Schweizer Journalist, 12/2008 + 1/2009
Melanie Magin and Birgit Stark, two researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, provide a glimpse inside Austria’s media life with the results of their comparative content analysis.
According to the study, a highly concentrated newspaper market is not conducive to quality news coverage.
In the scope of political news coverage, Austrian’s quality titles Der Standard, Die Presse and Salzburger Nachrichten fair poorly compared to five German national papers*. In tabloid newspapers, Kronenzeitung reports on politics only half as often as the BILD. When compared to German papers, source transparency within Austrian papers leaves much to be desired. Despite government promotions of diversity in the press, the Kronenzeitung, Austrian’s market leader, has 58 percent of the market shares, while the country’s four largest daily newspapers have 88 percent combined.
* Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt, Frankfurter Rundschau, taz
Translation by Karin Eberhardt
Tags: Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian press, Birgit Stark, Der Standard, Die Presse, Kronenzeitung, Melanie Magin, Salzburger Nachrichten
