Can online exemplars trigger a spiral of silence?

In modern media environments, social media have fundamentally altered the way how individual opinions find their way into the public sphere. We link spiral of silence theory to exemplification research and investigate the effects of online opinions on peoples’ perceptions of public opinion and willingness to speak out. In an experiment, we can show that a relatively low number of online exemplars considerably influence perceived public support for the eviction of violent immigrants. Moreover, supporters of eviction were less willing to speak out on the issue online and offline when confronted with exemplars contradicting their opinion

Close, dependent, and out of touch with the people?

The relationship of political actors and journalists is a central topic in political communication research. However, it remains challenging to explain the different patterns of interaction observed in different contexts. To address that challenge, this study draws theoretically on the concept of “political communication cultures” and transfers the logic of internationally comparative research to the local level to analyze patterns and causes of politics–media interactions in a large number of diverse contexts. To this end, micro-level empirical data from a representative survey of more than 600 local political actors and journalists in fifty-two German cities were integrated with macro-level data describing the social, political, and media contexts of those cities. This allows us, first, to describe patterns of politics–media relations at the notoriously under-researched local level in terms of proximity, dependency, and seclusiveness of the politics–media milieu. Second, we are able to investigate various potential micro- and macro-level causes of those patterns. We show that different dimensions of relationships are variously affected by different factors; among these, media and political competition seem to be significant predictors of politics–media relations

Close, dependent, and out of touch with the people?

The relationship of political actors and journalists is a central topic in political communication research. However, it remains challenging to explain the different patterns of interaction observed in different contexts. To address that challenge, this study draws theoretically on the concept of “political communication cultures” and transfers the logic of internationally comparative research to the local level to analyze patterns and causes of politics–media interactions in a large number of diverse contexts. To this end, micro-level empirical data from a representative survey of more than 600 local political actors and journalists in fifty-two German cities were integrated with macro-level data describing the social, political, and media contexts of those cities. This allows us, first, to describe patterns of politics–media relations at the notoriously under-researched local level in terms of proximity, dependency, and seclusiveness of the politics–media milieu. Second, we are able to investigate various potential micro- and macro-level causes of those patterns. We show that different dimensions of relationships are variously affected by different factors; among these, media and political competition seem to be significant predictors of politics–media relations

Bystanding or standing by? How the number of bystanders affects the intention to intervene in cyberbullying

This study examines the bystander effect in cyberbullying. On the basis of two experiments, we test whether individuals who witness cyberbullying are less willing to intervene when the number of others who have already observed the incident is increased. In addition, we inquire how differently severe cyberbullying incidents affect bystanders' intention to intervene. Our results show that a very severe cyberbullying incident boosts individuals' intention to intervene, mediated by the assessment of the situation as emergency and, in turn, by an increased feeling of responsibility. However, if there is a larger number of bystanders in a cyberbullying incident, rather than just a few, participants feel less responsible to help, and thus, they are less willing to intervene

Perceptions of Media Performance: Expectation-Evaluation Discrepancies and Their Relationship with Media-related and Populist Attitudes

Public criticism of professional media is omnipresent in many democratic societies. This debate has often been examined concerning what the audience demands from the media (expectations) or how they evaluate media performance (evaluations). Based on a representative, quota-based online survey of the German population in 2019, this study examines citizens’ expectations, evaluations, and the discrepancies between both, as well as their relationship with media trust, socio-political predispositions—particularly populist attitudes—and individual media use in high-choice media environments. Results show that citizens have high expectations of the media which they mainly do not see fulfilled and that expectation-evaluation discrepancies are related to lower media trust in the case of particularly important and/or most noticeably underperformed media functions. Both expectations and evaluations were associated with populist attitudes, but only in the case of anti-elite attitudes in such a way that increased expectations collide with negative media evaluations. For anti-outgroup attitudes, instead, the analyses show a generally negative assessment of journalistic media, both in terms of expectations and evaluations. Media use does only play a minor role

Mehr als Nähe und Harmonie. Dimensionen des Verhältnisses von Kommunalpolitikern und Lokaljournalisten in deutschen Städten More than proximity and harmony. Dimensions of the relationship between local politicians and journalists in German cities

Wer an die Beziehungen zwischen Politikern und Journalisten in Deutschland denkt, hat wohl vor allem die Hauptstadt Berlin im Blick. Doch auch fur die kommunale Ebene kann man annehmen, dass das Verhaltnis von politischen und journalistischen Eliten Einflusse auf politische Berichterstattung, Offentlichkeit und Entscheidungshandeln hat. Allerdings wurde der lokalen Ebene bislang eher wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. Der vorliegende Beitrag verfolgt deshalb das Ziel, ein aktuelles Bild der politisch- medialen Beziehungen auf kommunaler Ebene zu zeichnen. Theoretisch stutzt er sich auf das Konzept der politischen Kommunikationskultur, empirisch basiert er auf einer Befragung von mehr als 600 Lokaljournalisten und Kommunalpolitikern. Die Analyse zeigt u. a. eine hohe gegenseitige Abhangigkeit der Akteure auch auf der lokalen Ebene, macht aber ebenso deutlich, wie vielfaltig die Interaktions- und Beziehungsmuster sind. Offenbar ist das politisch-mediale Verhaltnis auch auf der lokalen Ebene in hohem Mase kontextabhangig, so dass man von der lokalen politischen Kommunikationskultur nur sehr eingeschrankt sprechen kann. Mogliche Ursachen der erkennbaren Unterschiede werden diskutiert und Anregungen fur die weitere Forschung gegeben

Bystanderintervention bei Cybermobbing.

Beobachtet eine Person (sog. Bystander), dass sich jemand in einer Not­situation befindet, muss sie mehrere Entscheidungen treffen, um letztlich einzugreifen; so ist z. B. zu überlegen, ob das Opfer Hilfe benötigt und ob man dafür verantwortlich ist, zu in­tervenieren. Dies wird wiederum von diversen Faktoren beeinflusst: Etwa kann eine persön­liche Beziehung zum Opfer prosoziales Verhalten begünstigen, während die (virtuelle) An­wesenheit anderer ein Eingreifen verhindert. Gerade bei Cybermobbing spielen Bystander eine entscheidende Rolle: Verhalten sie sich passiv, was auf die meisten Bystander zutrifft, kann dies Cybermobbing befeuern; ein prosoziales Eingreifen von Bystandern trägt indes dazu bei, den Vorfall zu beenden und vermindert negative Folgen für das Opfer. Im vorlie­genden Beitrag arbeiten wir heraus, wann Bystander bei Cybermobbingvorfällen im Internet prosozial eingreifen und welche Faktoren dies beeinflusst; diese Überlegungen systematisie­ren wir in einem theoretischen Modell. Dabei zeigt sich, dass zentrale Merkmale computer­vermittelter Kommunikation eine Bystanderintervention bei Cybermobbing sowohl fördern als auch hemmen