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PS 082
Unfamiliar Worlds? – Discourse (Dis)Continuity Between Journalists and Their Audiences, with the Example of the Refugee Issue
M. Prinzing
1
1
Macromedia cologne, journalism, cologne, Germany
The refugee issue mirrors change in two variant perspectives: As a global challenge for our societies and as an example to explore how media and commu‑
nication practices might be engaged in communicating across several divides caused by this change. In the digital media society, journalists no longer are
gatekeepers. Audiences gain greater significance, more and more of them acting as a publishing public. This irreversible shift has to be explored in order to
learn how this influences communication over dislocation e.g. in societal realms. There is numerous research on journalists as communicators, their various
roles and functions. But until now only few about the publishing public – and very few differentiated observation which is not just reduced to those who are
stirring up hatred, behaving as mob or troll (Meyen/Riesmeyer 2009; Springer 2014; Serong 2015; Wolf 2015; Ziegele/Breiner/Quiring 2014). This proposal
is based on a study with the aim to help to fill this gap. First part is a comparing analysis of online news sites regarding three aspects of the refugee issue.
What impressions arise if you analyse selected discourses with a content-analytical approach? Which functions und which roles do the audience play? In
what way do those roles differ from roles journalists as traditional communicators play? (Burckhardt 2009; Gerhards 1996; Habermas 1990, 1998; Pew
2014). We referred to three occurrences: Issue 1: border fence in Hungary (first half of September 2015), Issue 2: quotas for the distribution of refugees (first
half of October 2015), Issue 3: Family reunification of Syrians (first half of November 2015); the sample consisted of a total of 1592 comments, spread over
the German online platforms freitag.de (180); zeit.de (287); tagesspiegel.de (533); welt.de (492). A few key findings: 35.4 percent of welt.de´s audience
communicated dialogue oriented. Neutral held or intent on synergy comments were rare, most of them are appellative, willing to convince others of one's
own point of view but not radiating openness for discussion: a share of 71 percent of the user-commentators acted as critics, three-quarters of them ad‑
dressed their criticism to politics and politicians, 15 percent of the commentators engaged in smear campaign, also mostly against politicians. Criticism to
refugees was relatively rare (5.4 percent); and if refugees were adressees of criticism, then usually in hate-comments (25 percent). The audience of freitag.
de, however, being a platform with the self-conception as an example for "opinion media" is very different from this and the other two sites. In two out
of three cases freitag.de´s audience adopts the role of a teacher, puts importance to information and shows a clear openness for discussion into their com‑
ments. Obviously, a community that feels they are taken seriously, promotes a proper and responsive debate with more openness for the common good
and with a comparatively low percentage of whiners or baiters in turn promoted more openness for the common good. An experiment rounds the study:
ten refugees, ten volunteers engagend in refugees` matters and ten“non-affected”persons were asked about their perception of the coverage on refugees.
PS 083
The Two Faces of Young Journalists: A Long-Term Study of Austrian Journalism Students Focusing on Changes in Self-Image and
the Discrepancy Between Media Usage and FutureWork Area
N. Gonser
1
, G. Reiter
1
, M. Grammel
1
, J. Gründl
1
1
FHWien University of Applied Sciences of WKW, Institute for Journalism & Media Management, Vienna, Austria
Asking journalists about their own profession sometimes draws a dark picture concerning uncertain working conditions and the fundamental changes in
the media landscape due to digitalization (e.g. Beck et al. 2010; Mast 2011). Correspondingly, the ambitious and honorable ideal of being a journalist as
some sort of morally responsible member of society still is very dominant as the image of the profession (e.g. Frost 2011; Reinardy & Moore 2007). The basic
nature of a journalist and the essential skills may be valued diversely, but there is a certain overlap of definitions of journalism ethics detached even from
country-specifics (e.g. Sanders et al. 2008; Weischenberg et al. 2006; Kaltenbrunner et al. 2008). There is a solid collection of data about the self-image
of journalists for a vast number of countries and a comparison between different regions (e.g.Weaver &Willnat 2012). Concurrently, the general motivation
for becoming a journalist also has been the subject of recent research (e.g. Vales 2015). Nonetheless, there is hardly any comparable long-term survey data
concerning the probable changes in appreciation and attitude towards the profession among the next generation of journalists, namely the journalism
students. The changing technological conditions in a networked society strongly influence the media usage and extend the individual media repertoires
(e.g. Bjur et al. 2014;Taneja et al. 2012).This also affects (future) journalists in their way of consuming, researching, communicating and, as a matter of fact,
working. Hence, journalism students have a complex relationship with media: On the one hand, they need to develop their own professional understand‑
ing and define their own role within their future workplace. On the other hand, they are also media users in private life. As their private media routines
might inspire their professional attitude, they should be taken into account in research. Regarding these aspects, our research questions are: (1) How do
journalism students define their role as (future) journalists and how has this changed in recent years? (2) In which ways do changes in the (private) media
usage of journalism students have an impact on their intended work area? Our analysis is based on the results of a steady online questionnaire surveyed in
2011 (64 participants), 2013 (77 participants) and 2015 (104 participants) among journalism students at a university of applied sciences. The questionnaire
contained items about media usage, expected job skills, the future job situation and current living conditions. The results suggest that attributions towards
the role and the image as a journalist remain stable throughout the years. The fundamental principles and moral liabilities remain at an explicitly high
level. Meeting these expectations, the preferred future working area still is the print sector. Comparing this to the private media usage, print is constantly
rated on a low level and even criticized for not providing enough details. Notwithstanding, the heavily used online sector is appreciated as reliable source
of information and used for social networking, but only slowly recognized as a possible future workplace.