Media System and Policy

In this area the relationship between the system of the media and that of politics is illuminated: on the one hand, it concerns the framework set by politics for the media, and on the other, how politics reflects in the media is investigated.

With respect to the first perspective, media politics, the Institute has been commissioned by the Federal Government to undertake a survey of the media landscape for the research-based section of a „Report on Communications and the Media”, which describes the offerings, the use, the economic structures and the legal framework of all the media from the viewpoint of various disciplines. In addition, the status of research regarding selected problem areas is presented and with that an informed appraisal of differing options for action is put at the disposal of political decision-making. Work on this was actually concluded already in 2005, but the federal election delayed the publication of the report. An updated version of the report will, therefore, be submitted to its commissioning agency at the end of 2007.

A new edition of the International Handbook Media, as published by the Institute for over 50 years, will appear in Spring 2008. Work in this context has already begun, after a lengthy lapse in time due to the precarious financing situation following the last edition for 2004/2005. Despite widely declared appreciation for the volume, the future of the project continues to be uncertain and the search for sponsors goes on. Alternatives, like a pure English-language publication, are also being considered. The Institute has, however, decided not to wait with a current edition so that the gap between it and its predecessor will not become yet larger.

Media work in a network of politics, economics and society. In this situation, the possibility for people acting from within society to influence the media is the least pronounced. If the interests of viewers, for instance, receive any consideration at all, then it is mostly only indirectly through the economy. In the framework of a cooperative project with partners from several European countries and sponsored by the EU Commission, the Institute has investigated which instruments have been developed in 29 European countries for promoting and securing the interests of viewers and which models and initiatives have proved particularly durable.

The perspective of the medial communication of politics is the subject of the project „Staging Politics in Television”. At the behest of the Federal Agency for Political Education (Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung), the Institute has contributed a qualitative analysis to an empirical study on the staging of politics in German television. Research took place into how far the image of politics is formed by the specific strategies for staging used by the medium of television. Here it became clear that the presentation of politics focuses strongly on decisions, largely blanking out various alternatives.

Current projects in this research area

Overview on all projects in this area