Hans-Bredow-Institute

Abstract Im März 1969 bestellte eine Ad-hoc-Initiative prominenter Persönlichkeiten bei Klaus Harpprecht einen Essay zum 25. Jahrestag des 20. Juli 1944. Ziel war es, in der breiteren Öffentlichkeit eine Debatte über den Widerstand gegen Hitler anzustoßen. Der Text des bekannten Publizisten erwies sich als sprachlich, historisch und politisch prägnant. Er verknüpfte aktuelle Themen wie die Studentenrevolte und die deutsche Teilung mit dem Spektrum der Absichten und Charaktere des versuchten Staatsstreichs gegen Hitler. Doch gelang es den Initiatoren des Projekts nicht, die Skepsis der Überlebenden und Nachfahren des militärischen Widerstands zu überwinden; der Essay blieb daher ungedruckt. Rainer Volk analysiert Entstehung und Scheitern von Harpprechts Text und ordnet diesen in den zeithistorischen Kontext ein.

Search engines, as key sources of political information, have sparked concerns regarding selective exposure driven by user choices based on political beliefs and filter bubbles created by algorithms. This study focuses on the most influential yet often-overlooked user choice: search queries. We investigate the extent to which user choices (search queries) and algorithmic curation (search history) lead to divergent search results. Building on research linking immigration- and climate-related search queries to political characteristics, we conduct an experiment on Google Search employing Agent-Based Testing. Using computational methods, we examine variations in search results by source (type), content, and search result page features. Our findings show that it is the specific search queries made by users, not algorithmic curation, that lead to substantially divergent information sources, and, to a lesser extent, content in search results. This suggests future research should prioritise user choices in information search rather than control for them.

Abstract Argument mining usually operates on short, decontextualized argumentative units such as main and subordinate clauses, or full sentences as proxies for arguments. Argumentation in digital media environments, however, is embedded in larger contexts. Especially on social media platforms, argumentation unfolds in dialog threads or tree structures where users interact with each other. To reveal patterns of such interactions, we transform 2.5 million tweets from 38k German Twitter conversations concerning nuclear energy from 2017, 2019, and 2021 into an abstract representation encoding their stance, and aspects. We then apply Sequential Pattern Mining, a common method for finding patterns in large databases, and explore its capabilities to investigate typical argumentation schemes in user debates. The approach reveals distinct patterns of support and attack relations between pro and contra arguments about nuclear energy in conversational threads when comparing different time slices of our corpus. For example, we are seeing an increasing relevance of the climate aspect in attacks on anti-nuclear arguments. However, the pro arguments are increasingly being countered by cost aspects. Analyzing this diachronic change of patterns allows us to describe the discursive processes of argumentation on a macro level that drive the slow but steady transformation of a society’s social and political convictions.

Investigative journalism is about uncovering what shall not be covered, yet, blind spots remain. This paper explores what topics investigative journalists consider to be neglected in different regions of the world, why these topics are not covered, and how journalists strive to report them in spite of difficulties. We theorize the blind spots by drawing on the Hierarchy of Influences Model, meaning that blind spots in investigative reporting are deeply rooted in these influences. We explore these issues in a global comparative approach and conducted qualitative face-to-face interviews at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2019 with 90 investigative journalists from 60 countries. Our findings show that many topics can’t be worked on due to repercussions from four levels of the Hierarchy of Influences Model (esp. from the wider social system), leading to self-censorship. The journalists overcome these obstacles with resourceful individual actions (e.g. publishing from abroad) since their media outlets and organizations are often not fit to help them due to resource constraints. Thus, journalists may defy the hierarchy and see it as their mission to persist, also and especially in countries in the Global South. However, obstacles are found globally and directly affect the nuts and bolts of journalism, such as access to information and sources.

Abstract The objective of this article is to define more precisely the field of research into the automation of communication, which is currently only vaguely discernible. The central thesis is that, in order to be able to grasp the transformation of the media environment associated with the automation of communication, the view must be broadened from the “direct interaction of humans and machines” to “societal communication”. Broadening our perspective as such allows us to ask how the dynamics of societal communication as a whole change when “communicative AI” becomes part of societal communication. To support this thesis, the article first takes a closer look at the automation of communication as a phenomenon. Against this background, the concept of communicative AI is then developed in more detail as a “sensitizing concept” that sensitizes to both the breadth and depth of the phenomenon. On this basis, the bridging concept of the “hybrid figuration” is developed in order to grasp the agency of communicative AI and to be able to connect to “definitive concepts” of social science and media and communication research. It becomes apparent that with communicative AI as a field of research, the basic concepts of communication and media research—“communication” and “media”—are themselves challenged. The article is concluded by a conclusion that shows the research perspectives resulting from such an approach.

ABSTRACT This article explores how investigative journalists around the world adopt innovative digital practices in their daily work, what challenges they perceive to the adoption of digital practices, and how they cope with those challenges. We interviewed 133 journalists from 60 countries. Utilising the lens of the Diffusion of Innovations Theory, we found that journalists generally perceive the impact of digital practices as positive, but structural and individual factors heavily influence the adoption processes. Journalists from the Global South stress the importance of simple everyday technology and report that they only have limited access to data, which is in stark contrast to interviewees from the Global North. Journalists across countries feel overwhelmed by the need for digital skills, especially those related to digital security. They often work in interdisciplinary teams to address these challenges, which allows them to combine skills and tackle more complex topics. Overall, we found that traditional approaches remain indispensable to investigative work around the world, while innovative digital practices are adopted cautiously in accordance with the journalistic mission. We call for a global network to facilitate diffusion of digital practices, addressing that journalists from the Global South are often laggards against their will due to contextual factors.

The report analyses the regional patterns in media production at regional level (Nordic, Western, Eastern, and Mediterranean) and their relation with the national and the European level.

Different disciplines have studied the content of online user comments in various contexts, using manual qualitative/quantitative or (semi-)automated approaches. The broad spectrum and disciplinary divides make it difficult to grasp an overview of those aspects which have already been examined, e.g. to identify findings related to one’s own research, recommendable methodological approaches, and under-researched topics. We introduce a systematic literature review concerning content analyses of user comments in a journalistic context. Our review covers 192 papers identified through a systematic search focussing on communication studies and computer science. We find that research predominantly concentrates on the comment sections of Anglo-American newspaper brands and on aspects like hate speech, general incivility, or users’ opinions on specific issues, while disregarding media from other parts of the world, comments in social media, propaganda, and constructive comments. From our results we derive a research agenda that addresses research gaps and also highlights potentials for automating analyses as well as for cooperation across disciplines.