NaDiRa Media Monitor: Continuities and change in the discourse on racism

The media influence how relevant individuals and entire societies consider certain topics to be and whether they are perceived as a problem in need of a solution ("agenda setting"). This is particularly true for new or long-term topics and for topics that are not directly accessible to most people. And research shows that traditional, editorial media continue to play a major role even in times of social media and "hybrid" public spheres.

However, numerous study results show that the media do not always report "objectively" on certain topics, but are often distorted. The interpretations of powerful actors are often the most visible, while sometimes smaller actors and their alternative interpretations are not heard at all. In addition, certain key events can have a long-term influence on how a topic is reported.

Finally, the media play a major role in establishing a certain "framing" of issues: They present definitions, causes, possible solutions and moral evaluations of issues. If dominant "frames" emerge on certain topics, other perspectives are less visible or not visible at all. At the same time, racism research and critical discourse analyses show that public discussion of racism is often met with defensive strategies.

Against this background, the question arises as to how the media in Germany address racism and which interpretations they (do not) offer.

To date, there has been no recent study on how visible the topic of racism is in German media coverage, how media attention has developed over time and which events have shaped the media career of the topic.

The few existing studies either date back a long time (e.g. Krause and Fretwurst 2007, who analyze data from 1994; Esser et al. 2002; Brosius and Eps 1995) or look at comparatively short periods of time (e.g. Milman et al. 2021).

There is a further research gap with regard to the media framing of racism. The few existing studies for Germany relate to the 1990s (Scheufele and Brosius 1999). This also applies to the investigation of discursive defenses in the media discourse on racism; the existing studies either date back several decades (van Djik 1992) or do not refer to Germany (Faulkner and Bliuc 2016; Pantti et al. 2019).

The aim of the project is to describe patterns in media coverage of racism and to trace any developments. Particular attention is paid to media attention to racism. The results provide indications of the extent to which racism is recognized as a social problem at a certain point in time.

It is also of interest which events and actors have been able to change the attention paid to racism over time and influence the career of the topic. Here, for example, the question arises as to whether increased media attention for racism is primarily a consequence of clear manifestations of racism - i.e. whether racially motivated acts of violence lead to more intensive reporting.

The analysis of the lines of conflict and dominant interpretations of racism ("frames") provide indications of which understandings, aspects and dimensions of racism dominate the public debate at a particular point in time and thus presumably also shape the ideas of individual media users. It is also relevant to examine which dimensions of racism are not dominantly addressed.

The project works with a multi-method design and two different methodological approaches: First, patterns of media debate over time are identified using automated or computer-assisted methods of text-analytical social science and linguistics. Secondly, these are supplemented by in-depth analyses based on a manual content analysis of selected newspaper articles. The manual content analysis is used to identify and describe problem definitions of racism, attributions of causes and responsibilities as well as required measures (so-called frame elements) in the articles.

To carry out both analyses, text collections (so-called corpora) were created for three selected German daily newspapers that depict racism-relevant reporting. With the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the sample includes two leading German media with different political lines. The tageszeitung (taz), which is considered an alternative agenda setter in the German media system, is also examined.

The corpora created include all full-text articles from the three newspapers that mention at least one key term relevant to the topic of racism in the study period from January 1990 to June 2022. Due to the systematic data collection over time and a continuous follow-up of racism-related reporting for subsequent project periods, the monitoring in this sub-project is recurring.

Initial results show that racism receives significantly less attention in the media compared to related topics such as migration/integration or right-wing extremism. However, in the period under investigation from 1990 to 2022, there were repeated events that pushed the topic of racism high up the media agenda in the short term. These include the arson attacks in Rostock-Lichtenhagen and Solingen, which were often named and discussed as "racist" even back then. More recently, the attacks in Halle and Hanau as well as the Black Lives Matter protests ensured that media attention for racism in Germany increased.

In addition to these rather short-term peaks in reporting, our long-term monitoring also points to a continuous increase in attention at a lower level, which began around 2011 and could be linked to the NSU's self-disclosure. Since then, the public interpretation of racism also appears to have changed: For example, institutional or structural racism has been named more frequently since 2011 than before.

The results of the media analyses can help to classify current debates about racism historically. They provide indications of changes in journalistic selection decisions and are therefore also relevant for media professionals themselves.

The project has been running since November 2021 and is being carried out in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Andreas Blätte and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Integration and Migration Research (InZentIM) at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Framing: Media framing is the subject of intensive empirical research. The central assumption of the framing approach is that certain aspects and positions in reporting on a topic are emphasized and combined to form a consistent frame. A complete frame suggests a certain problem definition, identifies causes for a problem, names possible solutions and offers moral evaluations. When a dominant frame emerges in reporting on a topic, other perspectives become less visible or completely invisible. Some studies on the framing of Muslims and migrants in the German-speaking world show that they are often negatively framed as "cold", "criminal" or "cost-intensive" - and thus provide a basis for media criticism.