Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies

Der Beitrag stellt ein analytisches Modell vor, das klären will, inwieweit die nationalen rechtlichen und regulatorischen Rahmenbedingungen in den EU-Mitgliedstaaten Medienstrukturen schaffen oder stärken, die die Ausübung demokratisch relevanter Medienfunktionen gewährleisten. Die Entwicklung des Modells steht vor der Herausforderung, national unterschiedliche und sich wandelnde Vorstellungen von der Rolle der Medien in der Demokratie theoretisch fundiert und analytisch kontrolliert in die Forschung einzubeziehen. Es gründet daher auf der Annahme, dass Gesetze, Normen und Regeln als „applications of values“ und – in einem demokratischen Umfeld – als Umsetzung der dahinter liegenden Vorstellungen von Demokratie verstanden werden können. Das Analysemodell besteht aus zwei Säulen: einerseits aus den in der Europäischen Union als grundlegend erachteten Werten und andererseits den einem sich wandelnden Demokratieverständnis folgenden Werten, die sich vorrangig in der aktuellen Politik abzeichnen. Diese Zweiteilung folgt der in der Werteforschung üblichen Differenzierung zwischen „substanziellen“ bzw. „terminalen“ Werten und „standardsetzenden“ bzw. „instrumentellen“ Werten. Die den beiden Säulen zuzuordnenden Werte werden im Hinblick auf ihr Potenzial für die Gestaltung von Medienstrukturen diskutiert, um daraus Indikatoren für die Analyse der nationalen Rechts- und (Selbst-)Regulierungsrahmen abzuleiten.

Abstract On June 16, “Kossovo Day” was celebrated in New York City. According to the Julian calendar the event was close to the date of Serbian Vidovdan . This chapter focuses on how “Kossovo Day” 1918 was shared with the American public by the Serbian immigrant community. It discusses how the individual and situational migrant context was linked to US media discourses and structures of Serbian migrant organizations; how the Kosovo discourse provided orientation for actions by individuals, but also for political decisions; how migrants kept each other informed via public discourse, but also informed other US citizens about their status as exiles as long as Kosovo was not free. The central figure in this chapter is Michailo Pupin, a Serbian immigrant, who led migrant organizations, pulled the strings during the Kosovo Day event in New York, and worked to gain political support from the United States for the Serbian cause in Europe. The Kosovo myth thus received a supplementary narrative that intertwined the history of the United States with that of Serbia. According to the theoretical approach of the histoire croisée, this chapter investigates the cultural interactions that unfold in a process-like manner over time and which can result in the creation of an international, imagined space or public sphere. The intersections in the process, transfers, translations, and reinterpretations of historical narratives represent the units of analysis. These narratives were brought by Serbian immigrants in the first decade of the twentieth century and implemented in American public discourse.

Abstract A major reason for Kanitz’s travels to Serbia and his extensive work on books and drawings for the German media public was his effort to give Serbia an image that could be connected to Europe. Of course, this attempt must be interpreted before the background of the Habsburg’s expansion plans and policy of colonialization. Nevertheless, with his positive portrayal of the Kingdom of Serbia, Felix Philipp Kanitz drew divergent narratives of the Balkans, as this chapter highlights, that contained political alternatives. The democratic and emancipatory potentials of the Balkan Peninsula already indicated a rapprochement between Europe and Southeast Europe beginning in the early twentieth century. The assassination of Serbian King Aleksandar I Obrenović in 1903 gave rise to alternative transatlantic narratives about the Balkans. The “regicide” was framed in US public discourse as a rejection of tyranny and a chance for Serbia’s democratic renewal, emphasising the Balkans’ ties to Western values. The US media presented Serbian rulers, including Petar I, as legitimate and modern figures, in contrast to European representations of the region as semi-Oriental and backward. Serbia was seen as a free, Christian nation and a beacon of democracy in the Balkans.

Abstract In the years before the outbreak of the First World War, the “Balkans” were perceived as a crisis area par excellence in the European media and publics, a narrative that was adopted by Mary Edith Durham, who in the 1900s and 1910s observed the recently explored Balkan countries/nations. This chapter scrutinizes her work: Mary Edith Durham was one of the first women to report as a war correspondent directly from the front during the Balkan Wars and the First World War. She was considered a daring traveler, who ventured into unknown and dangerous areas in the Balkans. She was referred to as “Albania’s Mountain Queen” advocating for an oppressed population in the Balkans that did not belong to the Christian cultural sphere. Therefore, she re-interpreted the negative strands and aspects within historical narratives about Serbia, targeting Serbian politicians and the network of the Serbian government’s underground organizations. Mary Edith Durham’s advocacy for Albanian selfdetermination made her unpopular among her academic contemporaries, especially as Yugoslavia took form in 1918, while the British historian Robert Seton-Watson supported a united South Slavic state. Durham’s portrayal of Serbia’s role in the Sarajevo assassination, as part of a broader political intrigue, competed with Seton-Watson’s narrative of Serbian victimhood and oppression. These contrasting historical narratives influenced Western perceptions of the Balkans and shaped the interwar public discourse on the origins of World War I.

Abstract Iconizing literature is a practice that includes the fragmentation of literary works, the emancipation of its elements from their literary origin, and the largely-uncontrolled intermedia circulation that works around established gatekeepers and institutions: images and names of authors and literary characters or quotations which are being used in different media, art, and advertisement. However, this convergence culture (Henry Jenkins) is not restricted to visual or verbal icons but includes also whole sign complexes, such as the concept of literature itself. These sign complexes are conceptual icons which are metonymically represented through marked or un-marked references to works and authors, their cultural status or discourses such as reception history. This chapter examines forms and functions of this transfictional (Saint-Gelais) reference system in the literary works of Thomas Mann, Angela Carter and Milan Kundera and (what may appear as an unexpected parallel) the US-American horror comedy Vampires vs. the Bronx. In particular it focusses on the role of literary knowledge that is necessary to decode the manifold metonymic references to the conceptual icon “literature” which are used to comment on the veneration and iconization of the author or on a certain reception history.

In November of 2022, a Silicon Valley company launched an invention that could complete students' homework for them. Available only to subscribers at first, by the spring of 2023 OpenAI's ChatGPT-3.5 was available to millions of students. As of January 2023, anyone with internet service can access the next generation, GPT-4, using Microsoft's Bing, for free. ChatGPT and other emerging models like it are a form of generative AI, and its widespread availability poses new challenges and opportunities for schools. The response from educators falls along a spectrum, of enthusiasm and optimism on one side, and fatigue, bitterness, and pessimism on the other, and commonly, a mix of positive and negative attitudes. The optimists, the pessimists, and the ambivalent all agree that the sudden, widespread availability of generative AI has been a jolt that has left them scrambling to adapt for the past year. I saw an email and the title was "Have AI Write Your Next English Paper " and the caption was "Buckle up, here it comes!" I think my emotional reaction was curiosity, but I can tell you in my district, the range of emotions does span from dread all the way to excitement. -Steve Ouellette, Director of Technology, Westwood Public Schools 1 AI hasn't provided ANY benefits to me as an English teacher. And it hasn't forced me to change much. It's just another thing I have to deal with. One of too many.

Where does innovation in journalism come from, how is it implemented, and what factors drive or hinder its development? Scholars have explored these questions from different perspectives for over two decades. Our research holistically considers the broader factors that influence the development of journalistic innovation at the macro, meso, and micro levels, and whether it is internally or externally driven. In a three-year international research project, we have unpacked innovation with this multidimensional approach, looking at the most important innovations in journalism in Austria, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. Our study focuses on the mutual interplay between journalists, media organizations, and society. We investigated 100 case studies with 137 guided interviews with senior managers or project leaders. The results show that the focus of supporting and obstructive factors is internal and on the meso level and that many parallels exist between media systems. Internal factors are the intrinsic motivation of individuals, which need the support of open-minded management, allowing a culture of experimentation without economic pressure and assembling interdisciplinary teams. Across countries and independent of the respective media system, three external key drivers of innovation in journalism can be identified: technology, societal change, and change in the digital media universe. The study confirms once again as if through a magnifying glass that journalism is primarily a public service, especially for those innovations that strengthen the role of journalism in a democratic society.