Kommunikationsproblem interaktives Fernsehen?

While other European countries — above all Great Britain — experienced large-scale changes of the television landscape due to the introduction of interactive services, interactive television seems to remain of marginal importance in Germany. Although interactive television has to face specific supply-side problems in Germany, there is an obvious lack of studies that offer information on the knowledge about, attitudes towards and usage of interactive television services. The results of a regional survey and a content analysis of regionally important newspapers show that interactive services are relatively well-known, raise indifferent attitudes and are rarely used. Moreover the results indicate that interactive television faces a communication problem. Theoretically, the mass media should play a decisive role in the process of the adoption of innovations. In contrast the data shows that information from mass media channels has an almost negligable effect on the knowledge about, attitudes towards and the usage of interactive television services.     

Using Mobile Donation to Promote International Fundraising: A Situational Technology Acceptance Model

ABSTRACT

As donation through mobile devices becomes globally available, this study aims to promote its adoption and facilitate international fundraising, primarily by examining people’s motivations to make a mobile donation – a donation made by text message. Employing key variables from the situational theory of problem solving and the technology acceptance model, this study proposes an emerging Situational Technology Acceptance Model (STAM). A nationwide survey of 994 American respondents in Spring 2016 and a two-step structural equation modeling process empirically supported STAM. By digging into the nuances of people’s situational motivations to solve a problem and their attitudes toward using a new technology, STAM found that the respondents’ donation intentions were more associated with their technological attitudes. Finally, this study uses awareness of mobile donation and mobile donation intention as two dimensions to segment mobile phone users to active, aware, latent, and non-publics, and offers practical advice for nonprofits to better target their fundraising efforts.     

Das neue Medien-Menü: Fernsehen und WWW als funktionale Alternativen?

As new media technologies develop and become established, the supply of media services expands. Along with this development, the question arises of how this affects traditional media. As other new media have, the Internet, too, has triggered debates about the future of the «old» media. This paper discusses whether the proliferation of the World Wide Web can have effects on television use. To do this, both relevant theoretical approaches and the state of empirical research are introduced and discussed. Present research results do not consider the systematic difference between cognitive schemata concerning media use as they are reproduced in face-to-face interviews on the one hand, and actual media use on the other. An innovative research concept is developed that takes this critique into account and differentiates between gratification expectations and situational gratifications sought and obtained. As regards gratification expectations, television is superior to the World Wide Web. It is more powerful on all gratification dimensions. Considering actual use, though, the World Wide Web has already outstripped television on some of the dimensions. It is used more often to satisfy specific needs. Thus, cognitive schemata of media use lag behind the actual changes in every day life.     

Themenzyklus der Kriegsberichterstattung – ein Phasenmodell

In this article, we analyse war coverage from a longitudinal perspective. In doing so, we refer to the classical issue cycle model, which has been discussed frequently in communication science. We adapt the model to war coverage and – according to the duration and the predictability of war events – we distinguish different types of news cycles. We assume that different stages of news coverage differ not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively with regard to the cited sources. The coverage on the war in Lebanon (2006) in the newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung serves as a case study for the empirical exploration of the suggested model. The coverage can be divided into four different phases, and the results show that it was mainly event-driven. In the peak phase of coverage, increased citations of actors participating in the conflict and of other media actors are observed, as well as generally the most diverse range of voices to be heard in the coverage.     

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.     

TV Kills Social Capital?

The concept of social capital was introduced into public discussion by Robert Putnam in the mid-nineties. Since Putnam diagnosed a decline in social capital and, as a consequence thereof, a weakening of democracy and civic society in the USA, the concept gained theoretical and political meaning in German public debate as well. The major culprit contributing to the dramatic loss of social capital is said to be an old acquaintance: television. According to Putnam, about 40 percent of the decline is caused by electronic entertainment media, especially television. This article critically reflects on the theoretical foundations of Putnam’s construct of social capital. Using data from a representative survey in the German states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, we examine the relations between social capital on one hand, and television and Internet use on the other. Basically we confirm Putnam’s findings — but only to a degree not even close to the strength Putnam claims to ascertain.     

Strategic Communication of Israel’s Intelligence Services: Countering New Challenges with Old Methods

This study sheds light on the strategic communication of intelligence services in the new media age. Intelligence services operate in the dark, as far away as possible from the attention of the media and the public. However, in the new media age, intelligence services face a fresh set of unfamiliar challenges, including a dramatic change in the concept of time, the presence of alternative voices in the new media and a dramatic reduction in the ability to manage and control information. Using a case study approach, three traditional methods employed by Israeli intelligence services when addressing situations of exposure are examined: censorship, gag orders and the Editors’ Committee. The study addresses the organizations’ dilemmas, choices and difficulties in adjusting to the new media environment. On a broader theoretical level, the research demonstrates the importance of recognizing the differences among the diverse actors in the field of strategic communication as manifested within the well-established concepts of strategic communication, adaptation and adjustment. Since the field of strategic communication aims to include so many types of organizations and actors, it is crucial that nuances and differences among them are identified and analyzed within their specific context.     

Wer z?hlt die Toten, kennt die Orte

Results of news research generally show that, apart from the countries?? status, regionalism is the most dominant factor in foreign reporting. Such results are usually based on studies that exclude the effect the characteristics of events can have on news coverage. Therefore, the relevance of these results is limited because they do not allow comparing the influence of country characteristics and event characteristics. Our study takes a different path by attempting to isolate the effect of event characteristics from that of country characteristics. To this end we analyzed the coverage on earthquakes in three leading German news media. The results show: The effect of event characteristics heavily outweighs the effect of country characteristics. Nevertheless, the latter also proved to be relevant, especially for television, sometimes disassociated and sometimes interacting with event characteristics to manifest their effect.     

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.     

Die Agenda — ein Konstrukt des Rezipienten?

The objective of this study is to integrate schema theory into the agenda-setting model. We examined the influence of cognitive schemas on the perception of political issues presented in the media. We used a multi-method-design to scrutinize 25 young adults’ perception of the television debates between chancellor Schröder and his challenger during the 2002 German election campaign. Before the debates took place, participants were interviewed, using a standardized questionnaire. After having watched the debates in familiar surroundings, participants were asked to reproduce the discussed issues by a non-standardized, open questionnaire. Additionally, the debates were analyzed and the issues discussed were ranked. Results indicate that recipients pay more attention to political issues already clearly anchored in their issue schemas, and remember those issues better than others. Our results underline that a further inclusion of schema theory into the agenda-setting model is necessary to better reconstruct the process of political information processing.     

Nachrichtenwert und Gespr?che über Medienthemen

The paper extends the theory of news values by examining interpersonal communication about television news. It investigates whether recipients refer to news factors when talking about the news, and how these news factors possibly influence the selection of specific news issues for personal conversations. Based upon a function modelling the selection probability of news issues, direct and indirect influences of news factors on conversations are discussed and tested in three empirical studies. Specifically, continuous news topics and issues that are presented prominently in the news are referred to in conversations. Negativity, however, is mostly avoided. Whereas news factors can be understood as criteria of relevance for journalistic selection processes, they seem to be indicators of shared knowledge in interpersonal communication. In conclusion, implications for the general selective mechanisms in the communication of events are discussed.     

Das Erklärungsdilemma der Medienwirkungsforschung.

Starting from the deductive-nomological model, the partitioning of variance, several classifications of media effects a multi-level logic, the paper presents a variance-based model of media effects beyond the single recipient. However, when explaining media effects on meso- and macro-level units, media effects research faces a dilemma. The article discusses this dilemma both formally and by using selected examples (stock market, public opinion, right-wing violence). The dilemma of explaining media effects has to be taken seriously since it entails problems going far beyond the simple question of individual and aggregate data. Part of it are the problems of modeling the link between micro and macro-level as well as its dynamics – which raises further questions such as “where do media effects end?“.     

Werbung auf niedrigem Niveau?

In recent years, European political advertising of right-wing populist parties has increasingly focused on the negative stereotypical visualization of immigrants. However, these posters’ effects have so far not sufficiently been studied. In addition, most studies only used student samples in experimental designs and therefore left out possible effects of viewers’ education. Yet persuasion research suggests that it’s especially formal education that could act as a moderator in the process of understanding and evaluating political posters. The study presented here therefore uses a design that allows to investigate the role of viewers’ formal education in the reception of political advertising. We find that education has an effect on the affective evaluation of immigrants as well as people’s overall attitude towards them and their appraisal of the posters themselves. Results indicate that people with lower formal education are more easily persuaded by the message transported by the posters, adjusting their opinion of immigrants to the evaluation presented in the ad. Higher educated people in contrast reject the advertised message.     

What you tweet is what we get?

Twitter has a high presence in our modern society, media and science. Numbers of studies with Twitter data – not only in communication research – show that tweets are a popular data source for science. This popularity can be explained by the mostly free data and its technically high availability, as well as the distinct and open communication structure. Even though much research is based on Twitter data, it is only suitable for research to a limited extent. For example, some studies have already revealed that Twitter data has a low explanatory power when predicting election outcomes. Furthermore, the rise of automated communication by bots is an urgent problem of Twitter data analysis. Although critical aspects of Twitter data have already been discussed to some extent (mostly in final remarks of studies), comprehensive evaluations of data quality are relatively rare.To contribute to a deeper understanding of problems regarding the scientific use of Twitter data leading to a more deliberate und critical handling of this data, the study examines different aspects of data quality, usability and explanatory power. Based on previous research on data quality, it takes a critical look with the following four dimensions: availability and completeness, quality (regarding authenticity, reliability and interpretability), language as well as representativeness. Based on a small case study, this paper evaluates the scientific use of Twitter data by elaborating problems in data collection, analysis and interpretation. For this illustrative purpose, the author typically gathered data via Twitter’s Streaming APIs: 73,194 tweets collected between 20–24/02/2017 (each 8pm) with the Streaming APIs (POST statuses/filter) containing the search term “#merkel”.Concerning data availability and completeness, several aspects diminish data usability. Twitter provides two types of data gateways: Streaming APIs (for real-time data) and REST APIs (for historical data). Streaming APIs only have a free available Spritzer bandwidth, that is limited to only one percent of the overall (global) tweet volume at any given time. This limit is a prevalent problem when collecting Twitter data to major events like elections and sports. The REST APIs do not usually provide data older than seven days. Furthermore, Twitter gives no information about the total or search term-related tweet volume at any time.In addition to incomplete data, several quality related aspects complicate data gathering and analysis, like the lack of user specific and verified information (age, gender, location), inconsistent hashtag usage, missing conversational context or poor data/user authenticity. Geo data on Twitter is – if available at all – rarely correct and not useful for filtering relevant tweets. Searching and filtering relevant tweets by search terms can be deceptive, because not every tweet concerning a topic contains corresponding hashtags. Furthermore, it is difficult to find a perfect search term for broader and dynamically changing topics. Besides, the missing conversational context of tweets impedes interpretation of statements (especially with regard to irony or sarcasm). In addition, the rise of social bots diminishes dataset quality enormously. In the dataset generated for this work, only three of the top 30 accounts (by tweet count) could be directly identified as genuine. One fourth of all accounts in this dataset generated about 60% of all tweets. If the high-performing accounts predominantly consist of bots, the negative impact on data quality is immense.Another problem of Twitter analysis is Internet language. While Emojis can be misinterpreted, abbreviations, neologisms, mixed languages and a lack of grammar impede text analysis. In addition to low data quality in general, the quality of tweet content and its representativeness is crucial. This work compares user statistics with research articles on SCOPUS as well as media coverage of two selected, German quality newspapers. Twitter is – compared to its user count – enormously overrepresented in media and science. Only 16% of German adults (over 18 years) are monthly active (MAUs) and merely four percent are daily active users.Considering all presented problems, Twitter can be a good data source for research, but only to a limited extent. Researchers must consider that Twitter does not guarantee complete, reliable and representative data. Ignoring those critical points can mislead data analysis. While Twitter data can be suitable for specific case studies, like the usage and spread of selected hashtags or the twitter usage of specific politicians, you cannot use it for broader, nation-based surveys like the prediction of elections or the public opinion on a specific topic. Twitter has a low representativeness and is mostly an “elite medium” with an uncertain future (concerning the stagnating number of users and financial problems).     

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.     

E-Learning in der Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft

Using electronic media as teaching and learning tools is no longer a novelty; the fast development and diffusion of §new media”, such as CD-ROM and theWorldWideWeb, have given the use of these media a big boost in recent years. Thus, a number of electronic learning projects have been developed in the field of communication and media studies, of which, however, no general overview was available so far. This article provides such an overview, allows for classification and evaluation of these projects, and thus represents a prerequisite for the future success of such projects. A survey by the authors among communication and media studies departments in German-speaking countries accounted for 14 electronic learning projects that showed fairly diverse emphases with respect to their contents, concepts, didactics, technology, and organisation. In a case study on the Leipzig-based §Distance Learning Propädeutikum" (DLP), the article explores the advantages of electronic learning systems and discusses the challenges in the development and application of such systems. This section also draws on the results of a project-specific evaluation. Both the survey and the case study show that rather than substituting courses or cutting costs on instructors, the main advantage of electronic learning systems lies in their ability to make teaching and learning processes more independent of temporal and spatial constraints.     

Zur Informationsqualität von Zeitungsberichten über Meinungsumfragen: eine exemplarische Studie zur medialen Konstruktion von Realität

Polls are a frequent item in mass media reporting. However, the quality of the information conveyed in these reports is often a crucial issue. So far, studies of the quality of poll reporting were based mostly on the analysis of disclosure standards established by the polling industry. The focus of the present study reaches beyond these standards and includes additional criteria concerning the accuracy, transparency and balance or bias in poll reporting. Using analytic tools from both media linguistics and survey methodology, we will discuss the reporting in a single exemplary case. We demonstrate that merely following the usual disclosure standards as such does not guarantee reporting that is adequate in terms of quality. Once we take into account the entire media performance, the questions asked, the validity of the data, the intertextual processes of adaptation typical of the media (e.g. substitution, shortening, dramatization, personalization, etc.), as well as the ensuing interpretations, we show the ways news can be demoscopically constructed in poll coverage, and how they can be affected by the journalistic processes of selection and representation.     

Strategic Communication Campaigns at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Managing Mediatization During the Papal Visit,the Royal Wedding,and the Queen’s Visit to Ireland

This article investigates strategic communication in the context of the wider adoption of “campaign” approaches to public diplomacy at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The three case studies are the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom, the marriage of HRH Prince William to Kate Middleton, and Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to Ireland. The analytical framework seeks to situate strategic communication theory within a political–economic environment pervaded by a dependence on the media and its institutions for sociopolitical knowledge. Therefore, while affirming the growth and influence of strategic communication as a social phenomenon, this article questions how processes of mediatization impact strategic communication, its organization and practices. The case studies reveal characteristic techniques such as managing mediated spaces for meetings and discussion; shaping the salience of target groups, stakeholders, and participants; an emphasis on values and norms that may be tailored efficiently to different circumstances; and, a strong focus on achieving strategic consistency across diverse messages and messengers. The results will be of interest to researchers and students interested in better understanding how organizations utilize complementary communicative techniques to shape knowledge and steer experiences of political events in ways supportive of their overarching goals.     

Möglichkeiten und Gefahren der Meinungsfreiheit

A discussion about freedom of speech – such as the one arising from the publication of Muhammad caricatures in a Danish newspaper in 2006 – is of special importance in a democracy as it touches upon one of its elemental values. This article studies the debate on the value of freedom of speech as well as its potential dangers as it developed in the German newspapers after the publication of the caricatures. A quantitative content analysis was carried out encompassing all arguments posed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung and the tageszeitung. During the cartoon controversy, the discussion was only partly pluralistic. The limits to freedom of speech were elaborately put into question, the need to protect the freedom was highlighted, and threats to the freedom were covered. However, the benefits to be gained from a system of freedom of opinion were hardly present in the arguments put forth in the newspapers. An assessment of restraints or benefits mainly took place among the journalists themselves, who not only played the part of a messenger in the conflict, but were also an interested party in it. From these results, a conclusion is drawn on the consideration of freedom of speech as a core value of democracy.     

Auf der Flucht vor dem Tod?

Escapism is one of the oldest concepts for the explanation of media use but is still lacking theoretical differentiation. The dimensions reason, means and duration of escape are used to differentiate three modes of escapism: modification, postponement and repression. Repression should be of special interest for communication science because media use on the one hand and long phases of escapism on the other hand are of higher probability in this mode than in the others. Hypotheses are formulated and empirically tested for the existential issues of death and the meaning of life. Results show that television is the preferred mean of escaping from displeasing thoughts. On the other hand we do not find a connection between the amount of television use and thinking about existential issues. The hypothesis of a narcotic dysfunction is not confirmed. For the matter of existential issues television seems to offer escape and stimulation at the same time.