The role of external broadcasting in a closed political system

This article investigates the role and impact of external broadcasting (radio and television) on a closed political system, through the example of the two post-war German states: the West German Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the East German German Democratic Republic (GDR). The aim is to debunk myths about the influence of external broadcasting on the events that led to German reunification in 1990. The study follows a historical approach and discusses what role external media played during the years of a divided Germany. The findings are based on several historical sources, research reports from the 1950s and 1960s and over 100 biographical interviews with former residents of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The article analyses the impact of external broadcasting on citizens and the political elite in times of crisis as well as during everyday life

Severe drought and conventional farming affect detritivore feeding activity and its vertical distribution

11 Pág.Soil invertebrates are key to decomposition, a central ecosystem process related to soil health. In many temperate areas climate change will decrease soil water content, which strongly modulates biological activity. However, data are lacking on how shifts in rainfall patterns affect soil biota and the ecosystem processes they provide. Here, we used the bait-lamina test to experimentally assess how a severe drought event influenced detritivore feeding activity, during a wheat growing season, in soils under long-term organic or conventional farming. Additionally, biotic and abiotic soil parameters were measured. Feeding activity was reduced under extreme drought and conventional management, although no climate-management synergies were found. Vertical migrations of Collembola and Oribatida partially explained the unexpectedly higher bait consumption at shallower depths in response to drought. Exploratory mixed-effects longitudinal random forests (a novel machine learning technique) were used to explore whether the relative abundances of meso‑, microfauna and microbes of the decomposer food web, or abiotic soil parameters, affected the feeding activity of detritivores. The model including meso‑ and microfauna selected four Nematoda taxa and explained higher variance than the model with only microbiota, indicating that detritivore feeding is closely associated with nematodes but not with microbes. Additionally, the model combining fauna and microbiota explained less variance than the faunal model, suggesting that microbe-fauna synergies barely affected detritivore feeding. Moreover, soil water and mineral nitrogen contents were found to strongly determine detritivore feeding, in a positive and negative way, respectively. Hence, our results suggest that severe drought and conventional farming impair the feeding activity of soil detritivores and thus, probably, decomposition and nutrient mineralization in soils. Furthermore, machine learning algorithms arise as a powerful technique to explore the identity of potential key drivers relating biodiversity to ecosystem functioning.This work was financed by the BiodivERsA COFUND (2015–2016 call), in concert with the following national funders: the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Swedish Research Council (Formas), the Estonian Research Council (ETAG), and the Spanish Ministry of Sciences and Innovation (MICINN, ref.: PCIN-2016–045), which also funded the FPI grant of the first author PGC (ref.: PRE2020–095020). The DOK trial is funded through the Swiss Federal Office of Agriculture (FOAG).Peer reviewe

Forschungspolitik in einer medialisierten Konstellation von Politik, Wissenschaft und Medien

Dieser Beitrag präsentiert den theoretischen Hintergrund, das analytische Konzept und das Forschungsdesign eines Projektes über die Governance wissenschaftlicher Forschung in medialisierten Konstellationen. Die Studie konzentriert sich dabei auf die Rolle von Massenkommunikation in der deutschen Forschungspolitik. Die forschungsleitenden Fragen sind: Wie beobachten sich Politik und Forschung gegenseitig über Massenmedien? Welche Einflüsse hat diese wechselseitige Beobachtung? Und wie unterscheiden sich hierbei die Fachkulturen Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, Lebenswissenschaften, Naturwissenschaften und Ingenieurwissenschaften? Bezogen auf diese Fragen entwickeln wir ein Theoriekonzept das „Governance“ als Modus inter-systemischer Interaktion begreift, welcher sowohl von Dynamiken auf der Ebene individueller und kollektiver Akteure als auch von sozialen Strukturen geprägt wird und außerdem davon ausgeht, dass diese Governance-Konstellation medialisiert ist. Hierauf aufbauend diskutieren wir unser analytisches Konzept und stellen kurz das Forschungsdesign der Studie dar