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The Covid-19 pandemic was accompanied by a massive increase of the supply and demand for pandemic-related information. Similarly, conspiracy theories about the origins and functions of the Covid-19 virus flourished during the early stages of the pandemic. The present study draws on a nationally representative sample of the German population aged 18+ (N = 1,207) to investigate factors that are associated with people’s susceptibility to believe in such theories. We draw on research from sociology, political science, and communication to predict that factors related to relative deprivation, political radicalism, and the consumption of alternative news on websites, video platforms, Social Network Sites, and messenger services are associated with an increased belief in Covid-19 conspiracy theories. The data largely supports our assumptions. Additionally, we show that the strength of belief in Covid-19 conspiracy theories is associated with reduced vaccination intentions, which suggests detrimental real-world health consequences of such a belief.

This study investigates how exposure to different news sources, propensity to vote (PTV) for a party and demographics are related to belief in conspiracy theories drawing on three repeated cross-sectional surveys in Germany 2017–2019. Results show that frequent exposure to alternative news sites and video-sharing platforms increased conspiratorial beliefs. Frequency of exposure to the quality press, public service TV news, and news aggregators diminished beliefs in conspiracy theories. Exposure to TV news, legacy media online, tabloids, social media, and user comments was unrelated to such beliefs. PTV for far left and right parties increased conspiratorial beliefs, moderate party preference reduced them.

Solidarity among society is considered crucial to tackle the corona pandemic. With the crisis evoking a high need for orientation, the information people obtain from different sources may shape whe...

ZusammenfassungIn den letzten Jahren haben viele Studien untersucht, welche Faktoren das Vertrauen in Medien beeinflussen können. Zu einigen dieser Faktoren gibt es vorläufige wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse, die eine klare Richtung andeuten, zu anderen ist die Forschungslage eher heterogen. Wir überprüfen daher anhand einer Trendstudie mit Befragungsdaten aus den Jahren 2017, 2018 und 2019 mit je 1200 Befragten, welche Personenmerkmale sich in Deutschland über einen längeren Zeitraum als stabile Einflussfaktoren erwiesen haben. Dazu führen wir blockweise Regressionsanalysen im Zeitverlauf durch. Neben soziodemografischen Faktoren und der Mediennutzung gehören dazu die Einstellungen zu Politik, Verschwörungsglaube und interpersonales Vertrauen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass alle Gruppen von Variablen mit Medienvertrauen im Zusammenhang stehen, dass ihr Einfluss jedoch unterschiedlich groß ist. In komplexeren Regressionsmodellen wird der Einfluss mancher Variablen vom Effekt anderer Variablen überlagert – dies könnte eine Erklärung für die bislang äußerst heterogene Forschungslage zu beispielsweise dem Einfluss der Soziodemografika auf Medienvertrauen sein. Die Ergebnisse verdeutlichen auch, welche Rezipientinnen und Rezipienten den Medien weniger oder gar nicht vertrauen.

Impoliteness and incivility in online discussions have recently been discussed as relevant issues in communication science. However, automatically detecting these concepts with computational methods is challenging. In our study, we build and compare supervised classification models to predict impoliteness and incivility in online discussions on German media outlets on Facebook. Using a sample of 10,000 hand-coded user comments and a theory-grounded coding scheme, we develop classifiers on different feature sets including unigram and n-gram distributions as well as various dictionary-based features. Our findings show that impoliteness and incivility can be measured to a certain extent on the word level of a comment, but the models suffer from high misclassification rates, even if lexical resources are included. This is mainly because the classifiers cannot reveal subtle forms of incivility and because comment authors often use predictive words of incivility or impoliteness in non-offensive ways or in different contexts. Still, when applying the classifiers to a comparable set of comments, we find that the machine-coded categories and the hand-coded categories reveal similar patterns regarding the distribution of and the user reactions to uncivil/impolite comments. The findings of our study therefore provide new insights into the supervised machine learning approach to the detection of different forms of offensive language.

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag untersucht medienbezogene Einstellungen und das Ausmas des Verschworungsglaubens von Menschen mit AfD-Wahlpraferenz. Er greift die Debatte uber Kampfbegriffe wie „Lugenpresse“ und „Systemmedien“ auf und erweitert die Radikalisierungsforschung um einen kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Zugang. Dafur verwendet er das Konzept des „Medienzynismus“. Es bezeichnet ein Einstellungsmuster mit verschworungsideologischen Zugen: Journalist*innen werden als Lugner und System-Kollaborateure betrachtet. Der Beitrag analysiert auch die Mediennutzung von Menschen mit AfD-Praferenz sowie ihre Einstellungen zu Gewalt. Die Basis bilden vier Bevolkerungsumfragen aus den Jahren 2016 bis 2019. Die Daten wurden in Regressionsanalysen und mit einem Strukturgleichungsmodell ausgewertet. Dabei zeigt sich die Radikalitat der AfD-Gruppe: Bei ihr sind Medienzynismus und Verschworungsglaube stark ausgepragt. Dies geht mit einer uberdurchschnittlichen Nutzung „alternativer“ Medien und einem hoheren Verstandnis fur die Anwendung von Gewalt einher. Die Studie findet keine eindeutigen Hinweise fur eine sich verscharfende Radikalisierung im Zeitverlauf, aber auch keine Abschwachung. Die Befunde stutzen Befurchtungen, dass der Verschworungsglaube mit einer Affinitat zu Gewalt verbunden und die Radikalisierung durch eine spezifische Mediennutzung gefordert werden kann. Schlusselbegriffe: AfD, Medienzynismus, „Lugenpresse“, Radikalisierung, Mediennutzung, Verschworungsglaube ----- Conspiracy beliefs, media cynicism, and violence: Attitudes and media use of Germans with a voting preference for AfD – a media studies perspective on radicalization Summary The article examines the media-related attitudes of people who are likely to vote for the AfD party. It builds on the debate on terms such as „lying press“ (fake news media) and adds a media studies approach to radicalization research. It introduces the concept of „media cynicism“, which describes a pattern of attitudes that includes features of conspiracy ideologies: journalists are viewed as liars and system collaborators. The article also examines media use, conspiracy beliefs, and attitudes towards violence. Four surveys from 2016 to 2019 form the basis of the study. The data were analyzed using regression analyses and structural equation modeling. The findings illustrate the radicalism of AfD voters: They tend to show strong media cynicism and beliefs in conspiracies. This goes hand in hand with an above-average use of „alternative“ media and an increased support for using violence. The study does not find clear indications of an enhanced radicalization of AfD voters over time, but also finds no signs of a slowdown. The findings support fears that beliefs in conspiracies are connected to an affinity for violence and that radicalization can be fueled by the use of specific news media channels. Keywords: AfD, media cynicism, radicalization, media use, conspiracy theories ----- Bibliographie: Schultz, Tanjev/Ziegele, Marc/Jackob, Nikolaus/Jakobs, Ilka/Quiring, Oliver/Schemer, Christian: Verschworungsglaube, Medienzynismus und Militanz: Einstellungen und Informationsquellen von Menschen mit AfD-Wahlpraferenz – ein Beitrag zur Radikalisierungsforschung, ZRex – Zeitschrift fur Rechtsextremismusforschung, 1-2021, S. 60-89. https://doi.org/10.3224/zrex.v1i1.05

This work investigates the use of interactively updated label suggestions to improve upon the efficiency of gathering annotations on the task of opinion mining in German Covid-19 social media data. We develop guidelines to conduct a controlled annotation study with social science students and find that suggestions from a model trained on a small, expert-annotated dataset already lead to a substantial improvement - in terms of inter-annotator agreement(+.14 Fleiss' $\kappa$) and annotation quality - compared to students that do not receive any label suggestions. We further find that label suggestions from interactively trained models do not lead to an improvement over suggestions from a static model. Nonetheless, our analysis of suggestion bias shows that annotators remain capable of reflecting upon the suggested label in general. Finally, we confirm the quality of the annotated data in transfer learning experiments between different annotator groups. To facilitate further research in opinion mining on social media data, we release our collected data consisting of 200 expert and 2,785 student annotations., Comment: To Appear at ACL 2021

Die Aufregung ist gros und relativ unabhangig von der politischen Couleur der Aufgeregten: Am 21.10.2019 verhindern Demonstranten eine Lesung des ehemaligen Bundesinnenministers Thomas de Maiziere beim Literaturherbst in Gottingen. Diese wird spater unter Polizeischutz nachgeholt. AfD-Grundungsmitglied Bernd Lucke kann seine Vorlesung zur Makrookonomik II erst nach mehrfachen Anlaufen im Herbst 2019 an der Universitat Hamburg tatsachlich halten.

Previous research suggests that distinct characteristics of news articles, such as their news factors, account for the different participation rates in comment sections as well as the degree of interactivity among the discussants. In this study, this assumption is tested in the Facebook environment and extended to the analysis of how news factors (i.e., event characteristics) and illustration factors (i.e., characteristics resulting from a specific journalistic editing) of news articles predict the inclusiveness of discussions, as well as the occurrence of civility, rationality, and deliberative interactivity in user comments. A content analysis of 619 news articles and 11,218 related user comments on nine nation-wide Facebook news pages reveals that the news factors controversy, latent conflict, contravention, obtrusiveness, and impact particularly account for specific discussion qualities. The results also show that the illustration factors emotional language/ visualizations, slant, and conversational prompts affect the deliberative quality of the discussions.

Impoliteness and incivility in online discussions have recently been discussed as relevant issues in communication science. However, automatically detecting these concepts with computational methods is challenging. In our study, we build and compare supervised classification models to predict impoliteness and incivility in online discussions on German media outlets on Facebook. Using a sample of 10,000 hand-coded user comments and a theory-grounded coding scheme, we develop classifiers on different feature sets including unigram and n-gram distributions as well as various dictionary-based features. Our findings show that impoliteness and incivility can be measured to a certain extent on the word level of a comment, but the models suffer from high misclassification rates, even if lexical resources are included. This is mainly because the classifiers cannot reveal subtle forms of incivility and because comment authors often use predictive words of incivility or impoliteness in non-offensive ways or in different contexts. Still, when applying the classifiers to a comparable set of comments, we find that the machine-coded categories and the hand-coded categories reveal similar patterns regarding the distribution of and the user reactions to uncivil/impolite comments. The findings of our study therefore provide new insights into the supervised machine learning approach to the detection of different forms of offensive language.

User comments on news websites are a controversial element of online communication. Various studies have reported the negative effects of comments criticizing the related news articles on readers’ attitudes toward the issues described in these articles. However, these findings are mostly based on measurements directly after the reception of comments. No research has investigated the long-term effects of comments on readers’ article-related attitudes and compared them with the effects of cues emanating from the articles themselves. Therefore, this study transferred the sleeper effect in persuasion to news sites with comment sections. In a 2 × 2-experiment, the persuasiveness of an article was measured immediately after reception and after a delay of 2 weeks. Low/high source credibility and negative/positive user comments served as discounting/acceptance cues. Results suggest that user comments caused a relative sleeper effect of the article-induced persuasion; they affected the article’s persuasiveness in the short term, but not in the long term.

The intensity of using sexually explicit internet material (SEIM) is contingent on users’ gender. However, gender differences in the motivations for watching SEIM have not yet been comprehensively explored. Drawing on a representative survey of German internet users, we therefore analyze how women and men use SEIM to satisfy escapist needs. Lower life satisfaction, the lack of a committed relationship, and feelings of loneliness contribute to predicting the frequency of using SEIM among men. Loneliness likewise fosters the consumption of SEIM among women, yet the effect is less pronounced. For female internet users, consumption of SEIM even increases in committed relationships and rather indicates a comparably high level of life satisfaction than dissatisfaction with life circumstances. Gender hence substantially moderates the connection between need structures and the consumption of SEIM.

Purpose Problematic Internet use (PIU) that has recently been referred to as Internet-related disorder is a growing health concern. Yet, it is unclear why some adolescents are developing problematic use, whereas others sustain control. Based on previous research, we hypothesize that personality traits (low conscientiousness and high neuroticism) act as predispositions for PIU. We further hypothesize that PIU can be understood as a maladaptive reaction toward critical life events and that these maladaptive reactions are exacerbated by dysfunctional personality traits. Methods The study investigates the prevalence of distinct subtypes of PIU among a sample of adolescents (n = 1,489; 10–17 years). Personality traits (Big Five Inventory-10 [BFI-10]), perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale 4 [PSS-4]), and their relations to PIU (Scale for the Assessment of Internet and Computer Game Addiction [AICA-S]) were examined. As novel research questions, associations between PIU and adjustment disorders (Adjustment Disorder—New Module [ADNM]-6) and the mediating role of personality were investigated. Results The prevalence of PIU was 2.5%; girls (3.0%) were more often affected than boys (1.9%). Social networking sites in girls and online games in boys were most often associated with PIU. Low conscientiousness and high neuroticism generally predicted PIU. Significantly more adolescents with PIU (70%) reported critical life events compared with those without PIU (42%). PIU was related to heightened stress and higher adjustment disorder symptoms. These associations were exacerbated by conscientiousness and neuroticism. Conclusions Although the overall prevalence for PIU is in line with previous studies, it appeared unexpectedly that girls were affected more often than boys. Adjustment disorders and stress showed strong associations with PIU. This bears implications for adapting etiopathological assumptions and early intervention strategies.

When people use humorous media content, their behavior and assessments of the content may depend on the emotional expressions (e.g., laughter) of those around them. In a laboratory experiment in which 80 participants watched a movie clip with a confederate who either laughed or remained silent, we identified two parallel processes. The confederate’s laughter induced behavioral responses in our participants (laughing or smiling). Through those responses, a corresponding appraisal of the media content was generated: The content was rated funnier in comparison to situations in which the confederate did not laugh. This effect corresponds to emotional contagion processes and was especially pronounced in introverts. Additionally, participants who were low in conscientiousness directly elevated their funniness ratings (more than their own emotional expressions would suggest) when the confederate laughed. Those who were high in conscientiousness, however, lowered their ratings of the content’s funniness i...

A growing number of studies suggest that Internet users frequently utilize online media as “tools for procrastination.” This study thus investigated the relationship between trait procrastination, Internet use, and psychological well-being in a representative sample of N = 1,577 German Internet users. The results revealed that trait procrastination was associated with an increased use of leisure-related online content and impaired control over Internet use. As a result, Internet users high in trait procrastination showed a higher risk of experiencing negative consequence of Internet use in other life domains. These negative repercussions of insufficiently self-regulated Internet use partially accounted for the correlation between trait procrastination and impaired well-being (i.e. stress, anxiety, and depression). These findings underline the role of online media as an instrument for dysfunctional task delay among Internet users. Implications of the results are discussed with regard to media use and self-control in general and procrastinatory media use in specific.

Detecting biased language in written discourse is a highly relevant area of research in political communication and other social sciences, given the large quantity of information exchanged in public online platforms. In this abstract, we discuss an approach based on the concept of "incivility"-assessing biased text on the Facebook pages of established news media. News outlets are forced to put increasing efforts into preventing heated debates from turning into disrespectful discussions on their social media platforms. By scaling the analysis from a few thousand manually coded samples to more than a million comments, we take a step towards supporting media outlets in (semi-)automatizing the detection of uncivil comments and enable a much broader analysis of the latter.

While educational science in the past mainly focused on students’ formal or intentional learning from courses, textbooks, or online tutorials in university contexts, communication science usually deals with ordinary citizens’ informal or unintentional learning from the mass media in everyday life. One of the general aims of the PLATO project is to bring these research traditions together. Therefore, this paper sums up research on media effects on positive and negative learning recently conducted; our studies show that media coverage is often biased and news media, therefore, contribute to negative as well as positive learning. Which kind of learning occurs, heavily depends on the way information is presented.

Nicht nur bei der Prasentation gros angelegter Forschungsprojekte stehen Hochschullehrerinnen und -lehrer verstarkt im Fokus der Offentlichkeit und des interessierten Fachpublikums. Gerade vor dem Hintergrund des zunehmenden Evaluierungsdrucks in der Lehre mussen sie sich auch regelmasig der kritischen Beurteilung durch die Studierenden stellen. Der Ruf, den die Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler bei Studierenden geniesen, konnte dabei masgeblich sowohl von ihrer wissenschaftlichen Reputation als auch von ihrem auseren Auftreten abhangen. In einem Fragebogenexperiment mit 154 Studierenden verschiedener Fachbereiche geht die vorliegende Studie am Beispiel der Merkmale „Kleidungsstil“ und „akademische Leistung“ erstmals der Frage nach, wie sich fach- und erscheinungsbezogene Eigenschaften auf die Wahrnehmung und Bewertung von Hochschullehrern in Deutschland auswirken. Die Ergebnisse zeigen einen deutlichen Einfluss der akademischen Leistung, wahrend dem Kleidungsstil tendenziell weniger Bedeutung beikommt. Die Befunde sind von groser Relevanz fur (einige) Hochschullehrer in Deutschland.

The existence of the so-called "Werther effect" is well confirmed, and there are several recommendations on how the media should (not) report suicide to minimize the risk of copycat behavior. Unfortunately, very little is known about how suicide is actually reported. The article examines the German press coverage of six celebrity suicides with respect to compliance with guidelines on suicide reporting and analyzes changes in suicides in the wake of the reporting. It concludes that German media do not respect the recommendations in a substantial number of their articles. In addition, a significant increase in suicides and similar suicides is found.

While the social, political, and journalistic relevance of user comments on online news items has been discussed intensively, no study has tried to examine why some online news discussions are more interactive than others. Based on the rationale of news value theory, this study argues that so-called discussion factors in user comments indicate general relevance to later users to respond to them. Qualitative interviews with users who comment on news stories online and a quantitative content analysis of 1,580 user comments showed that the discussion factors uncertainty, controversy, comprehensibility, negativity, and personalization can explain interactivity in news discussions. Further, different technological implementations of the comment function seem to have a limited influence on the effects of these discussion factors.

We conducted an online survey with 581 SNS users.We developed a scale measuring SNS addiction.SNS specific motives mediate the effect of intrinsic needs on SNS addiction.People try to compensate thwarted intrinsic needs with gratifications from SNS use.Gratifications sought from SNS use can cause addictive SNS usage patterns. The present paper aims at exploring the new phenomenon of social network site (SNS) addiction and at identifying predictors of problematic SNS use. For this purpose, a scale measuring addictive behavior specifically with regard to SNS use was developed. The effects of intrinsic need satisfaction in the offline context and of SNS-specific motives on SNS addiction were tested in an online-survey among 581 SNS users in Germany. It was hypothesized that motives mediate the influence of thwarted intrinsic need satisfaction on addictive behavior on SNSs. More precisely, we assumed that a lack of autonomy leads to a higher motivation to use SNSs for self-presentation and escapism, a lack of competence predicts the motive to use SNSs for acquiring information and self-presentation, and a lack of relatedness fosters users' motives to use SNSs for self-presentation and meeting new people. These motives, in turn, were predicted to be associated with higher levels of SNS addiction. All proposed mediation models were supported by the data. The results emphasize the importance of incorporating both offline need satisfaction and gratifications sought through the use of SNS to provide a comprehensive perspective on addictive behavior on SNSs.

Uberlegungen, wie sich Medienberichte auf die Entwicklung der Suizidzahlen auswirken, haben eine lange Tradition. Die Existenz des sogenannten Werther-Effekts gilt inzwischen insbesondere fur die Presseberichterstattung international als weithin bestatigt, wobei die Effekte bei Prominentensuiziden besonders ausgepragt zu sein scheinen. In Deutschland hat der Suizid des Fusballers Robert Enke zuletzt groses offentliches Aufsehen erregt. Der Beitrag untersucht mit einer quantitativen Inhaltsanalyse, die deutsche Presse bestehende Empfehlungen zur Suizidberichterstattung einhalt. Er uberpruft zugleich mogliche Veranderungen der Suizidzahlen anhand der Todesursachenstatistik der Statistischen Amter. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die deutschen Printmedien viele der Empfehlungen in einem betrachtlichen Teil ihrer Suizidartikel nicht einhalten. Gleichzeitig ist im Zuge der Berichterstattung eine massive Zunahme der Suizide auszumachen. Auffallig ist dabei, dass Suizidenten verstarkt ahnliche Suizidmethoden wahlen.

Angesichts der weiten Verbreitung und der Bedeutung von Informationstechnologien muss man das Fehlen von empirischen Studien uber IT-Journalisten als eine Forschungslucke ansehen. Diese kleine Journalistengruppe stellt wichtige Gatekeeper fur den IT-Markt und seine Produkte. Die aus dieser Rolle erwachsende Machtposition zu untersuchen ist das zentrale Ziel der vorliegenden Studie: Wie schatzen die IT-Journalisten in Deutschland ihren Einfluss auf die Kaufer und Nutzer von IT-Produkten ein – und wie sehen sie ihren Einfluss auf die IT-Industrie? Zur Messung solcher subjektiv wahrgenommenen Effekte der eigenen Berichterstattung auf die beiden wichtigsten Stakeholder der IT-Fachpresse wurde eine Online-Befragung von 102 IT-Journalisten in Deutschland durchgefuhrt. Die Befunde legen den Schluss nahe, dass IT-Journalisten sich selbst einen grosen Einfluss auf ihr Publikum und die IT-Industrie attestieren. Dabei sind diese insgesamt stark ausgepragten Wirkungsvermutungen weitgehend unabhangig von Drittvariablen wie der Reichweite des eigenen Mediums, dem Publikumsbild bzw. dem Bild von der IT-Industrie. Es scheint sich um eine allgemeine Wahrnehmung zu handeln, die im IT-Journalismus verbreitet ist. Die Verfasser diskutieren, ob diese Wahrnehmungen ernst zu nehmen und wie sie normativ zu bewerten sind.

This chapter provides a micro-framework for analyzing the quantity and quality of online user comments on mass-media websites. On one dimension, news factors of news items and discussion factors of existing user comments are assumed to indicate the relevance of participating in online discussions. On a second dimension, specific motivational, social, and design factors are influential when reconstructing users’ decisions to participate in online discussions and when analyzing the content of online user comments. The two dimensions in combination describe the discussion value of news items. Potential applications of this framework on other forms of interpersonal communication are discussed.

Information technology is ever-changing. Information and communication technology (ICT) journalists play a significant part in diffusing, explaining and interpreting these new technologies and in forging the societal understanding of future trends, influencing both their audience and the developers they cover. They are important gatekeepers and their coverage is – most likely – decisive for the success or failure of new products. To explore this function of ICT journalism, an online survey of 102 ICT journalists in Germany was conducted, including 32 journalists in managing roles. This study focuses on two research questions: (a) how do ICT journalists perceive their relationship to and their effects on the audience; (b) how do journalists perceive their relationship with and their effects on ICT manufacturers? Our findings suggest that ICT journalists picture themselves in a key role as clandestine deciders who shape the audience’s consuming behaviour, as well as developers’ strategies for designing products.

We argue that during the financial crisis, economic news served as a dominant source of information for the public and as an influential factor in legitimating economic policy. We analyze (1) how German news broadcasts treated governmental intervention during the crisis and (2) selected effects on public opinion. Drawing on results from a content analysis of television news broadcasts ( n = 980), we show that governmental intervention was covered substantially, focusing on fiscal measures. To investigate possible effects of the news coverage, we conducted an online experiment with subjects differing in their degree of involvement with the consequences of the crisis ( n = 293). A news article treating governmental debt guarantees within a supportive frame induced subjects to approve of governmental intervention, as contrasted with an adverse version of the article. However, the effects of the media coverage were partially moderated by subjects’ involvement.

On the basis of an online survey of 352 teenagers aged between 16 and 19, the use of pornographic video clips and films was investigated along with the connection between this use and indicators of adolescents’ perceived autonomy, peer group influences, and notions of sexuality. We found that many adolescents regularly use pornographic video clips or films. Respondents who regard themselves as less independent of their environment, especially their parents, use pornography more frequently themselves. For girls, this also applies if they assess the use within their peer group as particularly extensive, and for boys, if they frequently discuss pornography within their peer group. A high level of consumption of sexually explicit media also goes hand in hand with the assumption that people generally have sexual intercourse earlier in life and that people generally favor more varied sexual techniques.

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Wirtschaftsberichterstattung deutscher Tageszeitungen zur Finanzkrise 2008 vor dem Hintergrund der Framing-Theorie. Er verfolgt dabei drei Hauptziele: Erstens: Die Identifizierung von Frames (Deutungsmustern) in der Berichterstattung. Zweitens: Die Beschreibung des Auftretens dieser Frames im Zeitverlauf und ihrer Verteilung über verschiedene Medien. Drittens: Die Untersuchung des inter-medialen Einflusses, den die Medien aufeinander ausübten. Für dieses dritte Forschungsinteresse wird das Konzept des Inter-Media Frame Transfers vorgeschlagen. Um den genannten Zielen nachgehen zu können, wird ein Mehrmethodendesign aus qualitativer und quantitativer Inhaltsanalyse sowie einer ARIMA-Zeitreihenanalyse angewendet. Ergebnisse: Im Untersuchungszeitraum werden insgesamt acht Hauptdeutungsmuster für die Finanzkrise identifiziert, von denen sich das Muster der Systembedrohung als Leitinterpretation durchsetzt. Es werden unterschiedliche Frame-Profile für die untersuchten Medien erstellt und einzelne Frames maßgeblich einzelnen Medien zugeordnet. Es werden Indizien für einen Inter-Media Frame Transfer gefunden.

‘Interactivity’ was one of the major buzzwords of the 1990s. Although the academic discourse has produced a large number of different concepts of ‘interactivity’, in everyday life it still remains a label put on all kinds of aspects of online communication and digital media. Drawing on schema theory this article explores the concepts of ‘ordinary’ users (i.e. people who are not professional experts). The results indicate that users associate the foremost social and individual issues with the term ‘interactivity’, i.e. what they can accomplish by using media in terms of self-development, social influence and social relationships.

The integration of formerly isolated theoretical concepts is probably one of the most challenging tasks in the development of media effects theory. While agenda setting has already been linked to priming and framing via the concept of second level agenda-setting, this article takes a closer look into perceptual phenomena within the agenda-setting process, thus linking micro-level psychological theories with macro-level theories of political communication. Starting with third-person perceptions, we argue that part of the agenda-setting function of the mass media is to inform recipients what other people believe to be important. Along these lines of thought, a theoretical model of agenda-setting effects is outlined in which perceptual components play an important role in the conceived process of media influence.

Mit der zunehmenden Digitalisierung der Fernsehubertragungswege verbinden die Anbieter neuerer Fernsehdienste Hoffnungen auf eine Etablierung interaktiver Fernsehelemente. Bisherige Studien zum Potenzial neuer digitaler und interaktiver Optionen erbrachten jedoch eher gemischte Befunde. Allerdings beschrankte sich die Forschung bis auf wenige Ausnahmen darauf, Adoptionsbereitschaften und nicht die tatsachliche Adoption von Fernsehinnovationen zu untersuchen. Daruber hinaus kamen ausschlieslich Querschnittdesigns zum Einsatz, die es unmoglich machen, die Dynamik der Diffusion dieser Innovationen genauer unter die Lupe zu nehmen. Der folgende Beitrag unternimmt mithilfe einer Kombination aus Trendbetrachtung und quasi-experimentellem Design den Versuch, Einblicke in die Dynamik der tatsachlichen Diffusion interaktiven Fernsehens zu geben. Dabei stellt sich heraus, dass neben bereits lange bekannten Einflussfaktoren Schlusselereignisse eine zentrale Rolle bei der Diffusion medialer Innovationen spielen. Sie verleihen dem Diffusionsprozess neue Impulse, indem sie die Kommunikation uber Innovationen anregen.

Illegal filesharing on the internet leads to considerable financial losses for artists and copyright owners as well as producers and sellers of music. Thus far, measures to contain this phenomenon have been rather restrictive. However, there are still a considerable number of illegal systems, and users are able to decide quite freely between legal and illegal downloads because the latter are still difficult to sanction. Recent economic approaches account for the improved bargaining position of users. They are based on the idea of revenue-splitting between professional sellers and peers. In order to test such an innovative business model, the study reported in this article carried out an experiment with 100 undergraduate students, forming five small peer-to-peer networks. The networks were confronted with different economic conditions. The results indicate that even experienced filesharers hold favourable attitudes towards revenue-splitting. They seem to be willing to adjust their behaviour to different economic conditions.

The terms ‘interactivity’ and ‘interactive media’ became significant buzzwords during the late 1980s and early 1990s when the multi-media euphoria fascinated politicians, economists, and researchers alike. However, right from the beginning of the scientific debate, the inconsistent usage of the term ‘interactivity’ massively complicated the comparability of numerous empirical studies. This is where this article joins the discussion. First, the article sheds light on the terminological origins of ‘interactivity’ and distinguishes the term from cognate expressions. Further, it restructures and extends existing findings on the basis of a new analysis framework which considers three levels of interactive communication (action level, level of subjective situation evaluation, and level of meaning exchange). Finally, it delivers a systematic overview of specific criteria of interactive communication.

Electronic commerce (EC) first appeared in Business-to-Business (B2B) markets, while Business-to-Consumer (B2C) markets developed later. It was due to the emergence of online auctions that even more recently Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) electronic markets emerged and started to merit major attention in theory. One innovative area for C2C commerce is the concept of superdistribution which links the idea of file sharing with the exchange of money. The money paid for each item of downloaded media content is split among the artist, professional providers and the person from whom it is downloaded. This paper investigates the effect of such a splitting of revenues on users' music download behaviour by comparing five scenarios with different splitting ratios between professional providers and users. A prototype was developed and tested in an experimental setting. The results illustrate that the ratio of revenue splitting does affect the source the users download from, that most participants assume the business model to be fair and that nearly all users would be satisfied by a participation of half or less of the revenues. The results indicate that superdistribution in fact can help make file sharers pay for digital music content by creating a decentralized C2C electronic market.

Wahrend andere europaische Lander — allen voran Grosbritannien — im letzten Jahrzehnt weitgreifende Umwalzungen der Fernsehlandschaft durch die Einfuhrung interaktiver Elemente erlebten, stellt interaktives Fernsehen in Deutschland noch weitgehend ein Randphanomen dar. Obwohl eine Reihe von Hindernissen auf der Seite der Anbieter bekannt sind, fehlen bisher Studien, die Auskunft uber Bekanntheit und Nutzung von sowie Einstellungen zu interaktiven Fernsehdiensten geben konnten. Die Ergebnisse einer regionalen Befragung und einer Inhaltsanalyse regional bedeutsamer Tageszeitungen weisen darauf hin, dass interaktive Fernsehdienste zwar im Schnitt relativ bekannt sind, aber eher indifferent bewertet und kaum genutzt werden. Ferner zeigt sich, dass interaktives Fernsehen hierzulande neben diversen anderen, die Verbreitung hemmenden Faktoren auch mit einem Kommunikationsproblem zu kampfen hat. Wahrend theoretischMassenmedien eine ent cheidende Rolle im Prozess der Adoption von Innovationen zukommt, sind massenmediale Einflusse auf die Bekanntheit interaktiver Fernsehdienste, die entsprechenden Einstellungen und die Nutzung kaum zu verzeichnen.