced by the use of an ideological system. In contrast, public relations and advertising merely put forward particular resp. singular claims which are to be bolstered by the use of images and positive pictures. With regard to propaganda, the structural links between the political and the public system are so tight that the autonomy of the public system is partly or completely annihilated. As a communication process tied to the formation of power, propaganda works with the symbolically generalized communication medium of power and, owing to its ideological foundation, also with the medium of truth.     

Josef Hackforth an der TU München Ordinarius für Sport, Medien und Kommunikation

Ohne Zusammenfassung