Edition 03/2020, Paper

For historical reasons On the lack of acceptance of journalism studies in Germany

by Horst Pöttker / In Germany, journalism studies as a university subject – whose role is innovation and education/training in relation to journalism as a profession, in a similar way to medicine for the medical profession – receives little acceptance compared to in the USA and even Russia. This is expressed, for example, in the rather hostile attitude of media practitioners to the academic professional training of journalists. This paper outlines a reason for this deficit that goes back to the history of the subject.

Edition 03/2020, Review

Michael Haller, Walter Hömberg (Eds.): »Ich lass mir den Mund nicht verbieten!«. Journalisten als Wegbereiter der Pressefreiheit und Demokratie [»I won’t be silenced!« Journalists as pioneers of press freedom and democracy]

Reviewed by Hans-Dieter Kübler / »I never considered freedom of speech a blank check to falsify the truth, a way of playing where anyone can say whatever they want, from a position of absolute power and without any regard for facts.« This is not a contemporary admonition from the era of fake news, hate speech, and echo chambers, but the words of English writer and journalist Daniel Defoe. continue to article

Edition 03/2020, Review

Lauren Lucia Seywald: Investigativer Journalismus in Österreich. Geschichte, Gegenwart und Zukunft einer Berichterstattungsform [Investigative journalism in Austria. History, present and future of a form of reporting]

Reviewed by Boris Romahn / Lauren Lucia Seywald is a Master’s graduate of the Vienna Institute of Journalism and Communication Studies, a freelance journalist, and a project manager at ichschreibe.at. Her book pursues two goals: Explore the structural conditions and influencing factors of investigative journalism, and learn more about the professional self-image of media producers who engage in investigative reporting. continue to article

Edition 03/2020, Review

Patricia Müller: Social Media und Wissensklüfte. Nachrichtennutzung und politische Informiertheit junger Menschen [Social media and knowledge gaps. News use and political awareness among young people]

Reviewed by Hans-Dieter Kübler / The usage figures have been clear for some time: If young people look for information about current events in the news at all, they choose to do so online, using websites and social media. Traditional news media such as radio and television, and especially analog daily newspapers, are largely a thing of the past where this audience is concerned. continue to article

Edition 2/2020, Paper

New paths in journalism, a crossroads for education

by Konstantin Schätz and Susanne Kirchhoff / The professional field of journalism is changing rapidly – and so is journalism education. This study takes the Austrian educational institutions as an example to show which challenges journalism education currently faces and how it responds to them. In addition, the analysis of the course programs and guided interviews with program developers give insight into how the digitalization of journalism has been integrated in the curricula and how the status quo fits into current international debates about an adequate journa­lism education.