»For a journalist, keeping silent is a crime« Russian independent media: Caught between responsibility and wartime censorship

by Daria Gordeeva / It did not take long after the first Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine for the Russian government to tighten its censorship laws. Rushed through, the new laws target allegedly ›false information‹ and set out both large fines and custodial sentences of up to 15 years. Numerous independent media websites were blocked, and at least 150 journalists were forced into exile by a wave of repression. How do independent journalists manage to provide truthful, critical reporting under conditions of wartime censorship?

Neutrality and values in journalism A theoretical concept for journalism studies, borrowed from value sociology

by David Muschenich / Neutrality in journalism is an oft-demanded ideal and an established quality criterion. Yet the term is rightly criticized as being too vague; even some studies work with imprecise definitions. This is surprising, given that – as this paper shows – neutrality certainly can be differentiated from related terms and understood as an impartial presentation of the topics selected and researched.

Discarded news On news enlightenment, agenda cutting, and news ignorance

by Hektor Haarkötter / When important news fail to reach their recipients, we sometimes refer to this process as agenda cutting. This article presents the key theoretical positions on this under-researched phenomenon, presenting important study results as well as empirical findings on internal editorial decision-making processes whereby topics are removed from the agenda.

The big plus The importance of digital routines and user experience in digital journalistic offers from newspaper publishers

by Eva Brands / Konrad Scherfer / After the digital turn in media, a central economic imperative for publishing is to build and secure subscription rates. Under the conditions of digitization, publishers are facing new journalistic and marketing challenges with their subscription management, because newspaper subscription figures and sales have been falling for years. Publishers are developing preventive measures to ward off cancellations to retain their readers in the long term. In this article, observations are made as to which relevance digital routines have in view of this development and which aspects of the user experience are relevant regarding the use of Plus Offers.

Ingeborg Bachmann as a journalist Correspondent reports from Rome and radio entertainment in Vienna

by Eva Schmidt / Ingeborg Bachmann was the ›girl wonder‹ of postwar literature in the German-speaking world. Today, the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize is still considered one of the most important literary prizes in the German-speaking world. Less well known is the fact that Ingeborg Bachmann was not just a poet, storyteller, and novelist, but also a journalist, reporting from Rome for various radio stations and newspapers.

Editorial

Dear Readers:

The war in Ukraine continues to hold us in a tight grip, especially all people who are directly impacted by the violence and destruction it brings. The uncertainty how long this war of aggression will be raging, is continuing as well, while other conflicts around the world happen in parallel. As you can read in our statement about the war in Ukraine in issue 1/2022, we are firmly convinced, that, as communication and media studies scholars, we can contribute to public discourse by offering analyses and expertise to support communication for peace. This issue of our journal follows up on this goal with concrete contributions.

Editorial

Dear Readers,

Academic pluralism is one of the core concepts of this journal, as can be seen from the editorial of the very first edition. It stated that the group of publishers displays sufficient plurality in terms of »age, gender, nationality and academic profile.« This is just one of the reasons – the main one being her expertise and cooperative nature – why we are so delighted to introduce Stine Eckert, who is joining us as an additional publisher.

Artificial intelligence as a tool of assistance A scientific and practical perspective on AI in journalism

by Michael Graßl, Jonas Schützeneder, and Klaus Meier / Artificial intelligence has become a buzzword in business and society, denoting any automated, cooperative, and corrective forms of interaction between humans and machines. There is a need for information, discussion, and systematization – despite or rather because of the wealth of publications on the topic that crop up on an almost daily basis. This article is an attempt to bring some (conceptual) order to this field.