Journalismus in Deutschland

Steindl, Nina; Lauerer, Corinna und Hanitzsch, Thomas (November 2017): Journalismus in Deutschland. Aktuelle Befunde zu Kontinuität und Wandel im deutschen Journalismus. In: Publizistik, Bd. 62, Nr. 4: S. 401-423

Abstract

Journalism has undergone profound challenges during the past decades. Especially, serious financial challenges and extensive technological change have been altering the profession. The resulting changes in journalism and in the conditions under which journalistic work takes place foster debates about a deprofessionalization as well as precarization and the dissolution of journalism’s boundaries. In the light of these developments, we aim to outline the current state of journalism in Germany. In order to take stock of the profession comprehensively, we present descriptive key findings on the sociodemographic backgrounds of journalists, their distribution across various types of media, employment conditions as well as journalists’ perceived autonomy and role conceptions. Furthermore, we compare the present data with previous studies on German journalists to give a first glimpse at the ongoing change in the journalistic world, from the perspective of German journalists.

To mirror the German media landscape, we strived to interview a representative sample of journalists. Therefore, the first challenge was to evaluate the population of journalists in Germany and their distribution along the various kinds of media. By journalists, we are referring to professional journalists only, i. e. persons who are mainly working in journalism and earn at least 50% of their total income through journalistic activities. Based on an elaborate research and investigation process, we were able to undertake a qualified estimation of 41,250 journalists working in Germany, including approximately 9600 estimated freelance journalists. Comparing these numbers to previous studies, the first key finding of our investigation is that the population of journalists in Germany has continued to shrink, which is particularly true for freelancers whose main occupation is journalism. We suggest that economic challenges provide a convincing explanation for the decreasing number of journalists. The financial challenges in the media sector and global financial crises have led to an increase in unemployment during the past decades. At the same time, more and more freelancers are pursuing paid activities outside of journalism and, in doing so, are contributing to the debate about the dissolution of journalistic boundaries and its deprofessionalization. Another essential result from this first investigation process is that more than half of the journalists interviewed are still mainly working for the print media sector, another 26% in broadcasting media and only four percent in news agencies. However, the about 16% of journalists working in online media also reflect changes in the profession. Based on this information, we were able to select interviewees randomly in a two-step procedure. First, we chose newsrooms from an exhaustive list for each type of media (stratification criteria: reach, type of medium and ownership), and then selected journalists by a simple random sampling strategy. Between November 2014 and August 2015, these journalists were interviewed via telephone and online.

Based on a sample of 775 German journalists, survey results show that the average age of journalists has increased. Respectively, also the average working experience is higher these days. Besides that, we found some gender specific differences among the interviewed journalists: The average age and working experience is lower among female journalists. The ratio of woman is the highest among young professionals, i. e. among journalists younger than 36. Because the proportion of young female journalists has grown during the past decades, we assume that woman have started to enter the profession increasingly. However, looking at the overall ratio of woman among German journalists, there is only a modest increase in the gender distribution. Further, women are still relatively rare in the higher echelons of editorial hierarchy. Female journalists work more often for magazines and broadcasters, while men dominate newspapers, news agencies and media services.

Overall, the data further indicates an ongoing academization of the profession as more and more journalists hold a university degree. In contrast, we can observe continuity regarding the political orientations among journalists. It still leans toward the left end of the scale. Furthermore, one out of four journalists work for multiple media channels simultaneously. Especially, the combination of working for legacy media and the corresponding online outlet at the same time is widespread. About two thirds of the journalists are exclusively working for one newsroom. However, more than half of them produce journalistic content for two or three media outlets. Furthermore, we consider the majority of journalists as specialists (rather than generalists) since they indicated to work for specific news beats exclusively (e. g., on politics, health or sports). German journalists also still perceive their editorial autonomy to be very high. The role perception of journalists is rather stable but indicated interesting alterations: German journalists mainly think of themselves as neutral disseminators – a role that has grown in importance over the last 20 years. Likewise, the importance of meeting the expectations of the audience and entertaining the people has increased. Such an amplified orientation towards entertainment journalism confirms results of previous studies indicating that the media is striving for the observation of and interaction with the audience. Thus, it represents a change in the journalistic perception of the role of journalists.

Overall, the present results clearly reflect both an ongoing change of the profession and a great deal of continuity. In conclusion, the classic role of information journalism continues to dominate while the societal, technological and media developments have hardly shaken the core of journalism.

Abstract

Der vorliegende Aufsatz enthält Kernergebnisse einer repräsentativen Befragung von 775 Journalisten, die zu einer Bestandsaufnahme des Journalismus in Deutschland verdichtet werden. Im Vordergrund stehen soziodemographische Merkmale, Anstellungsverhältnisse, die Verteilung auf verschiedene Mediengattungen und Tätigkeitsbereiche sowie die wahrgenommene Autonomie und das berufliche Rollenverständnis. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Zahl der Journalisten weiter geschrumpft ist, wovon insbesondere hauptberufliche freie Journalisten betroffen sind. Zudem steigt das Durchschnittsalter deutscher Journalisten weiter an. Politisch stehen sie weiterhin eher im linksliberalen Spektrum. Die Daten deuten auch darauf hin, dass die Akademisierung des Berufs weiter fortschreitet. Der Anteil von Journalistinnen ist im Zeitvergleich weiter angestiegen, wobei in höheren Positionen immer noch weniger Frauen anzutreffen sind. Die Vergütungssituation ist für Journalistinnen und freie Journalisten besonders problematisch. Journalistinnen sind häufig bei Zeitschriften und im Rundfunk tätig, wohingegen Zeitungen, Nachrichtenagenturen sowie Mediendienste eher männlich dominiert sind. Zudem ist mehr als ein Viertel der Journalisten multimedial tätig. Die Mehrheit der Journalisten ist ressortgebunden und arbeitet zu speziellen Themen; die professionelle Autonomie ist in der Selbstwahrnehmung weiterhin sehr hoch. Nach wie vor ist das berufliche Selbstverständnis dominiert von einer neutralen Vermittlerrolle; diese Sicht hat während der vergangenen 20 Jahre sogar an Bedeutung gewonnen. Wichtiger geworden sind in den Augen der Journalisten auch die Bedürfnisse des Publikums sowie die Unterhaltungsrolle.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Kommunikationswissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 300 Sozialwissenschaft, Soziologie
• ISSN: 1862-2569 ; 0033-4006
• Sprache: Deutsch