The invention of journalism studies in the GDR

Meyen, Michael (2019): The invention of journalism studies in the GDR. A contribution to the history of the subject in the Post-War period. In: Journalism Research, Bd. 2, Nr. 1: S. 3-31

Abstract

This paper investigates the way politics, media practice, and academia interact using the example of journalism studies in the early GDR. How do the social constraints and the requirements of editorial offices influence teaching and research? Based on Bourdieu’s field theory and on records, contemporary witness reports, and publications from the training facility in Leipzig, the paper shows that the logic of the academic field and the expertise developed there overruled interventions by the ruling Party. With journalistic practice reliant on staff from Leipzig, its signals were more important than what the SED leadership wanted. However, journalism studies in the GDR was only developed by the students of the first generation of professors. The way the subject was structured, with a focus on style, journalistic methods, genres, and the working process in editorial offices, was a world apart from the social sciences focus of communication studies in West Germany. This also made it impossible to integrate the two after 1989.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Kommunikationswissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 000 Informatik, Informationswissenschaft, allgemeine Werke > 070 Publizistische Medien, Journalismus, Verlagswesen
• ISSN: 2569-152X
• Sprache: Englisch