Editorial
What do journalists have in common with conspiracy theorists? Journalistik co-publisher Tanjev Schultz has a contentious theory, which he presents in an essay for the second issue of Journalistik. This issue’s extensive empirical paper comes from Leipzig: Cornelia Wolf and Alexander Godulla have conducted an empirical study to investigate the hype (now slowly abating) about newsgames. Spoiler alert: The new format does not live up to expectations. As you can see, Journalistik has chosen some seminal topics for its second issue. But this is just the beginning. continue to article
papers
Newsgames in journalism Exploitation of potential and assessment by recipients
by Cornelia Wolf & Alexander Godulla / The digital transformation is still presenting established media organizations with huge challenges. Younger generations socialized by multi-optional end devices such as smartphones and tablets have very different expectations of what the content and form of journalistic products should look like. It is therefore no wonder that media organizations are exploring one of the world’s most lucrative markets, with many launching newsgames under their own brand in recent years. This hybrid form between journalism and gaming offers high selectivity and brings current or past events and the processes behind them to life. But journalism research is yet to pay much systematic attention to this new convergence field. continue to article…
essay
The rumor mill On the relationship between journalism and conspiracy theories
By Tanjev Schultz / The common consensus is that conspiracy theories have nothing in common with reputable media outlets. In an age of rumor, conspiracy theories, and fake news, professional journalists should and want to assume the role of paragons of credibility. Yet doing so also means having to reflect possible points of contact and parallels between journalistic accounts and conspiracy theories in a self-critical way. As this paper argues, journalists are undoubtedly susceptible to the same narrative patterns used by conspiracy theorists, albeit taken to extremes. continue to article
focus
What do you tell your daughter who wants to be a journalist? On the future of journalism and journalism education in the United States
By Kenneth Starck / While still living at home, your daughter has completed all of her mandated schooling. She is now seriously thinking about life’s next important step. Not surprisingly she decides to extend her learning by attending university. The next question follows: What to study? She reads a lot and writes well. Surprisingly, perhaps, she actually seeks advice from her father—me, a former journalist (newspapers), former journalism professor and, for more than twenty years, a journalism school administrator. Aware of the massive convulsions occurring in the field of mass communication and, most particularly, journalism, I am hard pressed to offer enthusiastic endorsement to enroll in university to study journalism. This essay is an attempt to formulate a thoughtful and realistic answer to your daughters’ question: Should I study journalism? continue to article
Contribute more, broadcast less On the role of feedback and articulation in a model of “elevated journalism”
By Sebastian Köhler / The paper discusses the extent to which journalism needs to take its function of articulation more seriously and fulfil it more effectively as part of the profession’s public role. To do this, the paper develops aspects of a model of “elevated journalism” – an approach that also includes dialectic criticism of key tendencies in established journalism. Working with feedback from users, be it actual or anticipated, is expected to gain importance in future if journalism is still to maintain a place in societies that are constantly modernizing in so many ways. continue to article
Courage journalism Why we should not just let our profession be abolished
By Peter Welchering / Does the profession we call journalism have a future? It is time that journalists finally went back to the guardian function they are tasked with. Critical journalism challenges power structures. This paper demands journalism that takes responsibility and is committed to the values of enlightenment. continue to article
Quo vadis, Journalism? The Future of an Old Media Profession in the Digital Era
By Horst Pöttker / Rising costs, outsourcing, mass layoffs, diminished circulation, rapidly sinking revenue from advertising: there is a general consensus that the print media are going through a crisis and that the underlying causes for this are to be found in the revolution of digital media. There is also a widespread concern among journalism researchers, and more recently also among democratically oriented politicians, that this crisis could lead to a decline in the journalist profession. continue to article
reviews
Martina Thiele: Medien und Stereotype [Media and stereotypes] reviewed by Wolfgang R. Langenbucher
A reviewer wanting to do justice to this postdoctoral thesis should start reading not with the thanks and introduction at the beginning, but with the bibliography from page 397. The table of contents does not show that this annex goes on to page 501 – more than a hundred pages. In providing such an exhaustive list, the Salzburg-based author Martina Thiele gives a magnificent account of herself: impressive knowledge of the literature, a consistent interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach, patient research and an almost limitless curiosity about the decades-long process of learning about and documenting publications of all kinds. continue to article
Barbara Thomass (ed.): Migration und Vielfalt im öffentlichen Rundfunk [Migration and Diversity in Public Broadcasting] reviewed by Petra Herczeg
Barbara Thomass’ book started life as a student project on diversity in the media and diversity management at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, as the Professor for Media Systems describes in the foreword. The students wrote the texts on the topic of ‘caught fire’ and for their final dissertations on diversity. Now published in an anthology, the articles examine the overarching question of how media in six European public broadcasters can contribute to promoting cultural diversity. continue to article
Franziska Kuschel: Schwarzseher, Schwarzhörer und heimliche Leser [Secret viewers, secret listeners and secret readers] reviewed by Hans-Jörg Stiehler
The government of the GDR saw the media not as a means of public communication but – overestimating its effectiveness – primarily as an instrument for controlling the masses. The fact that media from the Federal Republic remained relatively freely accessible in the GDR and that a “pan-German communication space” (p. 9) continued to exist gave the state a two-fold problem. continue to article
Frank J. Robertz, Robert Kahr (eds.): Die mediale Inszenierung von Amok und Terrorismus [Media presentation of killing sprees and terrorism] reviewed by Guido Keel
School shootings, terrorism and suicides are all phenomena that center around fatal violence – and in which the media play a crucial role. The question of how the mass media can deal responsibly with this kind of event is therefore of interest from the point of view of both journalism and society as a whole.continue to article
Lutz Hachmeister, Till Wäscher: Wer beherrscht die Medien? [Who rules the media?] Reviewed by Lars Rinsdorf
A meta-trend in TIME markets, convergence has now made it into the title of this standard reference work on media structures. While previous editions of Lutz Hachmeister’s compendium still carried the title Die 50 größten Medienkonzerne der Welt [The 50 largest media corporations in the world], he has now shifted his focus to media and knowledge corporations. continue to article