Media Performance and Democracy
Final Report Abstract
The content analysis of the media coverage on the issue of migration is part of a research project investigating the democratic media performance of news media in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Especially in the context of such a prominent and polarizing issue, a democratic society needs highquality news coverage in order to support the formation of public opinion (forum function of the public sphere) and to ensure the legitimacy of political decisions (function of legitimization/validation). Ultimately, a high-quality news coverage can promote the individual feeling of being represented, the mutual tolerance of diverging viewpoints, and the self-perception of society as a cohesive community (function of integration). Three dimensions of media performance are of particular importance for fulfilling these functions of the public sphere: relevance, plurality and deliberativeness. The study examines in a differentiated manner which standard arguments have been presented by the media in the public debate on migration. The study reveals that the range of relevant arguments and the balance in the presentation of conflicting political positions differ depending on the media type (quality or tabloid news outlets), the editorial lines of news outlets and the media genre (print, radio, online). In this way, it becomes clear in which media arenas the prerequisites of democratic media performance (forum, validation, integration) are met adequately and in which arenas they are fulfilled only to a limited extent. A significant advancement of the study is the linkage of an argumentation analysis with the identification of value frames, which were measured along basic political conflicts (“cleavages”). Value frames function as a bridging theoretical concept that allows to evaluate how well the media's portrayal of the issue reflects the diversity of basic political attitudes in society on the one hand and the range of political positions of parties on the other. This combination provides the basis for in-depth analyses of the media’s role in increasing the political polarization of society or in mediating political conflicts in a democratic manner.
Publications
- (2020). Democratic Theory and the Potential of Value Frames in Assessing Media Performance. Media and Communication 8 (3)
Weiß, Ralph, Raphael Kösters, und Merja Mahrt
(See online at https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i3.3058) - 2020. Medien als Mittler im Konflikt? Der Streit um die Migration im Spiegel der Berichterstattung. Dissertationsschrift an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Kösters, Raphael
