Category: Review

Edition 02/2018, Review

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

Edition 02/2018, Review

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

Edition 02/2018, Review

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

Edition 02/2018, Review

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

Edition 01/2018, Review

Uwe Krüger: Mainstream. Why we no longer trust the media. reviewed by Guido Keel

There is a problem with journalism in Germany – this forms the starting point of the latest work by Leipzig-based journalism expert Uwe Krüger. In it, he examines the question of why people have increasingly lost trust in and become more critical of the media in recent years – a phenomenon seen not only among those who complain loudly about the “Lügenpresse” [liar press], but across the political spectrum. continue to article

Edition 01/2018, Review

Irma Nelles: Der Herausgeber. Erinnerungen an Rudolf Augstein [The publisher. Memories of Rudolf Augstein] reviewed by Beatrice Dernbach

It begins with a goodbye. Rudolf Augstein is lying in Hamburg’s Israelitisches Krankenhaus with severe pneumonia on October 31, 2002. He dies a few days later on November 7, just after his 79th birthday. On the way home in the taxi, she begins to cry. “Has something terrible happened?,” asks the driver. “No, something normal.” “Your boyfriend?” She thinks for a moment. “In a few, brief moments, I suppose we were friends”. Born in 1946, Irma Nelles joined the Spiegel’s Bonn office in Summer 1973. continue to article

Edition 01/2018, Review

Lorenz Matzat: Datenjournalismus. Methode einer digitalen Welt [Data-driven journalism. Method of a digital world] reviewed by Holger Müller

What does the future hold? Academic writing about journalism in the digital age often contains a remarkably similar range of terms: cross-media, communities and data-driven journalism. Each of these approaches is essentially a method of using the internet as a platform for generating attention in the short term and profit in the long term. But before profit comes hard work, as Lorenz Matzat hopes to show using examples in his book “Datenjournalismus. Methode einer digitalen Welt.” continue to article

Edition 01/2018, Review

Tim Kukral: Arbeitsbedingungen freier Auslandskorrespondenten [Working conditions of freelance foreign correspondents] reviewed by Julia Lönnendonker

Many new journalists dream of one day taking up a prestigious position as a foreign correspondent. But what are the working conditions really like for freelance foreign correspondents, who do not have the luxury of being employed by a public service broadcaster? And how has the situation changed as a result of the media crisis and the economic pressures it has produced? Are freelancers benefiting from the reduction in full-time correspondent positions by filling the gaps? continue to article