Goals: Participants will know the main theoretical and methodological approaches to media and communication studies that are relevant for analysing public communication. They will be able to develop own research questions and designs for empirical studies and apply theories and methods of empirical communication research to concrete problems of global communication and international journalism.
Content: Starting point of the lecture are basic concepts of public sphere, public communication and (mass) media. In the context of public communication processes the different roles of media organizations and political and civil society actors are discussed (e. g. strategic communication, citizen participation), a special focus will be on intercultural aspects. The lecture then gives an overview over the most relevant theories and approaches that are used in communication studies in order to understand and explain phenomena of public communication (media content, journalism, media use, media effects research); with every approach methodological aspects and basic findings of empirical communication research are exemplified using concrete studies from the respective field. Schließen