Kapitalisierung von Paarbeziehungen

This study examines the role that the social networking site Facebook plays in the different aspects of relationship management by couples. The communication of couples is influenced not only by the relationship phase but also by the geographical distance between the partners. Based on the assumption that these factors are also important for the couple’s (partly) public Facebook communications, the online survey explores whether couples in the first phase of a relationship or in a long-distance relationship use Facebook intensively for relationship management. Furthermore, the concept of capitalization (Gable et al. (2004, 2006)) is applied to the social network communication. Originally, it referred to interpersonal communication. In conjunction with the publicity of social networks, the awareness of others could change the processes of capitalization. It can be shown that relationship management in a narrow (“romantic”) sense is upheld on a rather low level. Contrary to expectations, there is less (partly) public relationship communication in the first phase of a couple’s relationship as well as in long-distance relationships. Also contrary to a culturally pessimistic point of view, Facebook is not replacing traditional forms of relationship communication. Capitalization also has deficits; nonverbal forms of communication such as facial expressions, body language, and gestures are lacking on Facebook, despite all of its various emoticons.     

Habilitation von Ralf Hohlfeld

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Habilitation von Michael Meyen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Habilitation von Thomas Schierl

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Synchronisation von Nachricht und Werbung

Advertiser pressure has always been seen as a potential source of bias in the coverage of ad-financed media. The effects of advertiser pressure, however, have seldom been subject to systematic empirical research. Content analyses on the subject are particularly rare. This study for the first time scrutinizes on how the representation of firms by the leading German political weeklies Der Spiegel und Focus correlates with the amount of advertising by those firms. For this purpose all ads and the full news coverage on selected firms during the year of 2011 were analyzed. Central findings show that firms will receive more coverage, friendlier coverage and a larger share of product coverage, the higher their volume of advertising both in Der Spiegel and in Focus.     

Zum Tod von Klaus Schrape

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Strukturen der Wirkung von Rhetorik

The question of how important different persuasive elements of speeches are for their effectiveness has been discussed among philosophers and scientists for centuries. Additionally, there are modern myths about the effects of speeches, popular especially among communication coaches. An example of such a myth is the “communication pyramid”. It postulates that 55 percent of the effects of a speech are made up by nonverbal cues, 38 percent by the voice of the speaker and only 7 percent by the content of the speech. The present paper addresses the relationship between content, verbal and non-verbal emphasis in the perception of a political speech, using a laboratory experiment and RTR-measurement. Results indicate that nonverbal components can improve some, and impair the perception of other aspects of a speech. Furthermore it is found that content generally determines the perception of the perceived persuasiveness of the speech and the structure of its effects.     

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.     

Struktur und Funktion von Propaganda

At first the article reviews classic notions and concepts of propaganda, and introduces, in a first step, a comparative typology of structural features of propaganda. Propaganda emerges as a communicative technique for generating promises, the structure of which is generalising, and which claim truth but are not to be doubted. In terms of substance, it claims an exclusive title to represent, which is maintained over time and socially taken as definitively accepted. Adding meta-claims in substantive, temporal and social terms generates a type of ultrastable structure, the function of which is the generating of truth. Propaganda can therefore be considered as one of the first communicative techniques that was used for generating truth by meta-claims about fictional structures, and for achieving strong effects. The acceptance of propaganda is ensured by communicatively imposing effective sanctions on testing its validity. Thus, propaganda emerges as the most effective instrument of persuasive communication. Criteria for excluding the use of propaganda for ethical reasons are then specified. It must be assumed, however, that in the long run the use of propaganda will increase in media society: for once because of the removal of traditional certitudes of salvation by new doctrines depending on propaganda; and also by globalization and integration in newly available ways of communication.     

60. Geburtstag von Heinz-Werner Stuiber

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60. Geburtstag von Manfred Knoche

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

60. Geburtstag von Jan Tonnemacher

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Habilitation von Heinz Starkulla Jr.

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Walther von La Roche 70 Jahre

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Authentizität und Inszenierung von Bilderwelten

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

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.