Das "Kommentariat" : Rolle und Status einer Öffentlichkeitselite

Im Mittelpunkt des WZB-Papers stehen die „Meinungsmacher“ der überregionalen Qualitätszeitungen in der Bundesrepublik. Die Kommentare dieser „Leitmedien“ wer-den im politischen System intensiv wahrgenommen. Die Themenpräferenzen und Mei-nungen der Kommentatoren dienen als Hinweise auf allgemeine Stimmungen in der Bevölkerung und auf die Durchsetzbarkeit konkreter Entscheidungen. Auch in öffent-lichkeitstheoretischer Perspektive stellen Kommentatoren einen besonders herausgeho-benen „Sprecher“-Typus dar. Im Gegensatz zu anderen Sprechern, die um Medienauf-merksamkeit konkurrieren, besitzen Kommentatoren ein entscheidendes Privileg: sie produzieren nicht nur Themen und Meinungen; sie können selber dafür sorgen, dass ihre Äußerungen tatsächlich öffentlich werden. Angesichts der öffentlichkeitstheoreti-schen und politischen Bedeutung der Kommentatoren überrascht, dass das „Kommenta-riat“ in der bisherigen Forschung eine merkwürdig unbeschriebene Größe geblieben ist. Auf der Basis einer schriftlichen Befragung und persönlicher Gespräche mit Kommen-tatoren der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung, der Süddeutschen Zeitung, der Frankfurter Rundschau, der Welt und der tageszeitung gibt diese Studie einen Einblick in die wich-tigsten Charakteristika dieser Sprechergruppe. Wer sind also die Meinungsmacher der deutschen Qualitätspresse? Wie viele Journalisten umfasst diese Öffentlichkeitselite und welche sozio-kulturellen Profile kennzeichnen sie? Wie sehen die Zugangschancen aus? Handelt es sich um einen vergleichsweise offenen Kreis von Journalisten, die von Zeit zu Zeit kommentieren, oder um eine abgeschlossene Gruppe von Vordenkern der Nati-on, die dauerhaft und fast ausschließlich mit der Meinungsproduktion betraut ist? Was sind die Kriterien für den Zugang zu dieser Öffentlichkeitselite und wie unterscheiden sich die Zeitungen in Hinblick auf die Zugangschancen? Und führt die Auswahl der Kommentatoren zu Themenspezialisierungen oder Meinungsoligopolen innerhalb und möglicherweise auch zwischen den Zeitungen?The WZB-paper focuses on the “opinion makers” of the national quality newspapers in Germany. The press commentaries are closely observed by the political system. The issues and opinions brought up in the opinion section serve as indicators for the general sentiment of the public and the popularity of certain policies. From a theoretical point of view, commentators are regarded as a very special type of actor in the public sphere. In contrast to other actors in public communication who have to compete for media atten-tion, they enjoy a significant privilege: Not only do they produce messages for public debate, they also decide which messages are eventually publicized. Considering their public and political influence it is rather surprising that neither sociology nor communi-cation research has investigated this group of communicators. This paper presents re-sults of a survey and in-depths-interviews with commentators of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Welt and tageszeitung and thus provides an insight into the characteristics of this group. Who are the “opinion makers” in the leading national quality newspapers? How many journalists belong to this elite of actors in the public sphere and what are their socio-cultural profiles? To what degree and how is access to the opinion section restricted? Do commentators form a closed circle of national masterminds permanently producing opinions or do they rep-resent a rather open group of journalists who among other articles also write commen-taries from time to time? What are the recruitment criteria for commentators and in which ways do the national broadsheets under study differ in terms of access gain? And finally: Does the selection of commentators lead to issue specialization or even opinion monopolies within and across the newspapers

Scheduling science on television: A comparative analysis of the representations of science in 11 European countries

While science-in-the-media is a useful vehicle for understanding the media, few scholars have used it that way: instead, they look at science-in-the-media as a way of understanding science-in-the-media and often end up attributing characteristics to science-in-the-media that are simply characteristics of the media, rather than of the science they see there. This point of view was argued by Jane Gregory and Steve Miller in 1998 in Science in Public. Science, they concluded, is not a special case in the mass media, understanding science-in-the-media is mostly about understanding the media (Gregory and Miller, 1998: 105). More than a decade later, research that looks for patterns or even determinants of science-in-the-media, be it in press or electronic media, is still very rare. There is interest in explaining the media’s selection of science content from a media perspective. Instead, the search for, and analysis of, several kinds of distortions in media representations of science have been leading topics of science-in-the-media research since its beginning in the USA at the end of the 1960s and remain influential today (see Lewenstein, 1994; Weigold, 2001; Kohring, 2005 for summaries). Only a relatively small amount of research has been conducted seeking to identify factors relevant to understanding how science is treated by the mass media in general and by television in particular. The current study addresses the lack of research in this area. Our research seeks to explore which constraints national media systems place on the volume and structure of science programming in television. In simpler terms, the main question this study is trying to address is why science-in-TV in Europe appears as it does. We seek to link research focussing on the detailed analysis of science representations on television (Silverstone, 1984; Collins, 1987; Hornig, 1990; Leon, 2008), and media research focussing on the historical genesis and current political regulation of national media systems (see for instance Hallin and Mancini, 2004; Napoli, 2004; Open Society Institute, 2005, 2008). The former studies provide deeper insights into the selection and reconstruction of scientific subject matters, which reflect and – at the same time – reinforce popular images of science. But their studies do not give much attention to production constraints or other relevant factors which could provide an insight into why media treat science as they do. The latter scholars inter alia shed light on distinct media policies in Europe which significantly influence national channel patterns. However, they do not refer to clearly defined content categories but to fairly rough distinctions such as information versus entertainment or fictional versus factual. Accordingly, we know more about historical roots and current practices of media regulation across Europe than we do about the effects of these different regimes on the provision of specific content in European societies

When Reporters get Hands-on with Robo-writing: Professionals Consider Automated Journalism’s Capabilities and Consequences

The availability of data feeds, the demand for news on digital devices, and advances in algorithms are helping to make automated journalism more prevalent. This article extends the literature on the subject by analysing professional journalists’ experiences with, and opinions about, the technology. Uniquely, the participants were drawn from a range of news organizations—including the BBC, CNN, and Thomson Reuters—and had first-hand experience working with robo-writing software provided by one of the leading technology suppliers. The results reveal journalists’ judgements on the limitations of automation, including the nature of its sources and the sensitivity of its “nose for news”. Nonetheless, journalists believe that automated journalism will become more common, increasing the depth, breadth, specificity, and immediacy of information available. While some news organizations and consumers may benefit, such changes raise ethical and societal issues and, counter-intuitively perhaps, may increase the need for skills—news judgement, curiosity, and scepticism—that human journalists embody

Topological orbital magnetization and emergent Hall effect of an atomic-scale spin lattice at a surface

We predict the occurrence of a novel type of atomic-scale spin lattice in an Fe monolayer on the Ir(001) surface. Based on density functional theory calculations we parametrize a spin Hamiltonian and solve it numerically using Monte Carlo simulations. We find the stabilization of a three-dimensional spin structure arranged on a (3×3) lattice. Despite an almost vanishing total spin magnetization we predict the emergence of orbital magnetization and large anomalous Hall effect, to which there is a significant topological contribution purely due to the real space spin texture at the surface