The Use of Social Media by Turkish Immigrant Youth in Germany (working title)

Zeynep Altundağ

The world today is a place where transnational networking and communication have taken on primary importance. The new media has played a major role in changing means of communication and how members of society engage with its applications. It makes individuals’ lives more interactive with the functions and features provided by social media networks such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs, and so on. Taking up these venues of communication in new media as an object of study, this project will observe, discuss, and render visible the lifestyles, ideas, activities, and self-assigned profiles of youth born in Germany who have Turkish or Kurdish backgrounds. Through an analysis of the cultural forms and current media profiles of the most recent generation of immigrant youth, which to date has not been examined in detail, this study will focus on Facebook as it is the most commonly used social media networkand as such will be a practical platform for observing their daily participation in social life. On the one hand, this research will study media discourses on immigrant integration policy in Germany, and on the other will analyze the use of social media by young Turkish immigrants and their appearance in global social networking sites (particularly Facebook).

Das Bild-Text-Verhältnis im Fotojournalismus deutscher Abonnement-Tageszeitungen im Wandel: Von dokumentarischen Gebrauchsweisen zu symbolisch-assoziativen Verbindungen (working title)

Ansgar Koch

Framing of Lebanon War 2006 in the Egyptian Press (June 2, 2015)

Ingy Salama Al-Sayed (graduated)

Unlike the previous wars between the Arabs and Israel, Lebanon war 2006 took place in changing regional and international political and cultural context. The central aim of the study is to explore the role of media in wartimes. Based on the constructionist approach as a theoretical background, the political and media environment in Egypt was explained in order to reach an understanding to the flow of power in the Egyptian society and how the ideological tendencies of the newspapers affect the framing of Lebanon war 2006. Based on the quantitative content analysis of three Egyptian newspapers representing three ideological tendencies; the state press, the liberal-wing press, and the left-wing press, the thesis explored the main frames of the war as well as the orientation of the newspapers toward Galtung’s competing war journalism and peace journalism frames.

The Construction of National Identity in the Bulgarian Press (translated working title) (February 1, 2013)

Dr. Gergana Baeva

Published with the following title: Nationale Identität als Medieninhalt. Theoretische Konzeption und empirische Messung am Beispiel Bulgariens. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

The Convergence of TV and Internet from a Production Perspective (June 28, 2019)

Ada Fehr (graduated)

The dissertation project aims to develop a systematic description of convergent forms of communication in TV and Internet from a theoretical as well as from an empirical perspective. Firstly, the issue whether and, if so, which new forms are developed by the convergence of TV and Internet (regarding technology and content). Secondly, some explanatory approaches for the (potential) development of these new formats will be explored. Finally, the systematization explored in the qualitative-explorative procedures of convergent forms of communication will be examined quantitatively.

TV as a Public Service. An Extended Content Analysis of the Compliance of Swiss TV Programs with Quality Standards laid down in Concession Law. (translated working title) (July 30, 2013)

Dr. Suzanne Lischer

Published with the following title: Fernsehen als Service public. Eine Analyse der Qualität der SRG-Fernsehprogramme. Heidelberg: Springer VS.

The Impact of Political Issues in Electoral Campaigns. An Interdisciplinary Model and an Empirical Multi-Level Analysis of Media Effects in the Electoral Campaign of the German Bundestag in 2009 (translated title) (November 27, 2015)

Dr. Sünje Paasch-Colberg

The main research questions of this dissertation project are concerned with indirect media effects on voting decisions, which will be explored from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. Based on an interdisciplinary literature review on mass media and elections, a theoretical model of relationships between media coverage, individual issue salience and voting decisions will be specified. In a secondary analysis of representative survey data and a content analysis of television news coverage during the German national electoral campaign in 2009, the developed theoretical model will be tested empirically.

Published with the following title: Die Bedeutung politischer Themen im Wahlkampf. Mediale Thematisierungswirkungen im Bundestagswahlkampf 2009. Springer VS: Wiesbaden.