Puppis
Fakultäten » Philosophische Fakultät » Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung, Institut für » Prof. Dr. Otfried Jarren » Puppis
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | The Influence of Ownership on Media Coverage of Licensing Decisions in the Swiss Broadcasting Sector | ||||||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||||||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | News policies as instruments of social control tend to limit the actions of journalists and the type of stories that can be reported. Empirical evidence, however, is often missing or anecdotal because the relationship between ownership and content is an indirect and mediated one. Thus, it is necessary to focus on cases where the economic and political interests of media owners are directly affected by news coverage. This project investigates the coverage of media policy and examines the influence of cross-media ownership on the reporting on licensing of broadcasting stations in Switzerland. A quantitative content analysis of the coverage of the tender process, the public consultation on the applications and the governmental licensing decisions by news media in the region of Zurich indicates that ownership has an influence on content. While topic-related articles of newspapers owned by media companies with no interests in the broadcasting sector reported in a balanced way, articles in newspapers of integrated companies heavily lobbied for their companies’ channels. This raises the question of how to limit media power by means of new ownership regulation. | ||||||
| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | media ownership, media concentration, content analysis, Switzerland, licensing, private broadcasting | ||||||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
No project-specific funding |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Jan 2009 to May 2010 |