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Government hat die erste Phase des Umgangs mit digitalen Plattformen in Deutschland bestimmt. Und Government bleibt nötig, um den Plattformisierungsprozess im öffentlichen Interesse zu gestalten. Mit dem Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (NetzDG) war der deutsche Staat im Vergleich zu anderen europäischen Ländern früh gestalterisch aktiv. Aber zugleich waren die mit dem NetzDG verbundenen Zielsetzungen in Anbetracht der Folgen des Plattformisierungsprozesses höchst bescheiden und die konkreten Massnahmen dieses Gesetzes beschränkt: Durchsetzung elementarer strafrechtlicher Anforderungen zur Bekämpfung von Hasskriminalität und eines entsprechenden Contentmanagement-Systems bei grossen Plattformen.

Am 2. November 2020 ereignete sich in Wien ein terroristisches Attentat, bei dem vier Menschen getötet und mehr als 20 Menschen verletzt wurden. Schon unmittelbar nach dem Attentat kursierten im Internet Bilder und Videos, auf denen Ausschnitte des Tatverlaufs zu sehen waren – unter anderem der Attentäter, fliehende Menschen, Opfer des Angriffs, tödliche Schüsse und Festnahmen von Verdächtigen. Dieses Material wurde im Lauf der Terrornacht nicht nur in sozialen Netzwerken, sondern auch auf Portalen einiger redaktioneller Medien wie oe24.tv und krone.at gezeigt. Die Veröffentlichungen sorgten für empörte Reaktionen und führten zu Diskussionen über Standards in der Berichterstattung über Terrorismus und über Sanktionen für unangemessenen Sensationsjournalismus. Der auf sozialen Medien verwendete Hashtag #wienterror bündelt eine kaum zu überblickende Vielzahl dieser Wortmeldungen und lässt sich damit rückblickend als Chiffre für eine medienethische Debatte zur Verantwortung des Journalismus lesen, die nicht nur in Österreich einen langen Nachhall fand.

Tech corporations, such as Google, Facebook, and Apple, have increasingly become the focus of public media attention and are subject to public scrutiny due to their prominence and scandals. Often, the news media reports on the corporations’ chief executive officers and founders as representatives of the corporations to make complex company-related information comprehensible and gain more public attention. The personalization trend in the news media has turned some corporate leaders into celebrities and is linked to tech companies’ media reputations, that is, the evaluations of tech companies in the news media. However, research on personalization in corporate news is rare and conflicting, and whether and how personalization is linked to the media reputations of Big Tech corporations is not yet clear. By focusing on different personalization types, this study investigates the relationship between personalization and the evaluation of tech companies in the news. A quantitative content analysis of media articles ( N = 5234) in Swiss news outlets revealed that the news on tech companies is frequently personalized, and personalized news is more negative and more often related to the social aspects of tech corporations than non-personalized news. Our study indicates that personalization is used as a journalistic style in the news about tech corporations but is most common in negative reporting in which the role of tech corporations in society is critically assessed.

Referendum campaigns, which happen in many countries on the national or sub-national level, are highly important and special periods of political communication. Unlike elections, however, referendum campaigns are understudied phenomena. This thematic issue addresses patterns of referendum campaigns, which increasingly take place in digital and hybrid media environments, where political actors conduct campaigns through various channels, news media react to and shape debates on social media, and citizens receive a large share of political information from traditional and digital media. In this editorial, we provide a short overview of how research on referendum campaigns has evolved and how it has started to shift its attention away from news coverage and toward the role of campaign actors and the citizens who use (or engage with) search engines and social media platforms. The articles in this thematic issue reflect this shift but also show that news media remain important actors in referendum campaigns. Finally, we outline further research steps, which should include even more holistic analyses of the hybridity of referendum campaigns and hopefully more comparisons across cases.

The news media are among the most important sources of information about political events, such as referendums. For young adults, the smartphone has become the main device for accessing news. However, we know little about the factors influencing mobile news consumption and how this consumption is related to political knowledge and political participation. This study investigates the antecedents of young individuals’ smartphone news consumption and how it is correlated with their knowledge about and participation in two referendums in Switzerland. We record the mobile internet usage of 309 young adults and link their digital trace data to survey data. We show that trust in news media and the use of broadcast media are positively correlated with the duration of mobile news consumption. The use of social media leads to more news source diversity. However, we find that the duration of mobile news consumption and news source diversity are not correlated with political knowledge about or participation in the referendum. As interest in politics is also positively correlated with the diversity of news sources used by individual participants, our study supports the idea that attentive audiences use a broader range of news sources to inform themselves about referendums.

Spätestens mit der Lancierung von ChatGPT ist der Einsatz von Künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) im Journalismus zu einem prägenden Thema der Medienbranche geworden. Unsere Studie untersucht erstmalig die Wahrnehmung und Akzeptanz des Einsatzes von KI in der journalistischen Nachrichtenproduktion mit einer repräsentativen Bevölkerungsumfrage in der Deutschschweiz und der Suisse romande. Die Studie zeigt, dass die Akzeptanz für vollständig oder teilweise KI-generierte Textbeiträge im Journalismus in der Schweizer Bevölkerung gering ist. Während nur 29,1% der Befragten journalistische Inhalte lesen würden, die vollständig durch KI generiert wurden, sind es bei Nachrichten, die ohne KI erstellt wurden, 84,3%. Die Akzeptanz unterscheidet sich jedoch nach Themenbereichen: Bei Routine-Berichterstattung etwa zum Wetter oder Börsengeschehen ist sie am grössten (61,2%), gefolgt von der Softnews-Berichterstattung zu «Stars und Celebrities». Dort geben immerhin fast die Hälfte der Befragten (48,6%) an, KI-generierte journalistische Inhalte lesen zu wollen. In den Hardnews-Bereichen Kultur (27,7%), Wissenschaft (25,9%), nationale (16,4%) und internationale Politik (15,9%) ist die Akzeptanz für KI-generierte Inhalte dagegen gering. In jedem Fall besteht unter den Befragten weitgehend Konsens, dass KI-generierte und KI-unterstützte Inhalte im Journalismus deklariert und transparent gemacht werden müssen. Auch werden die Auswirkungen von KI auf die Qualität der journalistischen Inhalte derzeit eher negativ eingeschätzt. 61,3% stimmen der Aussage zu, dass sich die Berichterstattungsqualität durch den Einsatz von KI verschlechtern würde. Bemerkenswert ist hier der Befund, dass KI (noch) wenig Potenzial zur Eindämmung von Falschnachrichten zugeschrieben wird. Im Gegenteil sind 67,1% der Ansicht, dass der Einsatz von KI im Journalismus das Aufkommen von Falschnachrichten erhöhe. Auch ist die Zahlungsbereitschaft für KI-generierten Journalismus gering. Nur wenige Befragte sind grundsätzlich

Theories of the public sphere—or more recently, of plural public spheres—are core elements of communication and media research. A lively and dynamic debate exists about the respective theories, and the approaches employed to do so have diversified in recent years. This special issue of Communication Theory aims to assess the role and future of public sphere(s) theory in digital societies: if, and where, are concepts of the public sphere(s) still useful and needed, which criticisms are (still) valid, which not, which new ones might be necessary, and which concepts need to be developed or elaborated to respond meaningfully to the digital transformation? This editorial introduces the topic of and contributions to the special issue as well as nine theses on the development of public sphere(s) theorizing.

Der "Digital News Report" des Reuters Institute of Journalism / University of Oxford bietet aktuelle Daten und Erkenntnisse über den digitalen Nachrichtenkonsum, basierend auf einer Umfrage unter online Nachrichtenkonsumenten in über 45 Ländern, darunter der Schweiz. Mit seinem Report spürt das renommierte Institut der University of Oxford generelle Trends und nationale Besonderheiten auf. Das Forschungszentrum Öffentlichkeit und Gesellschaft ist seit 2016 Kooperationspartner des Reuters Institute und mitverantwortlich für die Schweizer Studienergebnisse.

By providing diverse news content, news media are key for a well-functioning public sphere. However, agreement on how to measure news content diversity is lacking. Research often refers to democratic theory as normative reference point, but different models of democracy understand news content diversity differently. Our study makes a unique, innovative contribution to this field: (1) We develop a methodological framework for measuring news content diversity, that is a set of comprehensive measuring instruments that derive different operationalizations of topic and actor diversity each from liberal and deliberative democratic theories. (2) Considering that a good public discourse requires more than diversity, we analyze news content diversity in the context of four other journalistic standards: neutrality, rationality, discursivity, and civility. (3) We prove the applicability of our measuring instruments by means of a standardized content analysis of six German news media as a case study. The different quality profiles of these outlets our analysis reveals are explained by their different functions in the media system. Our study shows how important a multi-perspectival normative approach to news content diversity is, both empirically and theoretically. Future studies on news content diversity should make their normative foundations transparent and derive their indicators purposefully therefrom.

Referendum campaigns, which happen in many countries on the national or sub-national level, are highly important and special periods of political communication. Unlike elections, however, referendum campaigns are understudied phenomena. This thematic issue addresses patterns of referendum campaigns, which increasingly take place in digital and hybrid media environments, where political actors conduct campaigns through various channels, news media react to and shape debates on social media, and citizens receive a large share of political information from traditional and digital media. In this editorial, we provide a short overview of how research on referendum campaigns has evolved and how it has started to shift its attention away from news coverage and toward the role of campaign actors and the citizens who use (or engage with) search engines and social media platforms. The articles in this thematic issue reflect this shift but also show that news media remain important actors in referendum campaigns. Finally, we outline further research steps, which should include even more holistic analyses of the hybridity of referendum campaigns and hopefully more comparisons across cases.

IntroductionIn times of war, sourcing becomes a major challenge for journalists. Information is often unavailable because access is restricted or because reporting on the ground is prohibited, too dangerous, or even simply too costly for media having to work with limited resources. Which sources actually shape the news is a highly relevant question because news media still constitute the main channel of information for many citizens, especially when it comes to wars abroad. For a long time, scholars have diagnosed a dominance of official sources in war coverage but have not analyzed whether this is still the case with the advent of social media platforms, which potentially offer journalists other sources. Moreover, the integration of social media sources, such as Twitter or Telegram, is just one of many interdependencies in hybrid media environments. We aim to provide a more holistic understanding of sourcing practices in times of war by analyzing to what extent information from government and military sources, social media, other news media, and news agencies is featured as a main source in reporting on the war in Ukraine.MethodsIn our paper, we examine how 13 online media in Switzerland cover the war in Ukraine during the first 3 months after Russia's invasion—an example of a period in which journalists must typically identify reliable sources for reporting on the events surrounding such a war. Using a manual content analysis of 1,198 news articles, we analyze the sourcing practices that are visible in the reporting.ResultsOur results clearly show that information from other news outlets and social media and, above all, from news agencies plays an important role. Structural features of media types lead to distinct sourcing practices. Heavily commercialized, advertising-based media rely on news agency reports, other news media, and social media much more than subscription media or public service media. However, in all media types, actors from the government and the

The news media are among the most important sources of information about political events, such as referendums. For young adults, the smartphone has become the main device for accessing news. However, we know little about the factors influencing mobile news consumption and how this consumption is related to political knowledge and political participation. This study investigates the antecedents of young individuals’ smartphone news consumption and how it is correlated with their knowledge about and participation in two referendums in Switzerland. We record the mobile internet usage of 309 young adults and link their digital trace data to survey data. We show that trust in news media and the use of broadcast media are positively correlated with the duration of mobile news consumption. The use of social media leads to more news source diversity. However, we find that the duration of mobile news consumption and news source diversity are not correlated with political knowledge about or participation in the referendum. As interest in politics is also positively correlated with the diversity of news sources used by individual participants, our study supports the idea that attentive audiences use a broader range of news sources to inform themselves about referendums.