Gilt das schlechte Zeugnis noch? Der Einfluss des Ressorts und des Status der Informationsquelle auf die Determinationsthese.
Does the bad testimony still exist? The influence of the departments and the status of the source of information upon the thesis of determination

Summary/Abstract: The theoretical departure point of the essay is the determination thesis. Baerns ignored all other factors that influenced the selection of information by journalists. The editorial department and the status of the source are two factors that have remained unexamined in regard to determining the relationship between journalism and public relations. My study compared the local editorial office in Erfurt and the political editorial office for Thuringia of the Thüringer Allgemeine. Both editorial offices are distinguished by their close proximity to one another and their occasional use of corresponding information sources. Moreover local journalists, according to the study Journalism in Germany (Weischenberg et al. 1994, 2006) consider PR sources more positively than their colleagues from the political news department – an assessment that could be expressed in the acceptance or rejection of these sources of information. The results of the study fail to demonstrate that journalism is unduly influenced, in the sense of a problematic dependency, by PR services. Less than a quarter of all reporting originated at a PR source. When PR texts are adopted, the determination of the timing is in the political editorial office higher than in the local editorial office. Department-specific differences show up in the transformation achievements and status orientation.

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