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SC|M                                      Studies in Communication | Media

                                RESEARCH-IN-BRIEF

       Forschungspolitik in einer medialisierten Konstellation von
                  Politik, Wissenschaft und Medien

            Science Policy in Mediatized Constellations of Politics,
                              Science, and Media

        Bernd Blöbaum, Andreas M. Scheu, Annika Summ, Anna-Maria Volpers

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Bernd Blöbaum, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Institut für Kommunikations­
wissenschaft; Kontakt: bernd.bloebaum(at)uni-muenster.de

Andreas M. Scheu, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Institut für Kommuni­
kationswissenschaft; Kontakt: a.scheu(at)uni-muenster.de

Annika Summ, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Institut für Kommunikations­
wissenschaft; Kontakt: annika.summ(at)uni-muenster.de

Anna-Maria Volpers, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Institut für Kommuni­
kationswissenschaft; Kontakt: amvolpers(at)uni-muenster.de

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RESEARCH-IN-BRIEF

Forschungspolitik in einer medialisierten Konstellation von Politik,
Wissenschaft und Medien
Science Policy in Mediatized Constellations of Politics, Science, and
Media1

Bernd Blöbaum, Andreas M. Scheu, Annika Summ, Anna-Maria Volpers

Zusammenfassung: Dieser Beitrag präsentiert den theoretischen Hintergrund, das ana-
lytische Konzept und das Forschungsdesign eines Projektes über die Governance wissen-
schaftlicher Forschung in medialisierten Konstellationen. Die Studie konzentriert sich da-
bei auf die Rolle von Massenkommunikation in der deutschen Forschungspolitik. Die
forschungsleitenden Fragen sind: Wie beobachten sich Politik und Forschung gegenseitig
über Massenmedien? Welche Einflüsse hat diese wechselseitige Beobachtung? Und wie un-
terscheiden sich hierbei die Fachkulturen Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, Lebenswis-
senschaften, Naturwissenschaften und Ingenieurwissenschaften? Bezogen auf diese Fragen
entwickeln wir ein Theoriekonzept das „Governance“ als Modus inter-systemischer Inter-
aktion begreift, welcher sowohl von Dynamiken auf der Ebene individueller und kollek-
tiver Akteure als auch von sozialen Strukturen geprägt wird und außerdem davon ausgeht,
dass diese Governance-Konstellation medialisiert ist. Hierauf aufbauend diskutieren wir
unser analytisches Konzept und stellen kurz das Forschungsdesign der Studie dar.
Schlagwörter: Governance von Forschung; Medialisierung von Forschungspolitik;
Forschungsförderung; Fachkulturen

Abstract: This paper presents the theoretical background, analytical concept, and brief
outline of the research design of a project about the governance of scientific research in a
mediatized governance constellation. Our study focuses on the role of mass communica-
tion in the process of science policy regarding scientific research in Germany. The guiding
research questions are: How do politics and sciences observe each other via mass media?
How do such observations influence decision-making? And what differences exist concern-
ing diverse scientific traditions (i.e. humanities/social sciences, life sciences, natural scienc-
es, engineering sciences)? Those questions will be addressed considering a theoretical per-
spective that conceives “governance” as an inter-systemic relationship, which can be
explained as the outcome of dynamics between individual and collective actors and their
actions on the one hand and social structures on the other and that further integrates the
concept of “mediatization”. Based on this, we deduce an analytical concept for empirical
research and briefly outline our research design.
Keywords: Governance of scientific research; mediatization of science policy; funding of
research; scientific traditions

1   This paper is based on a presentation at the 61st annual conference of the International Commu-
    nication Association (ICA) from May 26th to May 30th 2011 in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Research-in-brief

This paper presents the theoretical                       (cf. Benz, Lütz, Schimank, & Simonis,
background and brief outline of the re-                   2007a; Jansen, 2007; Puppis, 2010).
search design of a project about the                      The concept of governance also takes
governance of scientific research in a                    into account actions of different stake-
mediatized governance constellation.                      holders with varying intentions (key-
Our study focuses on the role of mass                     word: actor constellations) as well as
communication in the process of sci-                      the structural level of such constella-
ence policy regarding scientific re-                      tions (keyword: actor-structure dy-
search in Germany. The guiding re-                        namics) (cf. Schimank, 2007a; Schi-
search questions are: How do politics                     mank, 2007b; Schimank, 2007c).
and science observe each other via                        Furthermore, we examine the govern-
mass media? How do such observa-                          ance of science from the perspective of
tions influence decision-making? And                      communication science and assume
what differences exist concerning di-                     that the governance of science is medi-
verse scientific traditions (i.e. humani-                 atized (cf. Cohen, Tsfati, & Sheafer,
ties/social sciences, life sciences, natu-                2008; Marcinkowski & Pfetsch, 2009;
ral sciences, engineering sciences)? The                  Meyen, 2009; Tsfati, Cohen, &
project started in August 2010 and will                   Gunther, 2010). We therefore suggest
be finished by July 2013. It is part of                   understanding the relation between
an interdisciplinary network of pro-                      politics and science as a “mediatized
jects about new governance of science,                    governance constellation”. In short,
which aims at providing scientific sup-                   this means that mass communication
port for political problems.                              plays an important role for scientific
   Below, we will introduce our theo-                     and political actors who use mass com-
retical perspective that conceives “gov-                  munication in order to observe and in-
ernance” as an inter-systemic relation-                   fluence each other; that those actors
ship, which can be explained as the                       adapt to media logic in order to opti-
outcome of dynamics between individ-                      mize their chances of influencing each
ual and collective actors and their ac-                   other; and that media and journalistic
tions on the one hand and social struc-                   actors have to be regarded as parts of
tures on the other (cf. Schimank, 2010)                   this constellation. It is also suggested
and that further integrates the concept                   that media affect the way decision
of “mediatization” (cf. Marcinkowski                      makers in politics and science evaluate
& Steiner, 2009; Meyen, 2009). We                         specific issues, e.g. how politicians as-
conclude by briefly outlining the re-                     sess stem cell research as well as the
search design.                                            demand for regulation or funding of
                                                          stem cell research (cf. Böcking, 2009)
1     Theoretical Framework                               or nanotechnology (cf. Ho, Scheufele,
                                                          & Corley, 2010). The importance of
In summary, science policy cannot be                      mass communication in this constella-
satisfactorily described as a one-way                     tion lies in the benefits that the media
process of regulation. Instead, we refer                  system provides for other systems (cf.
to the concept of governance which al-                    Blöbaum, 1994; Blöbaum, 2004; Mar-
lows us to analyze science policy as a                    cinkowski & Steiner, 2009) and be-
complex and interrelated social pro-                      cause social actors believe that mass
cess involving diverse social systems                     communication influences other actors

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Blöbaum, Scheu, Summ, Volpers | Science Policy in Mediatized Constellations

and therefore adapt accordingly (cf.                       on different forms of co-ordination,
Gunther & Storey, 2003, p. 199).                           mutual influences, and the combinati-
                                                           on of those (cf. Benz, Lütz, Schimank,
1.1 Basic theoretical concepts                             & Simonis, 2007b, pp. 15-16; Kastri-
                                                           nos, 2010, p. 298; Schimank, 2007a)
Our perspective on science policy in                       and understands the process of regula-
Germany is mainly characterized by                         tion as “a multistakeholder process
theories of governance, social systems,                    with actors drawn from market and
and actor-structure dynamics as well
                                                           civil society institutions as well as from
as the concept of mediatization. An es-
                                                           government” (Crozier, 2007, p. 3).
sential part of our analysis is the at-
                                                           Even though the concept leaves behind
tempt to mediate between theoretical
                                                           former, more linear perspectives such
positions of individual or collective ac-
tions on the one hand and social sys-                      as cybernetics or regulation, it still im-
tems and structures on the other and                       plies that the political system is able to
to research consequences of mediatiza-                     mold social reality by influencing other
tion on both levels (cf. figure 1).                        social systems – in our case the system
   The concept of governance offers a                      of science. However, sociology, com-
way to analyze both relations between                      munication science, and political sci-
social systems and interrelations of in-                   ence discuss controversially how and
dividual as well as institutional actors.                  to which degree the political system is
The perspective of governance focuses                      able to do so.

Figure 1: Concept to analyze interactions between systems within the governance
constellation of science policy, structural influences, and consequences of media-
tization regarding the modes of interaction and social structures

Source: Schimank, 2010, p. 214

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Research-in-brief

   Social systems are considered to be                    social systems, too (cf. Besley & Shan-
self-referential and autonomous in                        ahan, 2005; Ho, Scheufele, & Corley,
principle and can be distinguished ac-                    2010; Horst, 2008; Reis, 2008; Salter
cording to their exclusive functionality                  & Salter, 2010; Stewart, Dickerson, &
for society (cf. Luhmann, 1997, pp.                       Hotchkiss, 2009).
743-749). From this perspective, direct                      The concept of actor-structure dy-
inter-systemic influence does not seem                    namics (cf. Schimank, 2005a) can ex-
possible. Yet, we argue that social sys-                  plain the coupling of social systems as
tems are structurally coupled – even                      interplay of actions that are conducted
though the extent to which the systems                    by different actors of diverse social sys-
are coupled may differ (cf. Luhmann,                      tems. Three modes of action seem espe-
1997, p. 92-120; Schimank, 2007d, p.                      cially relevant: Observations represent
152). In all cases, however, attempts to                  the basic mode of action and are the
influence a certain system are usually                    precondition for any kind of influences,
perceived and dealt with internally as                    and negotiations are based on both ob-
irritations. Therefore, even though in-                   servations and mutual influences (cf.
ter-systemic influences may be inten-                     Schimank, 2007b). All three modes of
tional, their effects are mostly not in-                  action lead to dynamics that may result
tended (cf. Schimank, 2010, p. 197).                      in changes or adaptations on the struc-
Researching inter-systemic coupling                       tural level. This affects the structure of
and its effects has become part of the                    constellations [“Konstellationsstruk-
social sciences. One example of one so-                   turen”] (e.g. hierarchical structure of
cial system provoking changes in other                    actors), different forms of expectational
social systems is the widespread adap-                    structures [“Erwartungsstrukturen”]
tation to economic principles (key-                       (e.g. institutionalized normative stand-
word: economization) (Schimank,                           ards), and interpretive structures
2007d, p. 149). Other examples in-                        [“Deutungsstrukturen”] (e.g. the codes
clude the establishment of legal depart-                  that regulate and characterize social
ments in economic or media organiza-                      systems) (cf. Schimank, 2007b, pp.
tions that reflect the influence of the                   125-127).
legal system, or the integration of re-                      As stated above, we analyze science
search departments in companies, re-                      policy in mediatized governance con-
sembling the influence of the scientific                  stellations. The basic premise of media-
system. The system of science makes                       tization is that the need for mass com-
no exception. For example, universities                   munication as a way to mediate
have to follow political decisions (e.g.                  information across social systems in-
Bachelor/Masters reform in Germany),                      creases in modern societies (keyword:
curricula have to meet certain legal de-                  media society) (cf. Hjavard, 2008; Liv-
mands (e.g. constitutional rights, study                  ingstone, 2009; Lundby, 2009, pp. 1f.;
regulations), and appeals procedures                      Mazzoleni, 2008b). This leads to “ac-
also depend on how much money uni-                        commodation” (Schulz, 2004, pp. 89f.)
versities and institutes can afford to                    to mass media logic (cf. Altheide &
spend. Furthermore, sensitive issues                      Snow, 1979). Therefore, research about
such as stem cell research, nanotech-                     mediatization is usually concerned
nology, genetic engineering, or climate                   with the process of social change and
change may influence or irritate other                    assumes that this process is – at least

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partly – influenced by mass communi-                    Marcinkowski & Steiner, 2009, pp.
cation. The majority of studies in the                  11f.). Thus, mediatization can affect
field of mediatization therefore con-                   the evolvement of structures that in-
centrate on the process of mediatiza-                   crease social systems’ abilities to effi-
tion and on changes within certain so-                  ciently and strategically cope with
cial systems (e.g. politics, science,                   their environments. According to Uwe
economy, etc.) over time. Such research                 Schimank, such structures regulate
seems to be most promising when im-                     constellations of actors, formal and in-
plying longitudinal designs (cf. Meyen,                 formal (normative) expectations, and
2009, pp. 35f.).                                        interpretations of social reality (cf.
    However, the study at hand takes a                  Schimank, 2010, pp. 204ff.). Taking
different approach. We regard the me-                   “constellations” into account, we are
diatization of modern societies as a ba-                interested in the actor constellation
sic condition of science policy. This as-               that results from the system of research
sumption is suggested by various                        funding in Germany and in character-
studies about the mediatization of pol-                 istics of this constellation that are re-
itics (cf. e.g. Donges, 2008; Kepplinger,               lated to mass communication. The
2002; Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999;                         term “expectations” refers to norma-
Mazzoleni, 2008a; Schulz, 2006; Spör-                   tive structures – such as professional
er-Wagner & Marcinkowski, 2010;                         roles or institutionalized moral stand-
Vowe, 2006) and science (cf. e.g. Mae-                  ards – that might also be characterized
seele, 2007; Peters, Heinrichs, Jung,                   by mass communication and journal-
Kallfass, & Petersen, 2008; Schäfer,                    ism. With “interpretations”, Schimank
2007; Schäfer, 2008; Weingart, 2001,                    summarizes the “core” of social sys-
pp. 244ff.; Weingart, 2003, pp. 113ff.),                tems that regulates their functioning
both of which constitute the essential                  (cf. Schimank, 2005a, pp. 39ff.). Ex-
social systems regarding science policy.                amples are so called systemic codes or
This starting point yields consequences                 professional ideologies.
for our research design. Instead of fo-                     Considering the level of interactions,
cusing on process, we are rather inter-                 mediatization implies that political and
ested in the consequences of mediatiza-                 scientific actors mutually observe each
tion within a certain field of action:                  other mainly via mass communication,
science policy.                                         and individual as well as collective ac-
    Since individual actions influence                  tors adapt to the requirements of mass
structural developments as well as vice                 media (keyword: media logic) (cf. Spör-
versa (cf. Bourdieu, 1984; Giddens,                     er-Wagner & Marcinkowski, 2010, p.
2008; Hjavard, 2008; Schimank,                          9) for strategic purposes. Mediatization
2010), consequences of mediatization                    on this level describes ‘second level me-
may manifest themselves on the struc-                   dia effects’ (cf. Meyen, 2009, pp. 23f.)
tural level as well as the level of inter-              or the “influence of presumed media
actions. On the structural level, any                   influence” (Cohen, Tsfati, & Sheafer,
social system – to a certain degree –                   2008, p. 331; Tsfati, Cohen, &
may adapt to journalistic requirements                  Gunther, 2011, p. 143). Another facet
because the unique service of establish-                of mediatization on the level of interac-
ing public attention becomes increas-                   tions can be seen in the fact that “pub-
ingly important in modern societies (cf.                licity becomes important as an alterna-

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Research-in-brief

tive power source” (Spörer-Wagner &                       of stakeholders within the governance
Marcinkowski, 2010, p. 8) for involved                    constellation of science policy, too.
actors. We therefore are especially in-                      This interest of research leads us to
terested in how (individual and collec-                   the analytical categories summarized
tive) actors observe and influence each                   in figure 2 and a cross-sectional re-
other using mass communication –                          search design consisting of a content
even though this distinction is analyti-                  analysis and semi-standardized inter-
cal and the boundaries between observ-                    views of decision-makers from the field
ing and influencing seem to be rather                     of science policy.
fluid in everyday life, for example when
actors adapt their public appearances                     1.2 Science policy in mediatized
according to media logic in order to                          governance constellations
strategically frame the observations of
other stakeholders. Furthermore, be-                      Research about science policy in medi-
cause of the role of mass communica-                      atized governance constellations has to
tion in this context, journalistic actors                 take into account national particulari-
have to be regarded as a relevant group                   ties. This can be realized by compara-

Figure 2: Analytical categories and guiding questions

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Blöbaum, Scheu, Summ, Volpers | Science Policy in Mediatized Constellations

tive studies or by in-depth analyses of                 egies to deal with perceived attacks
single countries. This study researches                 against their scientific freedom. The
science policy in Germany and consid-                   role of mass communication in this
ers national particularities with regard                constellation seems diverse. On the one
to the media system (e.g. dual broad-                   hand, access to journalism and mass
casting system), the systems of politics                communication can be seen as a poten-
(e.g. legal system regulating the free-                 tial source of autonomy of science be-
dom of research; division of responsi-                  cause journalism may provide certain
bilities for science funding between                    benefits for the scientific system (e.g.
state and federal political institutions),              public legitimization). On the other
and science (e.g. university structures).               hand, this may also lead to an increase
Recent developments within the Ger-                     of heteronomy (e.g. adaption to media
man higher education system offer                       logic). But either way, mass communi-
genuine research opportunities as well                  cation increases public access to sci-
as an increased political demand for                    ence policy issues and is thereby rele-
such research. Traditionally, the Ger-                  vant for the governance of scientific
man “Humboldtian” higher education                      research (cf. Maeseele, 2007, p. 1;
system is characterized by the combi-                   Woolley, 1998).
nation of state funding and regulation                     The main stakeholders considering
on the one hand and “constitutional                     the governance of scientific research
guarantees of the ‘freedom of teaching                  obviously are connected to the social
and research’” (Schimank, 2005b) on                     systems of politics and science. How-
the other, which results in relatively                  ever, inter-systemic communication not
low institutional and relatively high in-               only takes place directly but can also
dividual autonomy (cf. Schubert &                       be accomplished via mass communica-
Schmoch, 2010, p. 246). Recently, this                  tion. Therefore, due to our aims of re-
system has been subject to reforms that                 search and the theoretical approach of
lead towards increased heteronomy (cf.                  “mediatized governance constella-
Schimank, 2005b). This includes pro-                    tions” mentioned above, we also con-
cesses of standardization (keywords:                    sider the journalistic system as a rele-
Bologna Process, European Higher                        vant part of the constellation.
Education Area), the changeover to a                    Furthermore, each social system seems
Bachelor/Master structure, the imple-                   to provide interfaces to improve the ef-
mentation of (external) evaluation, and                 ficiency of communication with others.
incentive funding (cf. Auranen &                        Figure 3 offers an illustration of what
Nieminen, 2010; Schimank, 2005b).                       we aim to analyze as “mediatized gov-
Policy-makers thereby intend to in-                     ernance constellation of science policy
crease the efficiency, competitiveness                  regarding scientific research”.
and relevance of scientific institutions.                  The core element of science policy
It is likely that scientific actors – who               regarding research in Germany is fun-
until now have been (and probably                       ding (cf. Hinze, 2010) – above all fi-
still are) characterized by their relative              nancial funding but also structural or
autonomy compared to actors from                        ideological funding. Responsibilities
other social systems – do not always                    are split between the federal and state
consider such changes as improve-                       governments. Funding programs are
ments but also develop defensive strat-                 intended to increase the efficiency,

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Figure 3: Illustration of interrelations in the mediatized governance constellation
of science policy considering the social systems “politics”, “science”, and “journal-
ism” as well as the role of media coverage within this constellation

competitiveness or relevance of scienti-                  makers in politics (federal and state
fic institutions (cf. Kastrinos, 2010).                   ­level) and funding organizations.
Other aims of funding mainly concern                            Within the system of science, we
individual research areas, interdiscipli-                  ­focus on three types of institutionali­
nary co-operations, co-operations of                        zation: universities, non-university
universities and institutions in the pri-                   ­research institutes and academic disci-
vate sector, or training of junior scien-                    plines. Universities are the most popu-
tists (cf. Gläser & Lange, 2007, pp.                         lar manifestation of research funding
444f.). Between political and scientific                     in Germany (cf. Auranen & Nieminen,
                                                             2010). Therefore, it is not surprising
actors, funding organizations and insti-
                                                             that a huge amount of governmental
tutes occupy an important position:
                                                             funding is addressed directly at univer-
They are responsible for evaluating re-
                                                             sities or is invested in specific funding
search designs and the appropriateness
                                                             organizations (e.g. German Research
of funding and thereby mediate bet-
                                                             Foundation (DFG)). What is more, the
ween the social systems of politics and                      federal government recently initiated
science (cf. Gläser & Lange, 2007, p.                        the so called “excellence initiative” – a
445). This becomes even more impor-                          competitive procedure to allocate
tant because recent developments indi-                       funding of universities. There seems to
cate a trend towards an allocation                           be a “general tendency for states to in-
practice that is based on competition                        crease the conditionality of their re-
(cf. Kastrinos, 2010, p. 302). Regar-                        search funding by making more re-
ding the social system of politics, this                     sources dependent on competitive
study therefore focuses on decision-                         bidding for research projects” (Whitley

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& Gläser, 2007, p. 10). The trend to-                  policy (cf. Dunwoody, 2008). Bearing
wards competitive allocation proce-                    in mind that many freelancers work in
dures (cf. Hornbostel & Olbrecht,                      this field and that definitions of “sci-
2008, p. 55) based on quantity and                     ence journalist” vary, it is rather diffi-
quality of research seems to constitute                cult, however, to identify those journal-
structural disadvantages for actors                    ists (cf. Blöbaum, 2008, p. 248).
working at universities because they                   Science journalists working for nation-
have to split their budget of time be-                 al quality media supposedly are the
tween teaching and research (cf. Horn-                 most relevant actors in this constella-
bostel & Olbrecht, 2008, p. 52). Non-                  tion because of the media usage of de-
university research institutions in                    cision makers (cf. Chodura, 2006;
Germany developed only after 1945                      Harmgarth, 1997) and because they
and now already receive financial re-                  are relevant regarding intermedia
sources that amount to about 60 per                    agenda setting (cf. McCombs, 2004, p.
cent of what is available for research at              114; Protess & McCombs, 1991). We
universities (cf. Hohn, 2010, p. 457).                 also include journalistic actors work-
Last but not least, academic disciplines               ing for regional newspapers that cover
constitute the institutional core of all               regions in which research institutes
sciences. From the socialization of                    have established. Media in such areas
young scientists to decisions over fund-               report differently about science than
ing, the essential processes take place                others (cf. Blöbaum & Görke, 2006).
within disciplinary boundaries (cf.                    Besides newspapers, we also consider
Bourdieu, 2004). Scientific disciplines                television, radio and online communi-
can be distinguished according to their                cation as important influences with re-
scientific tradition – the German Re-                  gard to mediatization and influences
search Foundation (DFG) differenti-                    on decision makers (cf. Dunwoody,
ates between the traditions of humani-                 2008, pp. 22f.; Gurevitch, Coleman, &
ties/social sciences, life sciences,                   Blumler, 2009; Maeseele & Desmet,
natural sciences, and engineering sci-                 2009; Merzagora, 2004).
ences. Considering the study at hand,
this implies that we consider decision                 2     Methodological concept
makers representing different scientific
traditions and who work at both uni-                   The theoretical concept introduced
versities and non-university research                  above leads to a concept of research
institutes.                                            which includes two methodological
   Another group of actors that we                     steps. The first step focuses on media
take a closer look at – since they seem                coverage about scientific research and
to be relevant in the mediatized con-                  science policy, the second on the differ-
stellation of the governance of scientif-              ent stakeholders within the governance
ic research – are actors from the jour-                constellation. Accordingly, we conduct
nalistic system specializing in science                a content analysis and semi-structured
communication or science policy.                       interviews.
These specialized roles are of interest                   The content analysis covers the year
for our study because journalists who                  2011 and different types of media
assume such roles shape the media                      including national newspapers and
                                                       ­
coverage about science and science                     news magazines, regional newspapers,

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TV news broadcasts and TV science                         actions of stakeholders (e.g. criticism,
broadcasts, a radio news broadcast                        recommendations, demands, protests,
and radio science broadcasts as well as                   assurances, or evaluations) and specific
an online news website (cf. figure 4).                    parts concerning reports about science
                                                          policy, reports that refer to eight select-
Figure 4: Selected media for content                      ed disciplines, and reports about scien-
analysis                                                  tific research in general (cf. Figure 5).
                                                          Due to our main interest of research
                                                          about the role of journalism consider-
                                                          ing the governance of scientific re-
                                                          search, we firstly collect data about the
                                                          media coverage of science policy is-
                                                          sues. Considering this, we are –
                                                          amongst others – especially interested
                                                          in data about the network of stake-
                                                          holders mentioned in media coverage
                                                          about science policy and in instru-
                                                          ments of science policy discussed in the
                                                          selected reports. Secondly, we analyze
                                                          media reports that cover one of eight
                                                          selected disciplines representing either
                                                          social sciences/humanities, life sciences,
                                                          natural sciences or engineering scienc-
                                                          es. We selected disciplines that all – in
                                                          their own way – deal with current
                                                          questions, risks, or problems concern-
                                                          ing society: political science and phi-
                                                          losophy (social sciences/humanities),
                                                          virology and agricultural science (life-
                                                          sciences), food chemistry and geophys-
                                                          ics (natural sciences) as well as com-
                                                          puter science and resources/recycling
                                                          (engineering). In this part of the con-
                                                          tent analysis, we code reports about
                                                          scientific research and also consider
                                                          reports about more general topics that
                                                          contain references to the disciplines
                                                          mentioned. By this, we will be able to
The content analysis consists of a gen-                   compare media reports about different
eral part including all selected media                    disciplines and scientific traditions as
reports and containing variables such                     well as gain information about the
as journalistic style, topic, cause for                   public image of the selected disciplines.
news coverage, geographical referenc-                     Exemplary variables in this part are
es, disciplines mentioned, associated                     evaluations of the selected disciplines
scientific cultures, societal contexts                    or the functionality of references to
mentioned, stakeholders, and strategic                    scientific research in mass media re-

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Blöbaum, Scheu, Summ, Volpers | Science Policy in Mediatized Constellations

ports. In order to be able to contextu-                cal research institutes, German science
alize this data, we – thirdly – also code              council), and journalism that are based
basic characteristics of general reports               on first findings. By interviewing politi-
about scientific research regardless of                cal and scientific actors, we aim to find
the associated disciplines (e.g. refer-                out how they use mass media in order
ences to scientific publications, refer-               to observe other stakeholders within
ences to applications of research,                     the governance constellation, whether
chances/risks of scientific research,                  they adapt their actions to what they
controversity, etc.).                                  observe via mass media, and whether
During the second phase of the project                 their observations influence decisions.
we conduct semi-structured interviews                  By combining content analysis and in-
with decision-makers from the social                   terviews, we hope to offer a holistic
systems politics (e.g. national and fed-               picture of the role of mass communica-
eral science policy, political parties,                tion within the governance constella-
funding organizations), science (e.g.                  tion of scientific research in Germany.
universities, research institutes, disci-
plinary associations), interfaces be-
tween politics and science (e.g. politi-

Figure 5: Structure of codebook and exemplary variables

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Research-in-brief

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