German Mass Media Research Articles

Stylistic functions of anglicisms in German radio

Although English has no official status in countries of the expanding circle such as Germany (Kachru, 1985), English words and phrases, which are also referred to as anglicisms, can often be found in German mass media texts (Czech Rogoyska & Zboch, 2016; Fiedler, 2022; Glahn, 2002; Knospe, 2014; Onysko, 2004, 2007). In this context, previous research has paid much attention to the stylistic functions of anglicisms used by the mass media, often analysing brevity of expression and pragmatic functions of anglicisms, in particular how anglicisms are used to convey modernity (amongst others Piller, 2001; Winter–Froemel, Onysko & Calude, 2014). While such studies are usually exclusively based on analyses of German media corpora, this article enhances the current discourse on the developments around stylistic functions of English in German media texts by providing some insights from a larger research project which investigates shaping factors on radio content production and radio journalists’ perspectives on the use of anglicisms in the newsroom. In line with the overall results of the larger project, the analysis presented in this paper provides a brief overview of selected interview statements by adult contemporary radio journalists on whether anglicisms are used for reasons of brevity of expression and on their attitudes towards the use of English for conveying modernity on radio. The format of adult contemporary radio in Germany, in particular, has had a strong connection to the English language and Anglo-American culture from its very beginning, which makes it a prime example for such an analysis.

TERRORISM AND REFUGEE PERCEPTIONS: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF GERMANY AND TÜRKİYE

Since the 1990s, the dynamics between migration and security have undergone a profound shift, notably influenced by pivotal events such as 9/11, the Arab Spring, and conflicts in the Middle East. States now perceive migration as an asymmetric threat within the migration-security paradigm, extending concerns to border security, economic stability, ethnic identity preservation, and heightened xenophobia. This study explores the intertwined concerns of migration and security, examining shifts in perceptions of terrorism and refugees. The research uses an exploratory case study approach, focusing on Turkey and Germany, both hosting significant refugee populations post-Arab Spring. The analysis centers on the discourse surrounding terrorism, migration, and refugees in Turkish and German mass media, with a specific emphasis on widely circulated national newspapers. The study covers the period from 2015 to 2020, a critical time marked by heightened migration flows to Europe. The primary goal is to discern whether the discourse on "terrorism" functions as a securitization tool within this intricate nexus.

Языковые средства стереотипизации образов России и русских в текстах немецких СМИ

The paper studies the language representation of stereotypes using the example of German mass media texts dealing with the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The aim of the research is to reveal the peculiarities of the process of language stereotyping concerning the images of Russia and Russians. The theoretical and methodological basis of the present work is founded on the theory of stereotypes as cognitive units. The scientific novelty of the study lies in analyzing the specified stereotypes at the moment of their transformation using the methodology of stereotype modelling and in identifying their most current features including those that have not yet been described. The research findings allowed us to single out a number of stereotypes about Russia and Russians transmitted in the German media texts of today and to describe linguistic means that represent the features inherent in the stereotypes. The evaluating content of the stereotypes under consideration proved to be negative. It was confirmed that a stereotype is an effective tool for forming and promoting certain convictions among the target audience.

Istoriya nemeckih SMI v kontekste politicheskih preobrazovanij posle ob"edineniya (1990–2020 gg.)

The authors analyze the development of the German mass media over the 30-year period of the existence of the united country, outline the main trends, and identify the features and prospects for the German's mass media development as the crucial institution of a modern democratic society. The context of the transformation of the modern media space seems relevant in scientific and practical terms.

Editorial introduction: Punctuated equilibrium, multiple streams, environmental governance, and many more

Editorial introduction: Punctuated equilibrium, multiple streams, environmental governance, and many more

Cognitive mechanisms of the formation of new words in German media

The article is devoted to the study of the discourse of the German mass media, addressed to the topic of the coronavirus pandemic. Using the examples of magazine articles, television broadcasts and blogs in social networks, a conceptual analysis of the ways of word-formation activity of the German language in the era of coronavirus restrictions is carried out. The subject of the study is the cognitive mechanisms of word formation of the German language and their pragmatic features. The object of the study was the coronavirus discourse of the German-speaking language space. The aim of the work was to reconstruct some concepts of the discursive field "Coronavirus infection", as well as to describe the cognitive mechanisms underlying their formation on the basis of linguistic data. The methods of conceptual and prototypical analysis, as well as cognitive modeling and contextual analysis were used in the study of cognitive mechanisms of word formation. The relevance and novelty of the research lies in the study and description of the latest word-formation phenomena and trends in German-speaking social discourse. As a result of the research, the regularities of the functioning of the main cognitive mechanisms of concept formation were deduced and formulated. The analysis of the German media discourse during the coronavirus pandemic revealed new basic concepts and concepts-components that form conceptual fields. The basic concepts we attributed, for example, such as "Corona", "Mundnasenschutz", "Distanz", "Lockdown", "Panick". As a result of the study, it was concluded that the basic concepts form conceptual fields, including component concepts, the methods of language verbalization of which imply the presence of emotive and evaluative components. The studied and described language material allows us to conclude that the main cognitive mechanisms of concept formation are profiling, conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy and contamination.

The Image of Russia in the German Media (Following the Example Deutsche Welle, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit)

The authors of this paper have focused on the specifics of the formation of the image of Russia by the German mass media. The empirical basis of the work consisted of the publications of online versions of the German print press — Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, as well as the ones published by the Deutsche Welle media broadcaster (has been put on a list of ‘foreign agents” in Russia). In total, we have analyzed more than 70 publications, and more than 30 of them are presented in this paper, that appeared in the media during 2014–2021. As a result of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that the image of Russia formed by the German media cannot be characterized unambiguously. Among the total number of publications there are news stories of positive, negative and neutral type. Topics related to politics are more often covered in a negative way. However, publications devoted to cultural issues received more cordial reviews by the reporters.

Kollektivnaya pamyat' kak sotsial'nyy konstrukt v nemetskom diskurse

The authors address the needs of academicians in different fields of knowledge investigating collective memory and its discursive practices, its various manifestations in language subsystems, and the principles and mechanisms of social communication. Based on the significant potential of cognitive linguistics in this area due to the links between memory and language, the authors present this study аs to how social and cultural institutions regulate collective memory and apply different strategies, tactics, and linguistic means to create positive, negative, and neutralized images of the past in German mass media discourse. This study reveals the most relevant textproducer policies used to manipulate text-recipients and focuses on the most relevant argumentative and compositional tactics used in German mass media to re-actualize and form images of the collective past. The authors view re-actualization of collective memory in mass media in terms of social communication and media priming theories wherein collective memory is a phenomenon socially constructed in discursive practices, which perform selective, interpretive, and reversible functions. Managing the delivery of transformed images of the past to the addressee is aimed at cognitive and axiological changes in the communicative space of the addressee and forming the value judgment of the past. It is considered be possible due to the agent-object relationship of the addresser and addressee. The tactics applied by the addresser contribute not only to distributing and emphasizing some pieces of information but reducing criticism of the mass recipient perception.

On Remembering Hanau and Being an Emotional Academic

On Remembering Hanau and Being an Emotional Academic

Vocabulary of the German COVID-19 Pandemic Discourse

Introduction. The paper presents a synchronous snapshot in the development of the vocabulary of the German language during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines the sources and composition of neologisms, reveals specific features of current derivational processes and analyses the functional features of linguistic metaphor in the process of reflection on a new reality. Methodology and sources. The research is based on the theory of neology, cognitive word- formation and the theory of conceptual metaphor. The sources for the linguistic material collection are the online dictionary of pandemic neologisms, created at the Leibniz Institute for the German Language in Mannheim (Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, IDS), news and journalistic texts in the German mass media placed in the Internet. Results and discussion. The semantic content of neologisms and loanwords, and their functioning have been identified. The analysis of the word-formation categorization of the pandemic reality showed the productivity of traditional word-formation models and frequent use of the terminological elements “Corona”, “Covid” in the process of formation of vocabulary in common use. The authors argue that newly appeared words are features of the German language. Conclusion. The article concludes that appearance of new and metaphorically rethought vocabulary is a way to adapt to the new reality and express an emotional attitude to it, as well as a way to overcome the fear of getting infected.

МОВЛЕННЄВІ ОСОБЛИВОСТІ КОМПОЗИЦІЙНОЇ СТРУКТУРИ ЖАНРУ «ГЛОСА»

In the article, speech peculiarities of compositional structure of «gloss» genre are considered. «Gloss» speech genre is a speech genre of mass media in Germany, which have certain audience. This audience comprises highly educated people and those who work on their academic and cultural development. The function of gloss lies in the sudden, blitz exposure of such contradictions by means of an interesting, emotionally impactful text, as well as in the effort to change the way of persons’ behavior and consequences thereof. Journalistic and speech presentation of the gloss text genre finds its reflection, first of all, in the structure of this genre form. After a mainly brief presentation of an event (a pushing fact triggering certain expectations), the actual matter of the gloss is laid out (the point, die Pointe): a short remark, which sends the reader’s thoughts in an unexpectable direction and is the key to getting a new perception. Nowadays, the concept of a model of «gloss» speech genre and its universal construct is an object of scientific research, which is caused by an intense development of text stylistics and an increasing attention of scientists to composition-speech component of this phenomenon. A contrast of vertical, hierarchic, non-linear text structure and its linear, horizontal genre structure has already become widely recognized in linguistics. An investigation of composition-speech structure of «gloss» speech genre is necessary, guided by an important aiming of surveys of the modern text stylistics in the direction of description and standardization of the system of speech genres. This survey describes a functionally-stylistic aspect of one of the texts of an important genre of German mass media aimed at an educated, picky reader of ironical publicistic texts.

FRG MASS MEDIA AS A FACTOR FOR FORMING THE IDENTITY OF "RUSSIAN GERMANS"

Aim. The purpose of this article is to assess the impact on the identity of the "Russian Germans" of this community positioning in the German media.Methodology. The work’s methodology is based on a combination of classical content analysis with elements of comparative and structural analysis. The empirical base of the study was a pool of 232 publications from 6 national media of Germany (Deutsche Welle, Spiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Handelsblat and Bild) for 2021, formed in random sample order.Results. The author comes to the conclusion that there is a trend towards the stigmatization of "Russian Germans” in the German mass media. The latter are labeled as bearers of values and behaviors labeled as alien to the majority of the population. They are simultaneously trying to position this diaspora as a "fifth column" acting in the interests of Russia within the framework of the European Union and the Russian Federation. At the same time, the distance between the “Russian Germans” and the bulk of the German population is estimated to be smaller than in the case of the Albanian, Turkish, Afghan and Syrian diasporas. "Russians" are less frequently present in media materials as a source of an everyday threat (in the role of criminals or terrorists). Also, they are distinguished from the "Asian" and Albanian diasporas by the presence of a greater similarity with the native population in terms of appearance and behavior patterns. The distance is also shortened by the similarity of "Russian Germans" with the traditional "internal dissidents" – immigrants from the GDR who failed to fully integrate into the new society. Due to this, the German media contribute to the preservation of the separate identity of the "Russian Germans". But the image of the phantom threat from the "Russian Germans" formed by the mass media is not as bright as in the case of other "dangerous diasporas". This prevents the allocation of Germans who came from the former Soviet republics into an independent category in the form of "important others".Research implications. The results obtained became the basis for the development of practical recommendations for the Russian authorities on building communication with the "Russian Germans” community in Germany. It was emphasized that a dialogue with it should be built within the framework of the implementation of a comprehensive program covering both migrants from the post-Soviet space and people from the former GDR. The stigmatization of “Russian Germans” and immigrants from East Germany in the German media should be widely reported in the Russian-language mass media of Germany and niche communities in social networks. This will help consolidate these groups and turn them into a social base for opposition to anti-Russian forces in the German elites. The negative image of the "Russian Germans" as the "fifth column of Moscow" can be destroyed by a large-scale promotion of depoliticized elements of "soft power", and move all, by products of popular culture.

Сарказм как речевое средство реализации стратегии дискредитации политического деятеля (на материале текстов немецкоязычной прессы о Д. Трампе)

The paper aims to identify the role of sarcasm in implementation of the communicative discrediting strategy. The article studies the use of sarcastic evaluation aimed to create a negative image of a politician; analyzes the examples of sarcastic statements in the German mass media which serve to discredit the image of a particular politician (D. Trump), as well as his potential voters in the eyes of the readers; identifies a number of linguistic markers of sarcasm. The scientific originality of the research lies in the fact that the article considers sarcasm which is traditionally studied only in connection with the category of irony a separate speech means with a significant influential potential which can be used by the author of a sarcastic statement for targeted implementation of the communicative discrediting strategy; identifies certain linguistic markers of a negatively evaluative sarcastic meaning of a statement. As a result, it has been proved that the multiple use of statements with a sarcastic meaning towards a politician in the mass media can lead to the creation of a negative image and serve to undermine his credibility among his voters.

Relational coupling of multiple streams: The case of COVID‐19 infections in German abattoirs

AbstractAfter a series of COVID‐19 outbreaks among employees in the German meat‐processing industry, the Work Safety Control Act protecting these workers made it on the government's agenda in July 2020. From a Multiple Streams perspective, local corona hotspots may be understood as policy windows for introducing respective measures. However, this alone is not sufficient to explain agenda setting. This study investigates the coupling of streams within policy windows. Introducing the notion of relational coupling to the MSF research agenda, discourse network analysis provides a new methodology to reveal entrepreneurial activities. Studying the German mass media discourse on the issue identifies two stages: (1) An initial problem brokerage without coupling of core policies, followed by (2) a coupling across all streams based on a focusing event. We argue that relational coupling allows for an enhanced understanding of agenda setting.

MEDIA IMAGES OF DEPRESSION: TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE, INTERACTION, SELF-EXPERSSION

Depression is a common illness worldwide. According to the data of WHO, approximately 280 million people have depression. As a consequence, the illness is present in the media discourse in Germany for years. This paper discusses the strategies different media use to create a specific image of this mental disorder: German mass media, the so called quality media (Der Spiegel) as well as social media (Instagram*). The focus of the analysis is the use of different semiotic codes such as written language, static pictures, and typography in order to create a multimodal image of depression. Methodically, the paper is based on Linguistic Discourse Analysis as it is used in the German Linguistics, whereas the term Discourse is used according to Foucault’s concept. Some aspects of the DIMEAN model by [Spitzmüller, Warnke 2011], for example concerning the metaphor in discourse will be critically discussed. The textual analysis seeks to explore how the individual experiences of people with depression are presented in language and picture. Moreover, the transfer of knowledge in the mass media discourse well be treated. For this reason, the terms expert knowledge and lay knowledge will be reflected. In the context of Social Media, especially on Instagram*, the interaction between the users is in focus of discussion, as well as the use of colours for the strategies of self-expression. Both are relevant for the creation of the specific media image of depression.

Don't Need No Thought Control: Western Culture in East Germany and the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Gerd Horten

Reviewed by: Don't Need No Thought Control: Western Culture in East Germany and the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Gerd Horten David Tompkins Don't Need No Thought Control: Western Culture in East Germany and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. By Gerd Horten. New York: Berghahn, 2020. Pp. xi + 256. Cloth $120.00. ISBN 978-1-78920-733-0. Gerd Horten has written a synthetic work that looks at West and East German mass media and consumer culture during the Honecker era and after. His work is firmly in the mainstream of recent work on the GDR, as he positions himself in line with the scholarship of Mary Fulbrook, Thomas Lindenberger, Andrew Port, and many others, offering a picture of a relatively weak dictatorship forced to respond to demands from below. He argues that GDR popular culture was driven by the desires of East Germans along with the systemic advantages of Western culture, which forced escalating and ultimately fatal accommodations by the SED leadership. The scope of the book is perhaps its strongest point for the general reader, as Horten has chapters on film, television, popular music, and consumer culture. Horten uses petitions (Eingaben) as an effective source in these chapters, as well as a wide variety of other archival documents, but his analysis is familiar after numerous monographs on these subjects in recent decades. While reception is difficult to assess in a dictatorship, Horten sometimes engages in pure speculation that is distracting and unconvincing (71–73). These several case studies strengthen his overall arguments, and each chapter is framed almost identically, noting that SED policy was contradictory, defensive, and doomed to failure. A rather odd inclusion is the first chapter, which looks at "successful" GDR media campaigns around Vietnam and the 1972 Olympics. Horten appears to want to contrast these successes with the failures to come, but it is unclear how propaganda campaigns around clearly political issues are similar to the media and consumption case studies that follow. A potentially revealing aspect of Horten's monograph is his focus on the underlying economic situation that greatly influenced GDR policy around film, television, and popular music. In each case, he demonstrates how SED leaders were caught in an impossible situation: because of growing economic difficulties, they had limited and decreasing funds to both produce appealing East German content and also purchase desired and appropriate Western cultural products. In the context of a seemingly clear preference for Western culture among East Germans (especially youth), functionaries were trapped in a downward spiral where they scrambled to provide acceptable Western cultural products to appease societal demand. Horten describes well the slippery slope when the introduction and acceptance of Western media begat demands for more of it. Western films apparently earned more money for the budget because of their popularity. More details would have been most instructive on the fees for these Western products (in hard currency) and how that worked with ticket sales paid for in East German currency. (Horten points out repeatedly that the GDR's debt in foreign currency skyrocketed in this [End Page 196] period.) Similarly, for television, GDR officials had increased the number of popular, domestically produced series across the 1970s and 1980s, but continued to rely on Western films as the backbone of programming. Again, though, more details on how paying in hard currency for the right to broadcast these films compared to the costs of domestic production is largely lacking. There are several strategies that SED officials sought to employ in their battles for viewers and influence. Horten describes a number of examples, especially in the 1970s, where SED officials introduced Western films that were both popular and also critical of Western society—and hence ideologically acceptable and politically useful. It would be useful to know why this could not become a general and lasting model. And on the flip side, Horten also offers numerous examples of popular East German films and TV shows. A more granular economic examination of why SED officials could not spend more money on domestic cultural products, instead of paying hard currency for Western imports, would have been highly desirable. The epilogue continues the study through the Wende and...

Multidimensionality of “Europäische Identität” Notion in German Mass Media

This paper uses communicative-pragmatic analysis and a corpus-based method to investigate multidimensional axiological interpretation of Europäische Identität notion as a unifying political concept. The study focuses on European identity discourse as presented in German mass media. The study shows strategic relevance of the concept and its unifying potential both within the EU framework, and in wider European domain. The analysis reveals that primary and secondary collocators actualized with the notion convey both the topicality and inconsistency of the concept. Moreover, the results show that identity and personal / collective self-determination discourse is characterized by polemic nature and various evaluations that predominantly feature the tactics of doubt and mistrust to the unifying potential of European identity concept.

Language interpretation of German migration discourse (in comparison view of the years 2019 and 2015/16)

Abstract The presented paper is a research dive into the topic of web corpora as well as an analysis of linguistic grasp of the issue of migration from the perspective of social, cultural and cognitive linguistics. The presented research reflects the problem of the construction of the language grasp of this issue in Europe in a selected German mass media discourse. We compare the phenomenon of migration in 2015/2016, when record migration flows to the EU were recorded, and in 2019, when migration kept increasing. The analysis of language grasp of the issue of migration is a part of our scientific research within the project VEGA Xenisms in German and Slovak communications.

8. Enquêtes sur les crimes nazis dans la zone d’occupation soviétique et la RDA

Although the vast majority of an estimated 13,000 East German Nazi trials, conducted between 1947 and 1989, was not widely reported in the East German media, the Communist party leadership was nevertheless always eager to shore up the GDR’s self-proclaimed image as a guardian of a “Nuremberg” spirit on local, national, and international levels. Unlike the Federal Republic, who until the early 1950s had buried most of Nuremberg’s unpopular legacy under a self-serving rhetoric of “war-convicted” and “Christian charity,” GDR authorities pursued a different approach. On the one hand, the Nuremberg body of law was instrumentalized in “show trials” against “counter-revolutionaries” and other “enemies” of the working class, and as a vehicle for the “Sovietization” and “Stalinization” of the police and judiciary apparatus. On the other hand, public images of Nuremberg and other postwar war crimes trials were conveyed in the East German mass media and in selected trials in order to advertise the GDR’s anti-Western and anti-Imperial understanding of human rights and international criminal law and to buttress its anti-Fascist version of WWII history and the Shoah. In the long run, an ideologically driven internationalization approach would cause some unexpected tensions and side-effects inside and outside the Socialist camp. Based on my previous research on the transnational aspects of the GDR’s official juridical antifascism and on a new body of scholarship that emphasizes the manifold sociocultural, mnemonic, and symbolic ramifications of postwar war crimes policies, this paper will discuss why the—still under-investigated—East German war crimes trials program can be interpreted as the paradoxical attempt to benefit from the growing popularity of human rights and international criminal law and a multidirectional Holocaust consciousness (Michael Rothberg) in the international realm, while trying to contain its unforeseen repercussions on the national level.

COVID-19, mathematics education, and the evaluation of expert knowledge

Maturity and citizenship in a democracy require that laypersons are able to critically evaluate experts’ use of mathematics. Learning to critically reflect on the use of mathematics, including the acquisition of the mathematical knowledge and skills required to that end, has been repeatedly postulated as an indispensable goal of compulsory education in mathematics. However, it remained unclear in how far such reflection is possible, even for the well-educated layperson in mathematics. We use different discussions in German mass media on the pandemic policy in the SARS-CoV-2 crisis in 2020 as examples with far-reaching individual and social consequences. The selected discussions build heavily on mathematical concepts such as mortality rates, casualty numbers, reproduction numbers, and exponential growth. We identify the concepts and discuss how far they can be understood by laypersons. On the one hand, we found that some mathematical models are inappropriate, which can also be determined by laypersons. On the other hand, we found uses of mathematics where ideal concepts are intermingled with complex statistical concepts. While only the ideal concepts can be understood by laypersons, only the statistical concepts lead to actual data. The identification of both types of concepts leads to a situation where the use of mathematics evades social control and opens spaces for misconceptions and manipulation. We conclude that the evaluation of experts’ use of mathematics by laypersons is not possible in all relevant cases, and we discuss possible implications of this result.