The century of journalism - the history of journalism in Germany from World War I to the age of digitalization (1914-2014)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Birkner
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 411073241

The study will investigate the history of journalism in Germany from the beginning of the World War I until the age of digitalization. Therefore, journalism history is integrated into social history. For the exogenous factors of the social level, the dimensions ofa) politics and lawb) economy and technology andc) social structure and culturewill be distinguished. For the endogenous factors, journalism is divided intoa) editorial department as organizations (organizational level),b) editorial staff as a group of persons (individual level) andc) editing as text production (media routines level).To each of these areas an own subproject is dedicated (modules 1-3). In particular, archives will be visited, and documents will be analyzed by means of historical source study for the development of journalistic media companies (module 1). The journalists will be researched mainly through qualitative analysis of (auto) biographies, materials of professional associations and interviews with journalists and experts (module 2). Finally, the development of journalistic texts will be investigated by means of quantitative content analysis. The aim is to be able to present the development of the pyramidal model of journalistic news writing in ten-year steps over time and across different media genres between continuity and change (module 3). Regarding the complexity of the subject, only a proposed method mix appears promising.The study divides the "century of journalism" intoa) the phase of the world wars (1914-1945),b) the phase of the Iron Curtain (1945-1990) andc) the phase of digitalization (1990-2014).In all three phases, there are different challenges of access to sources, from the hitherto still slow pace of digitalization of old media products (digital reborn sources) to the confusing abundance of digital born sources in the 21st century.In the end, in addition to journal articles, there will be an internationally compatible monograph published that tells the story of journalism in Germany from World War I to the establishment of Web 2.0 at the beginning of the 21st century. In order to be able to connect to current discussions in science and practice during the project, the modules "project-specific workshop" and "public relations" are applied for.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria