Research Note: The Coverage of War: Do Women Matter? A Longitudinal Content Analysis of Broadsheets in Germany

Our social consciousness reserves the role of fighter solely for men. Women are not considered as being authoritative or decisive actors in the context of war and violence. During armed conflicts or other violent crises, female acting subjects seem to leave the public (i.e. media) stage – a place where they are underrepresented even under normal circumstances. Furthermore, media coverage of war, it is said, largely assigns the role of the victim to women. However, there is not much empirical evidence to support this view due to the significant lack of longitudinal quantitative studies on media coverage of women during wartime. In order to investigate this, a framing analysis of media coverage of war between 1989 and 2000 was conducted in Germany. This article reports on the results of this framing analysis and the representation of women during wartime in quality German newspapers. It is the first longitudinal gender-specific framing analysis of war coverage ever carried out in any country

Methodological Framework of WP6

Work Package six analyzes strategic communication as purposefully designed communicational advocacy that is distributed on the behalf of an organization or an institution. Our main research interests is the identification of semantic patterns in strategic content and their potential migration into other discourses – the media coverage, political debates and public discourses - and vice versa. Additionally, we seek to investigate strategic communication’s potential impact on a conflict’s dynamic and, consequently, it’s potential for de-escalation. Finally, we also apply a gender sensitive approach and analyze the portrayal of gender in strategic communication. To fulfill these objectives, we make use of an innovative multi-step content analytic approach. In a qualitative pilot-study we identified idiosyncrasies within the language used in strategic content. Our sample of strategic communication mainly consists of two groups of texts: (1) contents that simulate journalistic language and, thus, can be labeled PR and (2) messages that often use strongly connoted expressions and can be referred to as propaganda. Within our qualitative pilot study we created rules and guidelines for the identification of semantic patterns – frames, evidential claims and agendas for action – while taking the two groups of texts and its different use of language into account. In our quantitative computer-based content analysis we will use an updated version of the AmCat program called JAmCat to identify frames, agendas for actions and evidential claims in a large corpus of texts. Our main research interest consists of five dimensions. First, (1) we will analyze strategic communication in different countries on a case-based perspective focusing on the content’s idiosyncrasies in different conflict cases. In doing so, we will (2) analyze strategic communication’s narrative in different conflict phases (for example escalation, de-escalation) and examine (3) the construction of similar ideas and semantic patterns over different conflicts, debates and the conflicts’ time frames. We then will (4) compare the contents distributed by different groups of strategic actors. Here, we address the differing perspectives and communicative strategies of different strategic actors and the thus resulting differences within their distributed frames. A central aim of WP6 is a close cooperation with WPs 5, 7, and 8 to (5) examine the diffusion of strategic discourse on the same conflict into different debates – the media coverage, (other) strategic communication, political debates and social media – and thus to also investigate the functional roles of strategic communicators in the shaping of public discourse and their (different) success in enforcing/asserting their particular frames. In our qualitative in-depth analysis, we will enrich the results with more details and provide additional context while focusing on key moments, actors and ideas in the discourses. In doing so we will combine information from the quantitative stage with relevant insight from other work packages also relating to the results of INFOCORE’s interviewing groups and contextual information from the literature

Effective and Coherent Media-related Communication During War and Armed Conflicts

This policy brief summarises the first findings from the initial stage of the INFOCORE’s Work Package (WP) No. 6 (‘Strategic Communication’) and presents first recommendations for effective and coherent media-related communication of political actors/authorities/institutions and NGOs active in the field of conflict prevention, management and resolution

Parteien-PR und Wahlkampfberichterstattung im Fernsehen

Diese Studie ist eine empirische Untersuchung zum Einfluss politischer PR auf die (1) Fern-sehberichterstattung (2) in Wahlkampfzeiten (3) im Längsschnitt und stellt damit den (4) Ver-such dar, die PR-Forschung, die Wahlforschung und den Framing-Ansatz miteinander zu ver-binden. Das zentrale Erkenntnisinteresse gilt dem Zusammenhang zwischen Parteien-PR und TV-Wahlkampfberichterstattung am Beispiel des Bundestagswahlkampfs 2002. Die Berichter-stattung der Abendnachrichten von ARD, ZDF, RTL, Sat.1 und Pro7 in den letzten sechs Mo-naten vor der Bundestagswahl 2002 sowie das schriftliche Public-Relations-Material der bei-den Volksparteien SPD und CDU/CSU in diesem Zeitraum wurden inhaltsanalytisch unter-sucht. Statt einer konventionellen Determinierungsstudie handelt es sich hier um eine Untersu-chung zur Entstehung politischer Kommunikation, die nach dem Zusammenhang von politi-scher Primärkommunikation (hier politische PR) und politischer Medienberichterstattung (hier Fernsehberichterstattung) fragt. Damit geht die Studie über die bisherige PR-Forschung hin-aus: Erstens berücksichtigt sie für die Beantwortung der Fragestellung explizit eine Prozess-Dimension (zeitreihenanalytische Kreuzkorrelationen; pro Woche berechnete Rangkorrelatio-nen). Zweitens beantwortet sie die Frage nach PR-Erfolg (politischer Kommunikation) nicht über die übliche Berechnung simpler Determinations- bzw. Resonanzquoten, sondern legt durch den gewählten datenanalytischen Ansatz für die Prozess-Dimension ein komplexes Zu-sammenspiel offen aus unvorhergesehenen Ereignissen (u. a. Flutkatastrophe), PR-Aktivitäten (u. a. Pseudo-Ereignissen) und Berichterstattung, das je nach Wahlkampfphase in mehr oder minder starkem PR-Erfolg bzw. Misserfolg mündet

Between factoids and facts

GOs are significant actors in conflict-related discourses and play a key role in the shaping of mediated conflict communication. Since previous scholarly work has rarely analyzed the way NGOs characterize the ‘reality’ of violent conflicts, this contribution to the special issue focuses on the publicity of NGOs in this field. On the basis of a big-data content analysis, the authors in particular investigate the epistemological status of NGOs’ strategic communication on war. They focus on ‘evidential claims’, the actual provision of evidence and the transparency of sources of evidential claims. The results are compared across different types of NGOs for their communication on six international armed conflicts. The findings suggest that the communication of NGOs in this is caught between their role of a strategic communicator and that of an expert. Improvement is especially needed concerning the indication of sources of evidential claims: 47 percent of all texts do not provide any source specification

PR-Evaluation – Von Wünschen und Wirklichkeiten in der PR-Branche. Ergebnisse einer Online-Befragung.

Zwischen 12/2003 und 02/2004 wurde am IfKW eine Online-Befragung zur Bedeutung der Evaluation von PR-Maßnahmen und -Dienstleistungen in der PR-Praxis durchgeführt. Kontaktiert wurden insgesamt 2.500 PR-Experten in deutschen Unternehmen und PR-Agenturen (Rücklaufquote Agenturen 17 Prozent (201 Agenturen), Unternehmen 13 Prozent (170 Unternehmen). Nahezu 67% der von uns befragten Unternehmen führen derzeit PR-Evaluation durch. Das überrascht umso mehr, als gleichzeitig nur 23% der evaluierenden Unternehmen über ein festes Budget für PR-Evaluation verfügen und weit über die Hälfte von ihnen höchstens fünf Prozent ihres PR-Jahresbudgets in die Evaluation investieren. Wer sich zu Evaluationsmaßnahmen entschlossen hat, ist sowohl mit den Ergebnissen als auch mit der Kosten-Nutzen-Relation weitgehend zufrieden. Das gilt vor allem für jene, die selbst evaluieren (im Vergleich zu jenen, die extern evaluieren lassen). Zwei Drittel aller Unternehmen –– bereits evaluierende wie noch nicht evaluierende –– sind aber auch der Ansicht, PR-Evaluation solle zum Standard-Angebot einer PR-Agentur gehören. Auffallend ist allerdings der vergleichsweise hohe Anteil an Zustimmung (25%) sowie tendenzieller Zustimmung (27%) von Befragten aus nicht evaluierenden Unternehmen zur Aussage, PR-Managern in Unternehmen fehle der Wille zur Evaluation, weil ihre Position durch schlechte Ergebnisse gefährdet sei. Unsere Befunde erlauben darüber hinaus die Prognose, dass der der Evaluationsdruck in der PR-Branche in Zukunft weiter steigen wird: Selbst diejenigen unter den Befragten, die heute noch keine PR-Evaluation praktizieren, sehen überwiegend eine Notwendigkeit dazu, diese Herausforderung in Zukunft anzunehmen. Voraussetzung hierfür ist aber zweierlei: Erstens muss die Frage der Finanzierung in Zukunft professioneller und verbindlicher geklärt werden und zweitens muss mehr Spezialwissen für PR-Evaluation bei den Beteiligten vorhanden sein

What's the harm in moonlighting? A qualitative survey on the role conflicts of freelance journalists with secondary employment in the field of PR

There seems to be an internationally shared consensus on the ethical norm that journalists may not moonlight' for PR since this might conflict with their commitment to autonomy, truth, neutrality and objectivity. However, there is a gap between the normative demands on freelance journalists and the reality of their occupation: The changing world of professional working conditions is challenging journalists and has led to growing numbers of freelance journalists who also work for PR. Whether or not, and if so how freelance journalists with secondary employment in the field of PR perceive and come to terms with conflicts has not yet been thoroughly examined. This contribution is dedicated to this gap in research and asks how freelance journalists who simultaneously work in the field of PR deal with their fundamentally conflicting roles (journalists' perception of inter-role conflicts; how they cope with inter-role conflicts). We conducted semi-structured guided interviews with 18 freelance journalists simultaneously working for PR clients. Our results show that they are aware of the potential for conflict involved in fulfilling the two roles. All participants are inclined to preserve their professional self-concept as journalists, with regard to which the coping strategies of marginalization and merging roles are particularly indicative

The digital transformation of knowledge order: a model for theanalysis of the epistemic crisis

In a proclaimed age of ‘post-truth,’ scholars have raised concerns about the spread of false information and the questioning of epistemic authorities. In this paper, we develop an analytical model to capture the digital transformation of knowledge order. Drawing on insights from social epistemology, sociology and history of knowledge, and media history, we identify epistemic practices as basic elements of knowledge order. We then analyze how epistemic practices are organized into an overarching structure of knowledge phases, contexts, roles, and hierarchies. Digital media tend to destabilize the traditional knowledge order. This destabilization is characterized by a more flexible order of phases, a dissolution of boundaries between contexts, an opening of professional roles to new actors, and a flattening of hierarchies