Current Activities

Our project is once again going to be present at the annual conference of the ICA (International Communication Association) this year. Two submissions were accepted for presentation at the 74th Annual International Conference of the ICA 2024 in Gold Coast, Australia, gathering with the theme “Communication and Global Human Rights”.
Under the presentation title “Journalists’ Expectations of Journalist-Audience Interaction and Relationship: A Q-Sort Study”, a Q-Sort study researching journalistic expectations towards interactions with the audience  will be presented. In addition, a second presentation titled “What Does the Audience Expect when Interacting with Journalists? A Q-Sort Study” will present the Q-Sort study on the audience’s expectations of interactions with journalism.

We are looking forward to an interesting exchange in Gold Coast!

As part of Prof Dr Hanne Detel’s move to Kempten, the Tübingen sub-project has now also relocated to the University of applied science Kempten. Isabell Klawitter has joined the team at the new location. During her Master’s degree, she already worked on the joint project as a student assistant in Münster. We warmly welcome Ms Klawitter to the Kempten site and wish her a good start in the new team. Further information about the current team of the joint project can be found here.

A journal article titled “Great expectations? A taxonomy for expectancy research in journalism studies“, written by Assistant Professor Dr Claudia Wilhelm and Professor Dr Hanne Detel, was published in the renowned journal Journalism at the end of September 2023. In order to enable a systematisation and classification of the various expectation concepts in journalism research, they developed a taxonomy comprising seven criteria: While the (1) dimension indicates the content of the expectations and the (2) dimensionality the degree of complexity of the concept, the criteria (3) perspective and (4) object specify whose expectations are addressed and to whom they are directed. The (5) expectation level distinguishes between first-order and second-order expectations and the (6) level of analysis helps to localise expectation concepts (micro, meso or macro level). Finally, the (7) mode enables expectations to be categorised as prescriptive, probabilistic or evaluative.

Dr Hanne Detel has been appointed as Professor of Digital Literacy at Kempten University of Applied Sciences by 1 September 2023. She previously worked at the University of Tübingen, where she led one sub-project of the BMBF joint project, which will now relocate to Kempten. We would like to congratulate Prof Dr Hanne Detel and wish her a successful start in Kempten.

This year’s project meeting – organised by Dr Hanne Detel – took place from 18^th  to 20^th of July 2023 on the outskirts of the old town of Kempten in the Allgäu region. At the meeting, Prof Dr Helena Stehle, PD Dr Nicole Podschuweit, Dr Bernadette Uth, Assistant Prof Dr Claudia Wilhelm and Dr Hanne Detel discussed the current status of the project, the empirical studies and the transfer of the current findings  to the scientific community, teaching and the public. The joint meeting came to an end with the traditional dish “Kässpatzen” with a view of the Allgäu Alps.

From April to July 2023, the joint universities will host a hybrid lecture series on the mutual expectations of journalists and their audiences. The focus is on interactions between journalists and audience members in digital media environments. PD Dr. Nicole Podschuweit (head of the Erfurt sub-project) is mainly responsible for the lecture series. In addition to the project leaders, the lecturers are experts from academia and journalistic practice who report from their perspectives and want to encourage discussion. The focus will be on the interaction between journalists and audience representatives on online channels, community management, user comments and hate speech, but also on media trust.

The aim of the lecture series is to transfer project results to a broader public. Therefore, not only students of media and communication studies are invited, but all students and staff of the joint universities as well as citizens who are interested in questions of the journalism-audience relationship.

The lectures will take place on eight selected Tuesdays from 6.15 to 7.45 p.m. and can be followed either on site or via livestream.

Further information can be found here.

As in the previous year, the project team was again represented with a presentation at the annual conference of the German Communication Association (DGPuK). Under the title “Consequences of Disappointed Expectations in Journalism-Audience Interactions”, the project team—together with student assistant Jonas Büttner and the cooperation partner Ass.-Prof. Claudia Wilhelm—presented findings from a literature analysis on the topic. The conference took place in Bremen from 18-20 May 2023.

Prof. Dr Helena Stehle, Dr Bernadette Uth and Assistant Prof. Dr Claudia Wilhelm travelled to the USA in February 2023 for a research stay at the University of Texas, Austin. The three researchers presented the joint project at a research colloquium at the Center for Media Engagement with a lecture on “Investigating the Journalist-Audience Relationship in the Digital Age: A Multi-Stage Research Project”. They also used their stay to continue networking with colleagues and to increase the visibility of the project.

The project achieved great success with regard to the 73rd Annual International Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) in 2023 under the title theme “Reclaiming Authenticity in Communication”. A total of four submissions out of the research project were accepted for presentation in Toronto.

Under the presentation title “The Impact of Mutual Interaction Expectations on Journalist-Audience Relations in Digital Media Contexts: An Exploratory Study”, Dr. Hanne Detel will present the results of qualitative guided interviews with journalists and audience members on their mutual expectations in a case study design for the project. Dr. Bernadette Uth, representing the project team, presents a theoretical literature review of existing conceptualisations of the journalism-audience relationship in digital contexts in the lecture “The Journalism-Audience Relationship in Digital Media Environments: A Theoretical Literature Review”. PD Dr. Nicole Podschuweit’s presentation “Mutual Interaction Expectations and Consequences of Expectancy Violations in the Journalism-Audience Relationship: A Systematic Literature Review” is dedicated to the results of a systematic literature review on expectancy violations in journalism-audience interactions. Ass.-Prof. Dr. Claudia Wilhelm and Dr. Hanne Detel will present a framework for future research on expectations in journalistic contexts under the title “Towards a Framework for Studying Expectations in Journalistic Contexts: A Taxonomy for Expectancy Research”.

We look forward to an interesting exchange in Toronto!

The project team will give two presentations at a conference on “Political Journalism. Constellations – Patterns – Dynamics” at the University of Trier from September 28 to 30, 2022. While the first paper will present the results of a literature review on the journalism-audience relationship, in the second presentation the team will share the results of a qualitative interview study with journalists and audience members on their expectations of mutual interaction in digital media environments.