Matthias Kohring

Biotechnology and the European public

The latest European sample survey of public perceptions of biotechnology reveals widespread opposition to genetically modified (GM) food in much of Europe, but public attitudes to medical and environmental applications remain positive.

Trust in News Media: Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Scale

The dimensions that individuals apply in evaluating the trustworthiness or credibility of news media bear great theoretical and practical relevance. In previous research, however, there is no standardized scale for the measurement of trust in news media. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present the development and validation of a multidimensional scale of trust in news media. A theoretically derived model is tested on a representative sample via confirmatory factor analysis. After some modifications, the model is then validated on another independent sample. These results confirm the hypothesis that trust in news media can be considered a hierarchical factor (of second order) that consists of four lower order factors, including trust in the selectivity of topics, trust in the selectivity of facts, trust in the accuracy of depictions, and trust in journalistic assessment. This model is the first validated scale of trust in news media in communication research.

The face(t)s of biotech in the nineties: how the German press framed modern biotechnology

The following article deals with the different images of modern biotechnology created by the German press in the last decade of the twentieth century. To describe these images we have chosen the theoretical concept of framing, which in general denotes the idea that the media deal with certain issues in different ways and that therefore the coverage offers different perspectives to the reader. We understand a frame as a certain pattern of a text that is composed of several different text elements. We assume that some of these text elements group together systematically in a specific way, thereby forming a certain pattern that can be identified across several texts in a sample. These patterns we call frames. By means of cluster analysis we are able to identify not only predefined but also newly emerging frames and the way framing of an issue changes over time. This methodological approach allows us to give a dynamic overview of how the German press dealt with biotechnology in the early and late nineties.

Framing Emerging Technologies: Risk Perceptions of Nanotechnology in the German Press

Nanotechnology cannot be directly experienced and observed—all that people know about it and their interpretations and opinions are mainly based on information from the mass media. Therefore, this first systematic study of the German media coverage about nanotechnology aims to analyse the media frames of this emerging technology. It comprises a standardized content analysis of nine print media from 2000 to 2008, which shows that the German media framing is predominantly very positive, specifically emphasizing the medical and economic benefits of nanotechnology. There is hardly any critical coverage opposing this one-sided perspective of progress. This result corresponds to the international media coverage.

Organizational Influence on Scientists’ Efforts to Go Public An Empirical Investigation

This article contributes to the debate on the influence of organizational settings on scientists’ media contact. Drawing on a quantitative survey of researchers (n = 942) from 265 German universities, the results indicate that a large proportion of scientists from all disciplines participate regularly in the dissemination of research findings. The authors provide evidence that scientists’ media efforts are influenced by how they adopt their university’s desire to be visible in the media, as well as by the university’s PR activities. The increased orientation toward news media is discussed in the light of the new governance of science within Europe.

Konflikte, Kriege, Katastrophen

BSE, Bosnien und Bhopal stehen fur Konflikte, Kriege und Katastrophen im Ausland, die eine grose inlandische Offentlichkeit verunsichern und polarisieren. Aufgeworfen werden namlich Anschlusfragen, die hiesige Normalitats- und Kontinuitatserwartungen konterkarieren, in Frage stellen, ja im Grunde ad absurdum fuhren. Wer etwa garantiert, das der Rinderwahnsinn sich nicht noch starker verbreitet oder Bhopal nur moglich war, weil in Indien ‘deutsche Sicherheitsstandards’ fehl(t)en? Welche Bedeutung haben schlieslich Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa, wenn in seiner Mitte (dem ehemaligen Jugoslawien) jahrelang Krieg herrschte? Verdiente nicht eher das Versagen der europaischen Innenpolitik, als Krise bezeichnet zu werden? Doch wer konnte das tun? Vielleicht die Medien? Erschopft sich ihr Beitrag in objektiver Berichterstattung oder ist von ihnen mehr, vielleicht sogar Verstandigung, Konsens- und Friedensstiftung zu erwarten? Meinen Journalisten und Politiker uberhaupt dasselbe, wenn sie von Krisen sprechen? Schlieslich: Wo beginnt das Ausland, das uns interessieren mus? Welches konnen wir ignorieren, und von wem werden wir ignoriert?

Genetic engineering in the international media: An analysis of opinion-leading magazines

The aim of this study was to analyse systematically the public opinion-leading press coverage of the application of genetic engineering in a comparative perspective. This article presents the results of an international analysis of the public debate about genetic engineering from 1991 to 1996 in Germany, France, the UK and the USA. The results show that in reporting genetic engineering across national borders, routine and time-tested mechanisams for the management of conflicts in this area have been established. Contradicting a widespread assumption, scientific input into the public discourse is far away from being ignored. In fact it dominates the public area in a way that no other actor does. The study shows that especially the coverage of the topic by the German media does not deserve its bad reputation. Its typical feature is rather normality in the sense of a critical benefit-orientation. Especially the German opinion-leading media (Spiegal, Zeit) reflect transnational developments from multiple perspectives and enigmatically.

The changing rationale of science communication: a challenge to scientific autonomy

We argue that the institutionalized push communication of academic institutions has become the dominant form of public science communication and has tended to force other forms and functions of science communication into the background. Given the new schemes of public funding, public communication of science now primarily serves the purpose of enabling academic institutions to promote themselves in a competition that has been forced upon them by the political domain. What academics working under these conditions say about themselves and their work (and what they do not) will depend crucially on the strategic communication goals and concepts of the organizations to which they belong. We surmise that the inherent logic of this form of science communication represents a potential threat to the autonomy of scientific research. We can understand the term science communication in its most general sense as each instance of communication about scientific research which is addressed to a public, as well as about the knowledge (technology) resulting from this [1]. Science communication is in fact a multifaceted phenomenon: it employs a variety of formats and channels of communication, involves different actors, and pursues very different, even sometimes conflicting, objectives. We can nonetheless use three distinctions to make some order of the confusion. First, we should distinguish between individual and institutional communicators — that is, between an individual academic who reports on his or her research, and the press office of an academic institution in which there are usually professional communicators who provide information on the work of academics belonging to the institution. Second, we should distinguish between communication by science, and communication about science. This distinction concerns the question of whether academics or academic institutions provide self-descriptions of their own action, or whether external observers (especially journalists) communicate their assessments of scientific processes and findings, and place them in a social context. Third, we should make a distinction JCOM 13(03)(2014)C04 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 2 F. Marcinkowski and M. Kohring between different modes of science communication, which are defined by the relationship of communicators and recipients. In so-called push communication, the prerogative lies with the communicator, who consciously and purposefully selects desired recipients whose interest the communicator simply presupposes and whom the communicator addresses directly with its range of communications, i.e., s/he pushes the message. The prime example here is the work of university press offices, which, automatically and usually without there being a particular demand, send out mailings to “their” distribution lists. We distinguish this from so-called pull communication, where the communicator makes his/her information available to an anonymous and dispersed public through appropriate channels, which can then be selected and “pulled” on by recipients according to their individual interests. Examples here are journal articles about science, but also, for example, science blogs or wikis. If we imagine these distinctions as axes of a three-dimensional matrix (Figure 1), then what emerges is a space with eight blocks, each one representing a unique format of science communication. Figure 1. Facets and formats of science communication. We argue here that the lower right square of the first level, i.e., the push communication of academic institutions (usually executed by institutional press offices), has become the dominant form of public science communication and has tended to force other forms and functions of science communication into the background. Given the new schemes of public funding, the public communication of science primarily serves the purpose of enabling academic institutions to promote themselves in a competition that has been forced upon them by the political domain. What academics working under these conditions say about themselves and their work (and what they do not) will depend crucially on the strategic communication goals and concepts of the organizations to which they belong. We surmise that the inherent logic of this form of science communication represents a potential threat to the autonomy of scientific research, with our argument being based on our studies of the publicly funded system of higher education in Germany [2]. The changing rationale of science communication: a challenge to scientific autonomy 3 Is science a genuine public business? The absolute requirement for science to present itself in public is now simply assumed to be obvious and a matter of course. Those academics or academic institutions that try to evade the ubiquitous pressure to communicate publicly come under huge pressure to justify themselves. External communication of almost any kind and amount is considered useful and desirable per se — indeed, it is often already understood as being a genuine component of academic activity. If we consider the process of scientific understanding from a functional point of view, however, then the notion that science has to publish itself becomes by no means selfexplanatory or self-evident. The function of science is clearly to formulate sentences which, assuming a certain understanding of truth and accepted methods, are considered true and which can therefore be particularly useful in guiding human action. The epistemic process itself, the process of attributing truth values to statements, therefore requires neither public visibility nor the sanction of an uninvolved third party. Whether a statement is deemed true or false is determined within science, and usually within the epistemic publics of scientific communities. There is no reason to assume that the process of scientific understanding would be furthered by having as many people as possible observing or being involved in procedures of justification. Science has had to fight for a very long time for this functional autonomy — against the claims, for example, made by religion, politics and, more recently, even against the claims of the public. Also beyond the immediate context of justification in the research process, there is no functional justification for public science communication, since an insight obviously does not become truer simply by being shared publicly, and nor does it become false simply by remaining unknown to most people. That means that the idea and practice of the public self-presentation of scientific processes of understanding are epistemically non-functional at best; at the same time, though, they can have societal consequences. Since every action responds to the fact of its observability, the public domain brings into play motives, criteria and dynamics that can potentially challenge the original “purpose” of science — and thereby also hinder it. In the following, we are concerned exclusively with these negative consequences of visibility for the autonomy and functioning of science. So as not to be misunderstood, we do not want to deny that science has to answer to society, and especially so if it is publicly funded. It has not yet been decided, though, which mechanisms in the production of democratic accountability should be used in this regard. There is in any case no compelling reason to fixate prematurely on PR as the primary mechanism of accountability. Every democratic society knows areas of public action that have to be accountable, but that no one would expect to have to be accountable through presenting itself in public. This applies, for example, to many parts of internal and external security, where the claim is rather that being too much in the public eye could have a detrimental effect. And that is precisely our claim for science, too. Areas of action for which that holds true justify themselves through functioning well. Their 4 F. Marcinkowski and M. Kohring so-called output legitimacy results from “being good” instead of just “looking good” [3]. Furthermore, of course, such areas should be monitored by an independent journalism and thereby exposed to public observation. Who needs science communication? So how did the demand for public communication from science come into being, if it is not a core component of what academics do? Besides certain ideological currents, especially the social-democratization of many European countries and the associated demand for equal access to higher education, it is primarily economic constraints that are responsible. According to these constraints, the demand for public science communication is justified by the organization of science, coupled with the dependence of organizations on money. Science can only be sustained on a permanent basis if it takes place in organizations (universities, colleges, research centres, etc.), and organizations need money to motivate membership. Most European countries have publicly funded organizations of science, with the state collecting money in the form of taxes and passing it on to academic organizations, for which in return it expects extensive involvement in how the money is used and reserves the right to monitor how it is spent. The state is answerable for what results from this to those who provide the money, i.e., to the electorate. As that has become more difficult and costly, so the state has relieved itself of the duty of detailed responsibility by tying funding to performance agreements, withdrawing from micro-management, and granting organizations themselves more autonomy in budgeting and spending [4]. The idea behind this new public management is that, in return, organizations will have to manage the task of justifying themselves to those who provide the money and use their services. In that way, the binding of the reformed unit to its external (non-governmental) “stakeholder” is intended to become clos

Komplexität ernst nehmen

Ziel dieses Beitrags ist eine Einfuhrung in eine systemtheoretische Theorie des Journalismus. Der Leser soll nachvollziehen konnen, worum es einer systemtheoretischen Journalismustheorie primar geht — namlich die Grenzen des Journalismus als Sinngrenzen zu beschreiben — weil er nur so von anderen gesellschaftlichen Handlungsbereichen zu unterscheiden ist.1 Zu diesem Zweck mus zuerst geklart werden, was uberhaupt unter systemtheoretischem Denken zu verstehen ist (Abschnitt 2), speziell unter einer Theorie soziler Systeme (Abschnitt 3). Danach geht es um die theoretischen Kriterien, die zu berucksichtigen sind, will man ‚Journalismus‘ als ein soziales (Funktions-)System beschreiben. Anhand dieser Kriterien werden die bisherigen theoretischen Vorschlage exemplarisch diskutiert (Abschnitt 4). Zum Schlus ist die Frage nach dem Nutzen einer systemtheoretischen Journalismustheorie zu stellen (Abschnitt 5).

Journalismus als soziales System

Ziel dieses Beitrags ist eine Einfuhrung in eine systemtheoretische Theorie des Journalismus. Der Leser soll nachvollziehen konnen, worum es einer systemtheoretischen Joumalismustheorie primar geht — namlich die Grenzen des Journalismus als Sinngrenzen zu beschreiben — weil er nur so von anderen gesellschaftlichen Handlungsbereichen zu unterscheiden ist.1 Zu diesem Zweck muss zuerst geklart werden, was uberhaupt unter systemtheoretischem Denken zu verstehen ist (Abs. 2), speziell unter einer Theorie sozialer Systeme (Abs. 3). Danach geht es um die theoretischen Kriterien, die zu berucksichtigen sind, will man‚Journalismus‘ als ein soziales (Funktions-)System beschreiben. Anhand dieser Kriterien werden die bisherigen theoretischen Vorschlage exemplarisch diskutiert (Abs. 4). Zum Schluss ist die Frage nach dem Nutzen einer systemtheoretischen Journalismustheorie zu stellen (Abs. 5).