2006/4 |
ÖZP 2006/4, 337-360 [CONTENT] [German] [Volltext] Josef Seethaler / Gabriele Melischek (Vienna) This article examines the phenomenon of press concentration in the context of a detailed analysis of the Austrian media system within a European perspective. The theoretical framework, based on Hallin and Mancini’s ‘models of media and politics’, has been developed to provide a comparative analysis of media systems in liberal democracies of Western Europe and North America. According to the democratic corporatist model prevailing in North and Central European states (separate from the polarized pluralist model and the liberal model), there are, above all, two central determining structure characteristics, each overlapping one another: a long period of coexistence of a party press and a mass-circulation press, leading to a strong position of the daily papers on the advertising and audience market, and the coexistence of political parallelism in the media and a high degree of professionalization. Both characteristics can be proven to a great extent for the Austrian media system. However, the degree of press concentration, as observed in Austria, must be seen as a danger to external diversity, another essential characteristic of the democratic corporatist model. The effects of a recent trend towards localization - accompanied with an above average decreasing interest in political information in comparison to the rest of Europe - are not yet able to be estimated. ÖZP 2006/4, 361-378 [CONTENT] [German] Guenther Lengauer (Innsbruck) The public service ORF news have to position and distinguish themselves in the area of conflict amongst profit, professionalism, the public and politics. The legitimation of the public service status has lately been increasingly challenged by accusing the ORF of not complying with its legal program mandate and of politically biased reporting. This empirical case study contrasts ORF news and Austrian quality newspapers as well as the private TV-newscast ATV-aktuell. The main research question is to what extent journalistic and political plurality as professional standards are reflected by ORF news in comparison to the national and international journalistic context. As a result, ORF news widely accord with transnational journalistic trends. However, on a selective level some significant differences between public service and private news emerge - particularly as far as the public policy-dimension and relevance of information is concerned. ÖZP 2006/4, 379-389 [CONTENT] [German] Matthias Karmasin (Klagenfurt) If the structures of the media (and thus of society) change, the structures of media policy have to change as well. Significant changes in the media and information society, such as convergence, commercialisation and globalisation, also imply a change in the relations between media, society and political system. The article suggests a framework for corporate responsibility of media enterprises and stakeholder regulation of the media industry as a possible reaction to these challenges. Even in Austria (given the specific cultural and political situation) it should be possible to follow international examples in this field and thus to understand media policy as economic and social enablement of self-regulation and self-organisation. ÖZP 2006/4, 391-405 [CONTENT] [German] Maria Beyrl / Flooh Perlot (Krems) The public presentation of politics is as old as politics itself; politicians and parties have always tried to stage their public appearance as favourably as possible. The strong ties and interplays between politics and the mass media in the current media democracy have shifted the focus of political strategies even more towards this public side of politics. In the end, this is what the audience gets to see about their elected representatives on television. Taking the mentioned points into account, this article - based on interviews with experts - tries to analyse the state of political communication in Austria, taking a closer look at political marketing, opinion research and media democracy itself. A core issue is to assess what is called staged politics, both as a term and as a strategy. ÖZP 2006/4, 407-424 [CONTENT] [German] Holger Bähr (Vienna) Within the research on the implementation of European policies the thesis is advocated that implementation problems of European policy are due to a low degree of compatibility between European and national policies. However, recent studies did not confirm this thesis empirically and criticised the vague operationalisation of the degree of compatibility as well as the missing microfoundation of the explanation of implementation problems. This contribution shall show how an operationalisation and a microfoundation can be achieved with the help of the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Both the theoretical consideration and an empirical study of the legal implementation of the Directive concerning integrated pollution prevention and control in Germany and Ireland permit the inference to ascribe a limited explanation power to the degree of compatibility. Ideas and institutions are not regarded as competing but as complementary factors in explaining implementation problems. ÖZP 2006/4, 425-440 [CONTENT] [German] Markus J. Prutsch (Florence) This article outlines the positions and positional changes of the Austrian People’s Party with regard to neutrality since 1945. By analysing various documents, four essential paradigmatic changes can be identified: The first in the context of the Austrian State Treaty 1955, when the People’s Party abandoned its vague "European" security policy perspective in favour of a moderate endorsement of neutrality, which was to remain a dominant feature until the 1980s; the second at the beginning of the 1990s - taking place against the backdrop of the fall of the communist order in Eastern Europe -, characterised by a growing dissociation from neutrality; the third in the mid-1990s, when neutrality was fundamentally being questioned; and the fourth and most recent one at the beginning of the new millennium, marked by an about-turn in the party’s neutrality policy and the abandonment of the ambitious plan to join NATO. In conclusion, it can be seen that the People’s Party tightrope-walk regarding neutrality in the Second Austrian Republic has not only been manifold, but also to a large extent inconsistent. |