Media Performance and Democracy

媒体的表现是民主运作的组成部分：高质量的媒体是自由表达意见和立场的基本要求。由于数字化和相关的媒体市场的普遍变化，关于媒体性能的讨论已经加剧：如何永久地确保媒体性能似乎是值得怀疑的。反思这一发展的后果需要对媒体表现及其受影响的结构性因素进行可靠的诊断。然而，这样的诊断仍有待作出。目前的项目提案填补了这一研究空白。对德国、奥地利和瑞士新闻媒体民主表现的国际比较内容分析包括一个广泛的媒体样本，涉及与公民信息和舆论形成相关的所有媒体类型。对民主至关重要的公共传播的功能是根据最新的民主概念定义的，这种概念通过参与式民主理论的要素扩大了民主的自由概念（如大多数西方国家的宪法所确立的）：通过批评和控制的合法性，政治竞争的论坛，公民的整合。因此，评价媒体业绩的核心标准可以从这些功能中得出：相关性、多样性和审议。按照这种综合的方法，媒体的表现为三个功能的每一个进行评估，通过比较内容分析结果与外部基准：媒体报道的相关性的比较标准是政党议程和议会活动。多样性是根据价值框架进行评估的，价值框架显示了媒体报道中政党和不同社会群体的不同立场。审议是根据新闻业的专业标准进行评估的，例如中立和平衡。这种与媒体性能相关的方法得到了用户视角的补充，以澄清人口的哪些部分实际上获得了哪种水平的媒体性能。通过国际比较，可以在媒体变革的背景下充分解释和评估媒体绩效：三个非常相似的国家在理论上应该决定性地影响媒体绩效的几个方面存在差异（大多数相似的系统设计）。通过将对媒体表现的研究与比较传播研究相结合--我们的研究是将这些方法联系起来的首批研究之一--该项目能够展示位于微观、中观和宏观层面的不同结构因素如何影响媒体报道。考虑到这些项目的高度社会相关性，其结果不仅对重要的科学研究领域（如碎片化，框架或议程建设）至关重要，而且对新闻实践和媒体政策也至关重要。

Media performance is constitutive for a democracys functioning: Media of high quality are a basic requirement for the free discourse of opinions and positions. Due to digitization and the related pervasive changes on media markets, the discussion about media performance has intensified: How media performance can be permanently ensured seems doubtful. Reflecting on consequences of this development requires a reliable diagnosis of media performance and the structural factors it is influenced by. However, such a diagnosis remains to be made. The current project proposal closes this research gap. The internationally comparative content analysis of the democratic performance of news media in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland comprises a broad media sample, involving all media types relevant for the citizens information and opinion making. The functions of public communication that are essential to democracy are defined according to an up-to-date-concept of democracy which broadens the liberal conception of democracy (as established in the constitution of most Western countries) by elements of participatory theories of democracy: legitimacy through criticism and control, forum of political competition, integration of the citizenry. Thus, central standards for the evaluation of media performance can be derived from these functions: relevance, diversity and deliberation. Following this integrative approach, media performance for each of the three functions is evaluated by comparing the content analytical results with external benchmarks: Standard of comparison of the media coverages relevance are the political parties agendas and parliamentary activities. Diversity is evaluated based on value frames that show how far the diverse positions of parties and different societal groups are represented in media coverage. Deliberation is assessed based on professional standards of journalism, e.g. neutrality and balance. This relational approach to media performance is supplemented by the user perspective to clarify which segments of the population actually receive which level of media performance. By means of international comparison, media performance can be adequately explained and evaluated in the context of media change: The three very similar countries differ in a few respects that theoretically should influence media performance decisively (most similar systems design). By merging research on media performance with comparative communication research - ours is one of the first studies to link these approaches - the project is able to show how different structural factors located on the micro-, meso-, and macro-level influence media coverage. Considering the projects high societal relevance, its results are pivotal not only for important scientific research areas such as fragmentation, framing, or agenda building, but also for journalistic practice and media policy.