Refine
Document Type
- Article (14)
- Part of a Book (14)
- Conference Proceeding (2)
- Researchdata (2)
Keywords
- Journalismus (3)
- Berichterstattung (2)
- Demokratie (2)
- Demoskopie (2)
- Wahlforschung (2)
- Befragung (1)
- Bundestagswahl (1)
- Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht - Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit (1)
- DEAL (1)
- DFG Publikationskosten (1)
Department/institution
By providing diverse news content, news media are key for a well- functioning public sphere. However, agreement on how to measure news content diversity is lacking. Research often refers to democratic theory as normative reference point, but different models of democracy understand news content diversity differently. Our study makes a unique, innovative contribution to this field: (1) We develop a methodological framework for measuring news content diversity, that is a set of comprehensive measuring instruments that derive different operationalizations of topic and actor diversity each from liberal and deliberative democratic theories. (2) Considering that a good public discourse requires more than diversity, we analyze news content diversity in the context of four other journalistic standards: neutrality, rationality, discursivity, and civility. (3) We prove the applicability of our measuring instruments by means of a standardized content analysis of six German news media as a case study. The different quality profiles of these outlets our analysis reveals are explained by their different functions in the media system. Our study shows how important a multi-perspectival normative approach to news content diversity is, both empirically and theoretically. Future studies on news content diversity should make their normative foundations transparent and derive their indicators purposefully therefrom.
The issue of migration is highly salient in public debates in many countries. Given this salience and the risk of political instrumentalization, often by actors from the far right, it is important for citizens to receive high-quality, differentiated information on the migration issue. This touches upon the question of media performance. While there is abundant research on the media portrayal of the migration issue, this research strand is, surprisingly, hardly linked to research on media performance. We establish this link and present an innovative, sophisticated framework for standardized content analyses on migration. It combines three standards of media performance that are key to deliberative democratic theories—viewpoint diversity, balance, and deliberativeness—and utilizes value frames and the sociological concept of idea elements to measure viewpoint diversity and balance. A first empirical test of our newly developed approach, taking Germany as a case, shows noticeable differences in the media performance of 11 outlets analyzed. This test proves the applicability of our framework, which provides a valuable starting point for future comparative research on the media performance of migration coverage across countries and over time.
Die Studie untersucht anhand einer Sekundäranalyse des D-A-CH-Projekts "Media Quality and Democracy", ob Erlösmodelle die publizistische Qualität von Medien bestimmen. Dabei werden fünf Erlösmodelle unterschieden: Direktfinanzierung, Werbefinanzierung, Non-Profit Finanzierung, Lizenzierung und Mischformen. Die publizistische Qualität wird anhand von Vielfalt, Relevanz, Einordnungsleistung und Professionalität gemessen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Qualität nicht allein durch das Erlösmodell bestimmt wird, sondern maßgeblich von der Eigentümerstruktur und dem Ausspielkanal abhängt. Börsennotierte Medienunternehmen schneiden durchweg schlechter ab, privat geführte und zivilgesellschaftliche Angebote, wie etwa die taz, erreichen hingegen höhere Qualitätswerte. Öffentlich-rechtliche Angebote zeigen homogene, jedoch nicht zwangsläufig höchste Werte. Social-Media-Kanäle traditioneller Medien schneiden deutlich schlechter ab als deren klassische Angebote. Insgesamt verdeutlicht die Studie, dass neben wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen auch strukturelle Faktoren entscheidend für publizistische Qualität sind. Sie empfiehlt, medienpolitische Maßnahmen nicht nur auf Finanzierungsmodelle, sondern auch auf institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen auszurichten.
In recent years, there has been frequent talk of a shift to the right in society (O. Decker et al., 2016). However, population-representative survey data do not substantiate this thesis, with neither the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) nor the European Social Survey showing any significant changes in respondents’ self-positioning on the left-right axis over the past decades. This raises the question of whether the purported societal shift to the right is a sociological perceptual phenomenon that is magnified due to intense public debate, or whether doubts about the validity of the question on political self-positioning on the left-right scale are warranted. The present article addresses the latter issue. Our analyses revealed a divergence between subjective positioning on the left-right axis and value-based positioning for 31% of respondents in our sample. We further discuss which variables may explain this divergence and what consequences can be drawn for research in communication science.