Country report Germany : the media system as a brake on journalistic innovation development

Kurzfassung/Abstract

The German media system puts journalistic innovation on hold. Due to the loyal readership/user base of newspapers and private broadcasting, as well as steady funding of public broadcasting, media companies do not exhaust their innovation potential. Nevertheless, media companies are forward-looking and are beginning to innovate their newsrooms with a wide variety of projects. The chapter gives an overview of the journalistic innovation framework in Germany, which shall help to contextualize the results of the project Journalism Innovation in Democratic Societies (JoIn-DemoS). In the following, a short historical summary explains the most important milestones of German media history; describes the prevailing media system, including transformation processes; and provides insight into German media usage.