Category: Paper

Edition 3-4/2023, Paper

How do journalists view the world? A comparative empirical analysis of personality traits and political views, based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

By Katja Schmidt, Tanjev Schultz, and Gert G. Wagner | How different are the characteristics and views of journalists from those of the population on which they report? What are the predominant political opinions among these professionals? Which political features do they share? Which personality traits, such as a willingness to take risks, do they display? In this paper, we examine these questions based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), using this large representative sample to identify the journalists it contains based on the information they provide on their work (while still preserving their anonymity). Multivariate analyses allow these data to be compared with data for the adult population as a whole, the electorate, and the group of people intensively engaged in politics. The results corroborate earlier studies that show that journalists do not reflect the population; their characteristics and views only match the diversity of society to a certain extent.

Edition 3-4/2023, Paper

Generative visual AI in newsrooms Considerations related to production, presentation, and audience interpretation and impact

By T. J. Thomson and Ryan J. Thomas | AI services that provide responses to prompts, such as ChatGPT, have ignited passionate discussions over the future of learning, work, and creativity. AI-enabled text-to-image generators, such as Midjourney, pose profound questions about the purpose, meaning, and value of images yet have received considerably less research attention, despite the implications they raise for both the production and consumption of images. This essay explores key considerations that journalists and news organizations should be aware of when conceiving, sourcing, presenting, or seeking to fact-check AI-generated images. Specifically, it addresses transparency around how algorithms work, discusses provenance and algorithmic bias, touches on labor ethics and the displacement of traditional lens-based workers, explores copyright implications, identifies the potential impacts on the accuracy and representativeness of the images audiences see in their news, and muses about the lack of regulation and policy development governing the use of AI-generated images in news. We explore these themes through the insights provided by eight photo editors or equivalent roles at leading news organizations in Australia and the United States.

Edition 2/2023, Paper

New game, new rules An investigation into editorial guidelines for dealing with artificial intelligence in the newsroom

By Kim Björn Becker | The introduction of the language model ChatGPT created plenty of hype around the use of artificial intelligence – not least in journalism. In a profession based around language, the new technology has a wide range of applications. Yet these new possibilities also give rise to questions about how the media deal with artificial intelligence (AI). Some editorial offices have now begun to react to the challenge by publishing their own AI guidelines, aiming to clarify the principles on which their use of algorithms is based. This paper conducts a comparative examination of the documents issued by seven international media in order to gain a fundamental understanding of where the editorial offices see opportunities and the pitfalls they address. The investigation looks at two organizations each from Germany and the USA, as well as one each from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The analysis shows that news agencies tend to have more concise rules, while public service broadcasters are subjected to more comprehensive regulatory standards. Each editorial office sets its own focus: While almost all the media’s guidelines cover human control of AI and questions of transparency, there is less focus on requirements for trustworthy algorithms. The investigation shows that, although media are already looking at fundamental questions thrown up by the new technology, newsrooms still have blind spots when it comes to dealing with AI.

Edition 2/2023, Paper

Fear and balanced The world according to the foxnews.com homepage

By Fred Vultee | This discourse analysis draws on a database of foxnews.com homepages from 2022-23 to assess the issues, stories and actors that help form the worldview of the Fox audience. The thematic assessment is complemented by a study of text features that address licensing: who speaks and how, and under what conditions? Results address a question that has drawn attention for more than two decades: »What is Fox News?«

Edition 2/2023, Paper

Separating Advertising Business from Journalism How pertinent is Karl Bücher’s 1919 concept for press reform today?

By Horst Pöttker | The purpose of this article is to raise awareness for fundamental problems of journalistic quality assurance. To do this, we analyzed Karl Bücher’s largely forgotten reform concept of 1919 against the backdrop of current media developments for its sociopolitical relevance, its merits and flaws compared to other concepts of journalistic quality assurance (most of which Bücher himself already mentioned at the time), its applicability to various media, and its political, legal, and economic viability. Our hypothesis is that the most promising and viable approach is to extend the principle of public broadcasting to other media.

Edition 1/2023, Paper

Really?! Sophie Scholl on Instagram An analysis of the journalistic discourse

By Martina Thiele and Tanja Thomas | This paper examines the journalistic discourse on the Instagram project @ichbinsophiescholl. The project is based on a fictional premise in which the resistance fighter Sophie Scholl uses the social media platform Instagram during the last few months before her arrest and murder in 1943. This thought experiment and its implementation in 2021 attracted a great deal of media attention. The PR departments of SWR and BR communicated the number of followers and the extensive reporting as a major success and vindication of their approach to reaching young people. This analysis reconstructs discursive patterns, discourse strands, and discourse positions in the reporting on the project, and discusses the extent to which »the« journalism has fulfilled its public role and the various functions assigned to it.

Edition 1/2023, Paper

Representativity in broadcasting and television councils A comparative analysis of the discrepancy between council composition and demographics

By Jasmin Koch, Sabine Schiffer, Fabian Schöpp and Ronja Tabrizi / The crisis in public service media indicates various causes and areas in which structural reform is needed. In this context, it is important to consider the composition of the broadcasting councils of the ARD broadcasters, the ZDF Television Council, and Deutschlandradio’s Radio Council. Since the people of Germany fund the fulfilment of the ›programming mandate‹ through their license fee, they need to be represented in the supervisory bodies in all their diversity. It is notable that some groups and sectors of people are disproportionately represented, while others are not represented at all.

Edition 1/2023, Paper

Media ownership and journalism A discourse analysis about media coverage of property ownership using the example of Kevin Kühnert’s expropriation debate

By Silas Ketels | In May 2019, Kevin Kühnert – in his function as leader of the Young Socialists in the SPD – gave an interview to the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit about his understanding of the concept socialism. The interview was followed by a heated media debate, which is analyzed in this paper. Employing discourse analysis, dominant discourse positions of several German newspapers within this debate were identified. Furthermore, this study examined whether a connection between the newspapers’ discourse position and their form of ownership existed.

Edition 1/2023, Paper

How the internet is being tamed in Russia Chronicle of state securitization measures

By Yulia Belinskaya | As a communicative space, the Russian public sphere is dramatically prosecuted, and it suffers from pathologic efforts to have it systematically shut down. This article looks back into the history of the new restrictive media laws and their framing in the state media. The analysis is disclosing how, or through which instruments and conditions, the state enabled, justified, and legitimized the act of securitization.

Edition 03/2022, Paper

Internal freedom of the press revisited On the current need for regulation of media ownership power from the perspective of German media journalists

By Uwe Krüger, Pauline Köbele, Mascha Leonie Lang, Milena Scheller and Henry Seyffert / This article traces the lines of conflict from the heyday of the Statute Movement [Statutenbewegung] to a re-framing of internal press freedom within publishing houses over the past few decades: from an instrument of democratizing media outlets to one for assuring journalistic quality. Lastly, this article discusses the findings of a qualitative survey of twelve German media journalists on their political opinions and ideals regarding the powers of media owners and managers.