Was unterscheidet die Mediatisierungsforschung von der Medienwirkungsforschung?

For three reasons, mediatization research is not a variant of traditional media effects research, but should rather be considered an approach in its own right. First, rather than on individuals, attention is focused on structures that are changed by the individuals’ orientation to the media. Individual behavior is nothing but an indicator of structural aspects. Second, besides direct media effects on the people who use them, indirect media effects are included in analyses. “Indirect” refers to effects of media-induced behavior change of media users on other persons who do not necessarily know themselves what the media have to offer. As they are often very influential, the protagonists of media coverage (that is: those on whom the media report) are of special importance in this respect. Third, causal explanations of media effects are supplemented by functional ones. Social actors are considered individuals who behave according to their intentions. They adjust their behavior to the requirements of the social environment they act in, and the media on whose resonance they depend.     

Liegt die Zukunft der Kommunikationswissenschaft in der Vergangenheit? Ein Plädoyer für Kontinuität statt Veränderung bei der Analyse von Digitalisierung

At present, social changes are summarized under the term digitalization. At first glance, this requires the development of new concepts, theories, and methods. This article takes a critical look at this assumption. Perceived changes can be understood as an opportunity to work out the constants of human communication. To clarify this argument, in the first part of the article we compare two perspectives: digitalization as changes in reality versus digitalization as a changed view of reality.Digitization is the conversion of continuous signals into discrete signals. While this technical process is more or less irrelevant for communication science, the related social process is of particular concern. However, to a large extent, what constitutes the social side of digitization is unclear. So far, digitalization can probably best be understood as a form of mediatization. Since mediatization is regarded as a social metaprocess, the concept of digitalization lacks empirical substance and the definition of the term remains vague.Due to the lack of meaning, we view digitalization as a change in the way we observe things. From this perspective, we explain the popularity of the concept of digitalization with the help of organizational theories. Following neo-institutionalist arguments, the digitalization discourse can be understood as an identity-forming communication flow. This is reflected in the positioning of the players in the texts that preceded this article. Representatives of standardized social research and interpretative social research present their conceptions of the discipline. Moreover, digitalization can be seen as a rationalized myth. Such myths reflect the expectations of the environment; they are adopted without considering their efficiency. The discipline adopts the attribute, digital, because it has a high positive connotation in the environment of communication science. Ultimately, digitalization appears to be a kind of heuristic for structuring the field with political implications, but not as a theoretically valid research category.Assuming that digitalization is a rationalized myth, consequences can be drawn for the development of theory and methods. We prove the benefit of this changed perspective by discussing the constitutive concepts of communication science. On the theoretical side, many studies have investigated on the topic of public communication. One topos of this research is the blurring of boundaries, e.?g. between public and private or public and interpersonal communication. Instead of highlighting the changes, we seek to determine what remains constant. Traditionally, the public has been associated with mass media and social outcomes. Upon closer inspection and when considering basic communication models, this connection has always been problematic. The blur is caused by definitions of the term and not by changes in the social world. To solve this problem, we propose a redefinition of publicness at the level of interpersonal communication.Methodologically, many approaches have been developed over the past years. For example, webometrics, digital methods and computational methods are promising fields of innovation. However, it is completely unclear how these methods relate to classical methods, such as surveys, content analyses, or observations. If web mining is about tracking user behaviors (digital traces) that were not created for scientific research (process-generated data), it can be seen as a kind of observation. For example, log file analysis is characterized as an observation method in classical methodological textbooks. But the same criterion also applies to websites. Websites are artifacts of human behavior that, for the most part, are not produced for scientific purposes. However, their analysis is usually seen as content analysis, not as observation.This comparison of methods demonstrates that even the distinction between classical methods is unclear. To solve this problem, we propose to better differentiate the different levels involved in the research process. Data collection can be understood as the transfer of empirical facts into data by observation. Data preparation would then be the transformation of data into datasets. Content analysis is a type of data preparation technique. Data analysis transforms data sets into substantial statements about the world. For example, statistics are used for this purpose. New methods can be better located in these known categories. Webometrics, digital methods and computational methods are examples of the automation of the research pipeline components, e.?g. as automated data collection or automated data preparation.We conclude that focusing on continuity offers an opportunity to improve proven concepts and methods instead of replacing them with vague terms. Therefore, we plead for observing continuity in the context of change and not using digitalization and its inherent metaphor of transformation as a lens for analyzing social change.     

Qualitätserwartungen und ethischer Anspruch bei der Lektüre von Blogs und von Tageszeitungen

Besides classical journalistic products, media users increasingly tend to read texts on the internet published by other users, as in weblogs. How do users navigate among these offers, how do they evaluate the quality, and which standards in terms of media ethics do they apply when reading weblogs compared to newspaper articles? Two empirical studies address these questions. In a survey, 702 internet users rated their theoretical expectations in terms of journalistic quality and compliance with ethical standards, comparing weblogs and daily newspapers. In a consecutive 2 × 2 experimental design, 120 participants read a journalistic text with varying source information (weblog/daily newspaper) and varying degree of adherence to ethical standards (ethically questionable/neutral). Participants then rated the quality of the text and its ethical standards. Results indicate that daily newspapers more than blogs are expected to deliver journalistic quality. But when read, texts are evaluated according to their content rather than their source. Ethically questionable texts in newspapers are disapproved as much as ethically questionable blog postings.     

Publizistische Chancengleichheit in der Wahlkampfberichterstattung?

A true democracy is based on political competition. Political parties set up programmes and suggest solutions which the electorate is then asked to choose between. Competition for tomorrow??s leadership positions can only be fair if today there are equal opportunities for all parties. The German legislative body passed several laws which are meant to guarantee equal opportunities in this contest. In times of an ever increasing importance of the mass media for political communication, this paper is meant to answer the question of whether??besides equal political opportunities??there is something like equal media opportunities, and if so, which indicators can be used to measure them. After a broad theoretical examination, an empirical analysis of the media coverage prior to the general elections in 1998, 2002 and 2009 follows. It reveals that??from a quantitative point of view??there certainly are equal media opportunities for the political parties sitting in the German Bundestag. The chances for media coverage are, especially for smaller parties, better than the gradation of equal chances by formal regulations.     

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.     

Digitale Spaltung im Zeitalter der S?ttigung

Using Bourdieu??s Habitus-Capital theory and a representative dataset this study shows that social position influences internet use. The study is thus connected to the research about thedigital divide. A secondary analysis of the ACTA 2008 (n?=?7.623, representative of Germans between 14 and 64 years who use the internet) shows on the one hand that there are still gaps in internet usage (gender, generation, and education gap). On the other hand the results indicate acapital gap. Since the accumulation of capital in the internet is connected with education as well as economic status, there is a threat of a downward spiral: Those who have less capital (education, money) gather less internet knowledge. Since cultural capital influences a person??s social position, internet use enhances social inequality.     

Effizienzvorteile und ihre Grenzen: Wie sich Medienwandel erklärt

In hindsight history seems to be inevitable; nevertheless, prognostics are always difficult. Innovations have to offer an advantage. But what is their core? What is the driving force of change? Why is change nonlinear, contingent and oscillating between standstill and acceleration? Why are the consequences of innovations ambivalent at best? Efficiency is an agent of change and provides its key advantage. But the growth of efficiency is limited. The closer it gets to its limits, the smaller the growth ratio will become. Then, either progress stops or an innovation will occur. Innovation of new media will provide society with a more efficient and a more intense mode of communication. The principle of efficiency is deeply rooted in reality’s system software, i.e. thermodynamics.     

Was ist die Funktion von Tod und Sterben in medialer Unterhaltung?

Why do death and dying occur so frequently in fictional media entertainment, although our rather hedonistic contemporary society seems to marginalize the subject otherwise? Searching for answers to this question, the paper first reflects possible explanations from entertainment theory. Displaying death is very reliable in terms of facilitating affective responses by the audience and thus serves as a safe technique to generate entertainment experiences. Subsequently, the paper discusses the perspective of terror management theory from social psychology to approach the subject of death in media entertainment, followed by an even more abstract reflection on religiosity, coping with death and secularized societies. The conclusion is that media entertainment has begun to take over parts of the coping support that was traditionally offered by the religions, thus contributing to the audience’s search for meaning in life and dealing with one’s own mortality.     

Horst Pöttker (Hrsg.): Öffentlichkeit als gesellschaftlicher Auftrag. Klassiker der Sozialwissenschaft über Journalismus und Medien. Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Horst Pöttker unter Mitwirkung von Volker Uphoff

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