National Contextual Influences on Mediatization: The Comparison of Science Decision Makers in Estonia and Germany

Abstract

The study investigates adaptations of organizations in the field of science to the requirements of mass media. Based on the current research, we assume that mediatization is advanced by the need of individual and collective actors for public attention and that this need varies depending on national structural factors. We compared Estonia and Germany where the science and media systems differ in their size and structure but have a similarly competitive funding environment. Our results demonstrate variability considering the intensity of reported implementations of media-related structural adaptations within organizations. These differences can be linked to country-specific structural factors.

Keywords

mediatization decision makers international comparison Estonia Germany science communication

Introduction

This article compares how decision makers in science perceive the mediatization of science organizations in Estonia and Germany and how they describe the influences and impacts of that process. In current (democratic) societies, public attention has become a relevant resource for actors in various social fields. Public attention is used to strengthen positions, to realize organizational goals, to influence decision making, or to secure their performance. What is more, public attention is a scarce resource (Franck, 1998), and it is safe to assume that developments in technology and media systems have increased the competition for public attention. In this setting, institutionalized mass media are especially relevant. The concept of mediatization therefore describes repercussions in various social fields, that are due to actors orienting toward the way mass media are generating public attention (Marcinkowski, 2014; Weingart, 2012).

The concept of mediatization allows for researching the long-term effects of increasing orientation toward public attention on the level of actions and structures. Classic public relations (PR) activities and the extension of PR structures and resources is an obvious example. The concept of mediatization, however, addresses developments far beyond the field of PR. Mediatization describes thorough changes of different organizational areas and structural contexts that are traditionally not related to PR as well as long-term effects of such changes. Changes in the course of mediatization might affect the constellation of actors (e.g., empowerment of marginal actors), structures of expectations (e.g., implementation of regulations that control access to media), and structures of interpretation (e.g., reputation management; see section “Mediatization”).

Our aim is to compare Estonia and Germany and to empirically investigate influences on mediatization processes. Why do actors adapt to media logic and why are some actors promoting mediatization while others try to slow down adaptations? The comparative approach also deals with a gap in mediatization research (Marcinkowski & Steiner, 2010; Meyen, 2009; Neuberger, 2013; Reinemann, 2010). In this case, the comparison between the mediatization of science in Estonia and in Germany offers the possibility to compare external contextual influences on mediatization and thereby identify driving forces of mediatization. While the countries provide a similar science funding environment, they differ in contextual aspects such as size and structural characteristics of the political and the scientific fields as well as the mass media (see section “National Science Systems in Germany and Estonia”).

In the best case, mediatization can help actors in science to reach their specific goals. In the worst-case scenario, mediatization may lead to heteronomy and might even endanger the functionality of the scientific field (cf. Marcinkowski & Kohring, 2014; Weingart, 2012). The latter case would also bear negative effects on society as a whole (e.g., loss of trust in scientific evidence, simplification and exaggeration of findings, neglect of basic research in favor of applied research that is promising intensive media coverage).

We argue that decision makers’ perceptions about the shape of media logic can be considered the point of reference for media-related structural adaptations (Nölleke & Scheu, 2018). The nature of these adaptations is also dependent on the contextual influences. Because of the differing sizes and characteristics of science and media structures, we assume that the fields of science in Estonia and Germany vary with respect to their need for public attention and, hence, the intensity of mediatization. Empirically, the study is based on 26 semistructured in-depth interviews with Estonian (7) and German (19) (Vice-)Presidents (and people in comparable positions) within universities, nonuniversity research institutes, and funding organizations.

Theory

Mediatization describes the “appropriation of media logics by institutions and cultural practices” (Lunt & Livingstone, 2016, p. 5). The concept of mediatization addresses structural adaptations on the micro-level of individuals, the meso-level of organizations, and the macro-level of social systems (Marcinkowski, 2014). Concerning our study, mediatization applies to individual decision makers, scientific organizations (e.g., universities), and the scientific field as a whole and manifests itself as the “institutionalization of new patterns of social interaction” (Hjarvard, 2014, p. 202). Differentiation theory suggests that structural adaptations essentially serve to increase the performance of actors/social systems or to fend off external influences (Scheu, Volpers, Summ, & Blöbaum, 2014). In order to do so, actors adapt to what they perceive as mass media logic (Nölleke & Scheu, 2018). The present study uses the term media logic as discussed by Altheide and Snow (1979; Altheide, 2013). Adaptations in the course of mediatization serve to improve access to publicity (Marcinkowski & Steiner, 2010), and it is the journalistic mass media that primarily manage public discourses and generate public attention (Kohring, 2004).

We assume that mediatization concerns both actions and structures, with both levels determining and enabling each other reciprocally (Bourdieu, 1987; Giddens, 2008; Schimank, 2010). On the level of actions, mediatization should lead to actors increasingly relying on journalistic mass media in order to observe and influence each other. Adaptations on the structural level enable actors to access services of journalistic mass media—that is, the service of providing public attention.

The level of structures can be divided analytically into constellations of actors, expectations, and interpretations (Schimank, 2007). In short, constellations of actors describe the relative positions of actors within the field, while structures of expectations consist of organizational structures, norms, roles, or institutions, and structures of interpretations integrate basic categories of perception and interpretation of social reality, as well as commonly accepted stocks of knowledge. The mediatization of science in Estonia and Germany can be investigated by considering this analytical differentiation. The mediatization of the constellations of actors regarding the field of science entails changes and shifts of the relative positions and power of relevant actors due to the logic of mass media publicity. Schulz (2006) found a shift in power in politics favoring prominent politicians and disadvantaging the party base. In the field of research policy, Scheu et al. (2014) found that decision makers perceive the empowerment of formerly rather irrelevant actors such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or student organizations that use media attention to influence decision-making processes (for a similar finding considering the media policy constellation, see Wendelin & Löblich, 2013). The current study investigates such shifts from the perspective of decision makers in science organizations in Estonia and Germany. With the mediatization of structures of expectations we refer to mass media–related changes involving formal and informal norms (e.g., the norm to inform the general public), regulations (e.g., the obligation to obtain approval to do interviews with journalists), roles (e.g., the integration of media skills in the job profiles of decision makers), programs (e.g., the integration of demands for scientific communication by research funding organizations), institutions (e.g., the popularization of scientific journals), or the structure of organizations (e.g., the extension of PR departments). Finally, the mediatization of structures of interpretations means that organizations and individual actors adapt their objectives, motives, practical knowledge (cognitive orientation), or judgmental criteria (evaluative orientation) to the operative logic of journalism.

In sum, this study investigates decision makers’ perceptions of the mediatization of science. We ask about perceived media logic, about the changing relevance of mass media–related actions within the scientific field, and about structural changes related to perceived media logic. In doing so, we consider the constellation of actors, structures of expectation, and structures of interpretation (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Analytical Categories.

Main categories	Subcategories
Perceived media logic	● Operative routines of news production: research, production, selection, presentation
	● Individual actors in the field of news production: expertise, education, political attitudes
	● Organizations in the field of news production: external influences, organizational structures, internal influences (editorial decision-making processes, working conditions, political bias), technological constraints
Relevance of media-related actions	● Mutual observation via news media
	● Self-representation via news media
	● Publicity as a resource
Structural adaptations	● Constellation of actors: positions, institutionalized relations
	● Structures of expectations: organizational structures, (in-)formal norms, regulations, roles, operative routines
	● Structures of interpretations: objectives, motives, cognitive and evaluative orientations, media as point of reference

Our aim is to identify commonalities and differences between the scientific organizations in Estonia and Germany. The questions that guide our research are the following:

Research Question 1: How do science decision makers in Estonia and in Germany perceive media logic?

Research Question 2: How do science decision makers in Estonia and in Germany perceive the role of mass media for their work?

Research Question 3: How do science decision makers in Estonia and in Germany perceive the intensity of the mediatization of science, including structural changes toward media logic within science?

Hereby, we assume that the national context influences the perception of media logic (Research Question 1) and of the role of mass media in the science constellation (Research Question 2) as well as the intensity of mediatization (Research Question 3). Both countries are characterized by intense competition between science organizations and uncertainty in the field of science due to the recent science policy developments. However, since the field of science (and media and political decision making) in Germany is larger than in Estonia, and therefore the mediation between the stakeholders provided by the mass media is more needed, we assume that the German decision makers reflect more thoroughly on the logic of the media, perceive a stronger need to accommodate to this logic, and also observe more intense adaptations within science and science organizations.

Research Design

Methodologically, we conducted semistructured in-depth interviews with Estonian (7) and German (19) (vice-)presidents (and people in comparable positions) within universities, nonuniversity research organizations, and funding organizations. We interviewed the respondents considering their roles as decision makers within organizations. The respondents can be regarded as experts on their organizations and organizational contexts; as experts, they provide data on organizational developments, structures, and structural changes (Blöbaum, Nölleke, & Scheu, 2016). Experts represent not their private views but perspectives that are typical for their professional contexts (Meuser & Nagel, 2009), and as such, they serve as empirical access to comparing organizational structural developments for this study.

We compared organizations in Estonia and Germany because the countries’ science, policy, and media systems differ in their size and structure but have similar competitive funding environments. This offers the possibility to compare contextual influences on mediatization. What is more, the idea to compare mediatization in Estonia and Germany originates from discussions between the authors of the study who have been researching mediatization of science in their respective countries. The joint publication was realized during an EU-funded exchange program.

The study relies on the data from a research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) gathered in 2012/2013 and additional interviews with Estonian science decision makers held in 2016. The Estonian study replicates the previous German study. This also leads to a 3-year time lag between the studies, which must be considered when comparing the findings. However, mediatization is a long-term process that can be considered to develop independently in both countries. What is more, the shared empirical concept of the studies allows for reflections of our subjects on long-term structural changes as well as general developments in science. We therefore argue that the results can be compared despite the disparate periods of data collection.

In order to provide comparable data for Estonia and Germany, we translated the relevant questions from the originally German interview guidelines and used them in the interviews with Estonian decision makers. The interview guidelines included questions considering the analytical categories summarized in Table 1. The interview guidelines contained open questions that serve to structure the interviews and provide comparability of our data. The openness of the questions¹ also served the explorative aims of our study (Meyen, Löblich, Pfaff-Rüdiger, & Riesmeyer, 2011). The interviews are available transcripts in German and Estonian. The interview guidelines have been adapted to every interviewee individually using information about the organizations and interviewees available online.

The interviewees (see Table 2) were selected in two steps. First, we identified the most relevant organizations within the scientific fields in Estonia and in Germany. Second, we contacted the decision makers within the identified organizations. The interviewees are experts of their organizations and the respective national field of science. At the same time, the selected decision makers are also subjects of mediatization, that is, they are individual actors that anticipate media logic and promote structural adaptations within their organizations.

Table 2.

Selection of Organizations and Interviewees.

	Estonia (7)	Germany (19)
Advisory boards	Academy of Sciences (1)	Council of Science and Humanities (1)
Funding	Head of the Estonian Research Council (1)	Heads of Departments of Federal Ministry of Education and Research (3), German Research Foundation (2), Volkswagenstiftung (2)
Universities	Presidents/vice-presidents of the University of Tartu (1), Tallinn University (1), Estonian University of Life Sciences (1), and Estonian Academy of Arts (1)	Presidents/vice-presidents of the Humboldt-University Berlin (1), the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main (1), the Georg-August-University Göttingen (1), the University of Hamburg (1), the Ilmenau University of Technology (1), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (1), the University of Köln (1), and the University of Münster (1)
Nonacademic research organizations	Director of the National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics (1)	Board members/directors of the Helmholtz-Centre Potsdam—GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (1), the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology (1), and the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology (1)

The most important organizations in the context of this study are universities, nonacademic research organizations, and disciplinary associations. Additionally, we interviewed decision makers within science-policy advisory boards. The selection criterion for particular organizations has been their relative importance within the field, for example, their potential influence to the constellation of science and science policy. We also included the major funding organizations since they actively shape the field of research. Recent developments in Estonia and Germany—such as an increasing dependency of all science organizations on competitive allocation procedures—further strengthen the position of funding organizations within the national constellations.

All the interviewees are decision makers within the organizational structures of the selected organizations: (vice-)presidents, (vice-)directors, heads of departments, and/or board members. Semistructured interviews were conducted between May 2012 and March 2013 in Germany and between January and February 2016 in Estonia. The interviews were held either by phone or in person, and on average, they took approximately 40 minutes. The interviews were recorded, filed as mp3 files, as well as transcribed and edited for clarity. The interviews were then coded thematically, using Atlas.ti (Gibbs, 2013) for the German data and manual coding for the Estonian data. The process of data analysis involved both a deductive aspect and an inductive aspect (Reichertz, 2014). We applied the deductive logic to identify relevant citations within interview transcripts according to our systematization of the concept of mediatization (see Table 1; Mayring, 2008; Schreier, 2014). In other words, we coded passages within the interviews using the analytical categories summarized in Table 1. This was done separately for both data sets by the respective researchers and has been checked and validated discursively during the whole research process. Afterwards, we inductively interpreted the relevant text passages, and further differentiated, complemented, or merged our categories. For this, the citations were translated into English and then interpreted and compared by both authors. As the qualitative coding was completed earlier for the German data, the coding of the Estonian data was preceded by a discussion to ensure similar understanding of key coding elements. Any questions were solved by intercoder discussions. The comparison and identification of commonalities and differences between science decision makers in Estonia and Germany was conducted on the level of individual decision makers. The data were interpreted discursively by the research team (Cornish, Gillespie, & Zittoun, 2014).

Results

The comparison of interviews shows that national structural factors indeed seem to influence mediatization—that is, adaptations of actions and structures of organizations due to the perceived relevance of public attention and news media. In short, while our data suggest that national peculiarities do not influence the decision makers’ evaluation of the relevance of mass media within their constellation, differences can be seen in the intensity of adaptations to media logic as well as in the assessment of these adaptations by the decision makers. Mass media is in both countries regarded as a resource to handle increased competition, to gain advantages over competing universities or research institutions, and to influence stakeholders from other social fields, most importantly politicians and policy makers. The decision makers in Germany and in Estonia assess similarly the rising relevance of mass media for their everyday work—for example, when considering the recruitment of new students or legitimizing costs vis-à-vis tax payers and politicians. At the same time, compared with the German respondents, the Estonian respondents report using media much less as a negotiation arena with other stakeholder groups, preferring direct contact. The Estonian respondents see the aim of mediatization in increasing both the public understanding of science and trust in science, and in supporting the positive image of organizations. Also, the German decision makers perceive potentially negative long-term effects of adaptations to media logic on the core processes of science organizations much more profoundly than their Estonian counterparts.

National Science Systems in Germany and Estonia

An obvious difference between Estonia and Germany is their size—Estonia is a relatively small nation (1.3 million inhabitants) compared with Germany (82 million inhabitants). Unsurprisingly, this is reflected in their science systems. In Estonia, research and development is conducted at universities in the two major cities: Tallinn and Tartu. Estonia has six public universities, the largest being the University of Tartu. In addition to the public universities, research is done in several small independent research institutions. Private research and development done by companies is not investigated in this article. In contrast, the German science and research system is much more diverse and decentralized. According to statistics by the Federal Statistical Office, since the winter term 2015/2016, there are 427² institutions of higher education spread all over Germany. This number includes 107 universities, 216 specialized colleges of higher education, and other colleges. Furthermore, research in Germany is characterized by strong and numerous nonacademic research institutions attached to the four big German nonacademic research organizations: Frauenhofer, Helmholtz Association, Leibniz Association, and Max Planck Society (Hohn, 2010). The field of research is further complemented by various departmental research organizations associated with political ministries (Knie & Simon, 2010).

Research funding in both countries is highly competitive. In Estonia, project-based funding has been estimated to account for approximately 80% of the total research funding (Raudla, Karo, Kattel, & Valdmaa, 2014) of which a significant part comes from various EU funds. The main national instruments of public research funding are managed by the Estonian Research Council, which introduced a new funding scheme in 2012. The reform reduced the number of issued grants and increased the average grant award. At the same time, the total funds allocated for public research funding did not increase and the proportion of research funding in GDP has been decreasing since 2011 (Koppel, Reimand, Raud, & Jaanson, 2016). This initiated a public discussion about the principles of science funding, including a joint public declaration by the Estonian Academy of Sciences, the Council of University Rectors, and the Estonian Science Foundation (see Villems, Kalm, & Koppel, 2014) and led to a series of policy decisions in 2015 and 2016 to address the issue.

In Germany, the DFG is the most important science funding organization for universities, accounting for about 30% of external funding, followed closely by industrial funding. About 20% of funding is contributed by federal institutions, most importantly by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and about 10% of university funds are raised from the EU (Hinze, 2010). In recent years, the financial situation of universities has become increasingly volatile, because the ratio of basic funds to third-party funding is shifting toward third-party funding (Hinze, 2010). Critics diagnose a chronical underfinancing of German universities (Knie & Simon, 2010). Moreover, the science systems in both countries have been and still are subject to reforms including the processes of standardization (keywords: Bologna Process, European Higher Education Area), the changeover to a Bachelor/Master structure, the implementation of (external) evaluation, and incentive funding (cf. Auranen & Nieminen, 2010; Schimank, 2005). Policy makers thereby intend to increase the efficiency, competitiveness, and relevance of scientific institutions.

Access to mass media, and therefore mediatization, should gain importance in competitive and volatile settings. Actors (organizations as well as individuals) in constellations that are highly competitive and/or are undergoing structural changes with open-ended effects on their organizations should feel a stronger urge to mediatize in order to get access to media publicity and influence the processes.

The Perception of Media Logic

The analysis of the interview transcripts suggests that the perception of media logic of our interviewees is above all characterized by commonalities. The respondents emphasize the crucial role of professional journalism for the generation of public attention and the reaching of relevant stakeholders in other social fields. This leads all our respondents to emphasizing the mechanics and characteristics of journalistic media outlets when reflecting on media logic.

When taking a closer look at the perceptions of media logic, it becomes clear that the respondents reflect on the operative routines of news media, in particular. To some extent, the respondents comment on aspects of research and production, but their focus lies on the processes of news selection and presentation. Above all, the respondents in both Germany and Estonia refer to news values such as negativity, conflict, competition, personalization, or controversy—“yellow” news, as characterized by several Estonian respondents. Such characteristics, in the perspective of our respondents, serve to increase public attention and influence the selection of issues. A university president in Germany states, “Journalists need drama; they have to tell a story.” This tendency also applies to the coverage of scientific research, and media seems to be interested in “man-bites-dog stories” (manager of research funding organization, Germany). A vice-president of an Estonian university adds the human-interest aspect:

[Media is interested in] positive events where we are dealing with something completely new. Then in things that humans have great interests in. This might not be a great scientific achievement but when it touches something that people care about—their pets, or nutrition or food, or our nature—then these things go really well. And from the negative side, all kinds of mishaps, scandals, discords and troubles get picked up really quickly. But a regular good working life is not possible to sell to journalists.

Further common criteria are simplicity, visualization, and the narrative potential. In the opinion of our interviewees, comprehensive and simplistic summaries, as well as visual material, increase the prospects for publication. The respondents agree that the journalistic selection criteria disfavor complex issues from the fields of research and research policy. Yet they feel that these complex issues are highly relevant and important to the broader public.

The interviewees observe similar trends concerning the presentation of information in the media. They feel that most media outlets scandalize issues, “Twisting everything around until it comes across as a sensation” (vice-president, disciplinary association, Germany) and are “hungry for gossip, shallow, looking for effect, click-baiting.” While no Estonian interviewee reports personal negative experiences such as their statements being twisted or misused, some of the German respondents also describe personal negative experiences.

The feeling that bias toward negative news values during selection processes is being intensified by certain routines of presentation featured more prominently among German respondents. In the respondents’ view, media professionals highlight negative aspects of their stories, simplify some issues, and exaggerate others. The examples include media outlets contriving protagonists and antagonists, exaggerating conflicts, and dramatizing decision-making processes in order to raise the narrative potential of their stories.

When considering research and production, the respondents observe acceleration within media production processes:

Time pressure leads to problems. Research intensity—particularly in online journalism—has decreased dramatically. The result is that articles get published that otherwise, taking quality as a benchmark, should never have been printed. (President, departmental research organization, Germany)

This entails the assessment that journalists—now more often than in the past—are forced to choose the path of the least resistance when working on an issue. “Sometimes the journalists have not done any background research, presenting just one person’s story” (vice-president, university, Estonia). In the eyes of our interviewees, journalists increasingly tend to look for information that confirms their positions, consult with experts that are easily accessible, and use easily available research tools. The respondents adapt to this situation in order to compensate for the perceived loss of quality. An often-mentioned strategy is cultivating personal contacts with the media professionals whom they can trust, as a university president stated. In Estonia, such relationships enable decision makers in science to evade the problems they associate with the news selection. “Personally, I have three publications that, it seems, would unconditionally accept anything from me,” an Estonian university vice-president says. One of his colleagues says, “I think that every institute [in our university] has one domesticated journalist that they can turn to when they have a story.” These personal contacts allow the actors in science to ignore the tabloidization trends they perceive to dominate in the mainstream media. They work with “professional” and “competent” specialist journalists (such as opinion editors, science or cultural editors) and perceive less the need to adapt to media logic. Hence, the media interaction patterns in Estonia seem stable, whereas the German actors also perceive changes:

Today, you don’t cooperate with the same journalist over ten years anymore. Every two, three months you have to work with a new freelance journalist to whom you have to explain everything from the start. This means way more effort than before. (University president, Germany)

In sum, decision makers in science highlight the negative aspects of media logic. They seem to be disappointed about media hunting clicks, citing inadequate experts, simplifying scientific findings, and distorting information. A German university president summarizes her perspective: “They simply cut facts and report the facts wrong. This happens a lot.” In Estonia, however, these processes are perceived not to affect the immediate interaction between media and research institutions. The respondents in Estonia perceive there is a section of media that remains little affected by the tabloidization trends. This allows the Estonian scientific actors to access the public via media without accommodating to the negative news selection and presentation criteria.

The Role of Media Publicity

All the interviewees agree that science and science policy issues gain importance, and they regard media publicity, that is, public visibility achieved through media presence, as a valuable resource for their everyday work. The decision makers in science organizations use media publicity in order to observe and influence each other. In this respect, the decision makers’ self-reports correspond with the observations of science journalists (Knoop, 2013). Science journalists report increasing demands for science and science policy issues and argue that news media reports may have a (limited) impact on science policy decision making (Knoop, 2013).

Regarding the potential influence of news media reports within the science policy constellation, our respondents are relatively optimistic. They argue that by influencing the media agenda, it is possible to set issues on the science policy agenda—especially when gaining access to national quality media:

I believe our politicians are to a large extent influenced by large daily newspapers . . . they mostly react to what is currently on the media agenda. (President of science funding organization, Estonia)

When information about debates and proposals keeps coming, this puts a certain pressure on the government and the parliament, so they know that this is something they have to deal with. (University vice-president, Estonia)

Some issues are pushed by the media, and politicians then have to act accordingly. (University president, Germany)

The science policy decision makers thus attach importance to media publicity within the science and science policy constellation. The reports of the interviewees suggest that the decision makers consciously acknowledge their own role within this constellation and analyze how the other stakeholders play theirs.

The Estonian and German respondents reflected on the ongoing science funding debates and discussed media’s influence on the involved stakeholders. In summary, they see four functions for media publicity: a direct influence on decisions, the agenda setting, the public forum, and the cultivation of a positive image. Of these four functions, they perceive the direct influence to be the least common. However, there are differences between the actors from the two countries. While some German science decision makers indeed claim that they are able to use mass media to influence decisions and provide examples of past decisions that they have influenced, according to an Estonian director of a research institute, there is an “unwritten rule” that science policy is not made via media. The Estonian actors have access to the processes of decision making in science policy on the national level, and they argue that they primarily try to influence decisions via direct contacts. Therefore, the role of media in observing other actors also becomes less relevant compared with Germany. Media, however, is sometimes reported in Estonia to strengthen one’s own negotiation position: “When [some messages] are transmitted only directly and personally, they do not have the same power as when they enter the public debate” (vice-president, University, Estonia).

Very similarly to the German respondents, the Estonian respondents describe as one of the main functions of media presence the cultivation of a positive image for the institution and for science in general. A flow of positive messages is believed to shape the public sentiment and influence decisions:

All these [news items] generate a positive image [of the university] that helps funding decisions, creates a positive background for the parliament as the political decision-making body. (University president, Estonia)

Besides the political decision makers who control the general level of science funding, the target groups of the respondents in both countries include the general public (“We must convince the general public that science actually matters”—president of science funding organization, Estonia) and potential students (“When we want to have students, our university needs to be constantly visible”—university vice-president, Estonia). While the interviewees cannot give any specific examples of where such media presence has had an influence, they believe that media’s impact is high.

Sometimes public visibility is even perceived as an existential matter in both countries:

I believe that if our university would not be in the media, we would very soon cease to exist as a university. (University vice-president, Estonia)

And today it is a fact that if you don’t appear [in the media], you don’t exist at all. (University president, Germany)

Therefore, it does not seem surprising that all the respondents develop strategies in order to use media publicity to their own advantage. They plan their communication activities in respect of journalism and mass media. Thus, on the one hand, the science decision makers have trust in conventional PR, conducted via institutional PR professionals. They emphasize the importance of being constantly visible through PR messages. On the other hand, respondents also stress the relevance of direct contacts with media professionals. The interviewees describe that cultivating relationships with journalists is of utmost importance.

You have to initiate interviews with certain people you know. By interviews or other reports these journalists publish, you try to influence the representation of issues in the way that you want them to be represented. However, this is only possible by cultivating relationships to journalists—journalists, you know and appreciate. (University president, Germany)

These direct contacts also help the science policy decision makers to achieve what they perceive as the silver bullets to influence science policy decision making—guest editorials, comments, and interviews:

We have had a couple of instances when we need to have a certain message published to gain a better position in negotiation with the minister. . . . The [newspaper] editors have agreed to publish it because they sense it is necessary. (President of Academy of Sciences, Estonia)

A university president in Germany also claims that in pushing certain research topics, journalists are influencing science funding organizations. The examples that our respondents list in this context are electro mobility, energy turnaround, or nanotechnology. The influence, however, can also be negative. The managing director of a German nonacademic research organization in the field of life sciences exemplifies such an influence: Issues like “the dioxin-scandal in Germany, fish stocks infested by worms or BSE,” and the way the media report on such issues leads to “science policy representing a cautious position toward funding research in these areas.” The media publicity of these (and other) topics would influence political decisions and science funding. While politicians and science journalists acknowledge this form of media effects on science funding (cf. Knoop, 2013; Scheu et al., 2014), the interviewees representing science funding organizations neglect such influences.

In sum, the importance of journalism within the constellation is increasing—similarly to its increasing in other social fields (Marcinkowski & Steiner, 2010). The respondents claim that “networking within the press sector” (university vice-president, Germany) is very important, especially for people at higher levels of the hierarchy. Journalists are considered “critical, benevolent, investigative and educational companions” (university vice-president, Germany) of research policy processes as well as partners who can help advance one’s aims and objectives. Therefore, the decision makers interviewed in the context of this study regard mass media and media publicity as an important resource in the constellation of science and science policy. They develop strategies in order to benefit from this resource.

The observed differences between Estonian and German actors can mainly be observed when considering the functions of publicity. Both see agenda setting and strengthening their position in negotiations as important goals achieved via media interactions. However, in Estonia the role of media as a tool to directly influence and observe other actors is less used. This is mostly due to the “small Estonia effect” (President of Academy of Sciences, Estonia) that enables direct access to other stakeholders. As a result, the Estonian respondents put more emphasis on indirect influences via the cultivation of a positive image.

Mediatization

Mediatization is described as a conscious process that, from the perspective of science decision makers, serves to increase the influence of science in negotiations with political stakeholders (see also Spörer-Wagner & Marcinkowski, 2010). As such, mediatization yields advantages over competitors and enables science decision makers to indirectly influence decision-making processes. These results overlap with PR research. In fact, what we describe as mediatization can often be related to PR activities as well as PR structures and resources. Nevertheless, our results suggest that it is important to differentiate between PR and mediatization. As we will show below, media orientation is thoroughly influencing the structural context of science organizations. Classic PR strategies and the extension of PR departments are just one aspect of mediatization. What is more, the course of mediatization changes organizational areas and structural contexts that are traditionally not related to PR. For example, professional roles of decision makers within organizations adapt to media demands and now include tasks and competences related to PR. The decision makers in Estonia and Germany perceive adaptations considering the constellation of actors, the structures of expectations, as well as the structures of interpretation. It means that they attribute the influence of news media to the observed changes of the relative positions of actors, in the structures of organizations and the cognitive and evaluative orientations, or—to put it more clearly—to the need for publicity of organizations within the field of science.

The Mediatization of the Constellation of Actors

With regard to the constellation of actors within the field of science in Estonia and Germany, the respondents observe a slight shift in the positions of actors within the constellation. Even though the “classic” organizations are still being regarded as the most relevant players in the field, the mediatization of the constellation of actors primarily demonstrates that journalists and mass media outlets within the constellation are gaining importance.

The science decision makers—who traditionally are relatively dependent on political stakeholders—report that adaptations to media logic help enhance their position within the science policy constellation. This can take place not only on the level of single organizations but also in cooperation with several actors within the field, as the Estonian example reveals. “For several major issues [the universities] have made joint declarations that end up in the media,” an Estonian university vice-president says. One of her colleagues suggests that a joint declaration by university presidents “got things moving” in the field of natural resources management. Similar statements are also provided by the German respondents.

Besides scientific organizations, other and especially rather marginal actors within the constellation are also perceived to benefit from mediatization, for example, NGOs, religious groups, or student organizations. In this context, the president of a German departmental research organization is not happy that instead of his organization, “an NGO with relatively few experts, who don’t have the best reputation, gets cited one-to-one,” and is thus able to influence public discourse and policy. “Loud stakeholders outbalance facts,” as the president of the Estonian Academy of Sciences says.

Regarding the constellation of actors, it seems that less powerful and previously less influential actors particularly profit from mediatization and are thus able to improve their position within the constellation.

The Mediatization of the Structures of Expectations

Mediatization from the viewpoint of our respondents concerns above all adaptations regarding the structures of expectations. Thus, interviewees claim that the ability to handle journalism and the media has become part of the role of the decision makers in science (see also Peters, Heinrichs, Jung, Kallfass, & Petersen, 2008). Such a view suggests that the respondents perceive an increase in the normative value of communicating science to the public and that they acknowledge this as part of the university’s “third pillar” of serving the society (university vice-president, Estonia). Accordingly, scientists are now far more eager “to get their points across” (university president, Germany) and are better equipped for media interaction.

By now, probably associated with a generation shift, we observe more and more conscious efforts from within the university to address the city, the state and the people. (University vice-president, Germany)

Regarding the adaptations of organizational structures, the interviewees report a professionalization of media relations connected to the extension of PR departments. However, the adaptations affect organizational structures more generally and also concerns the internal differentiation of organizations to help journalists quickly identify relevant experts within the organization in times of high media attention—when science-related public discourses occur (e.g., nanotechnology, the Arab spring, refugees) or even in cases of disasters such as earthquakes (see also Rödder & Schäfer, 2010). For example, the manager of a nonacademic research organization in Germany reports on the efforts to establish internal fields of competence, and Estonian universities have established a “list of spokespeople.”

Mediatization also concerns internal workflows. The decision makers report that their organizations have established communication processes in order to “meet journalists halfway”—anticipating the demands of news media summarized in section “The Perception of Media Logic.” This includes, for example, the simplification of complex issues and the production of clear, exciting, personalized, and visualized messages:

Within our realms of possibility, we try everything to break down abstract and difficult [science policy] topics and to prepare and edit them for public reception (Member of German Council of Science and Humanities).

The respondents observe such adaptations regarding the way their organizations and they themselves communicate to the public. The perceived media logic (see section “The Perception of Media Logic”) not only serves as point of reference while dealing with professional journalism but also when communicating via websites, social network sites, Twitter, or blogs. The skills required for such communication are seen to be relevant on all levels of the organization, according to the Estonian respondents. For example, one university is considering introducing a career path that would allow employees to move from science to science communication, while another organization aims to equip specialist employees with communication skills:

My dream is that at least all our heads of departments, and in the future, all senior specialists would be people with the qualification and capabilities to write generally understandable articles about their specialist subject. (Head of science funding organization, Estonia).

Another aspect of the mediatization of the structures of expectations lies in the establishment of formal and informal rules:

I think every university would be well advised to establish an “information policy” or a communications strategy. I believe this is crucial, there just have to be some basic rules [considering media relations]. (University vice-president, Germany)

Such rules mostly aim at minimizing the negative effects of media coverage. The respondents do not want to “get caught in a trap set by professional journalists” (university vice-president, Germany) and have prepared “quick scenarios of how to behave” (university vice-president, Estonia). The respondents think that it is important that there are rules about who talks to the press. You have to prevent “everyone at once turning to the media” and instead ensure “that media activities are properly coordinated” (university president, Germany).

The interviewees also observe the limits of mediatization. Structural adaptations—as reported by the interviewees—only complement, extend, or protect the native functionality of organizations (see also Marcinkowski, 2005). The decision makers in science organizations claim that adaptations barely affect research; for science funding, decision makers state that funding decisions are not significantly affected by mediatization. However, a German example describes the adaptations of funding procedures:

New funding programs can either be unimpressive or have a mobilization effect that is reflected in the mass media. . . . The “Exzellenzinitiative” [competitive national funding program in Germany] is reported in ordinary newspapers because it is connected to the idea of regional competition. . . . It triggers a kind of localism when different regions in Germany compete with each other.

The citation above refers to a conscious dramatization of allocation processes in accordance with the perception of media logic.

The Mediatization of the Structures of Interpretations

In this category, adaptations mostly concern cognitive orientations. The background knowledge about journalism is becoming increasingly important for science decision makers. In order to extend their knowledge, decision makers obtain information from scientific experts, ask internal media experts for advice, and organize practical media trainings and further education programs for executives and staff.

Adaptations of evaluative orientations are often linked to negative consequences (see Weingart, 2006). The respondents in this study, however, offer only little cause for contemplating such negative consequences. While the decision makers in funding organizations report that positive media coverage of funded research projects is regarded as an indicator of success, they also claim that this criterion is far less important for subsequent funding than other factors: “Even though some people might be able to convince the media that bad research is in fact good, it remains bad. And we don’t fund bad research” (head of department of a funding organization, Germany). A member of the German Council of Science and Humanities confirms that “quality management is vital.” The quality of science, from the perspective of our respondents, is still proven by scientific publications in highly ranked journals and not by media publicity.

However, it seems arguable whether such self-reports by the science decision makers are a valid instrument to investigate in-depth processes of mediatization concerning the structures of interpretations. It seems unlikely that decision makers will admit that they themselves or their organizations transform their core processes, motivations, and the main points of references—that is, their own operational logic—toward media logic. This doubt is backed by the fact that we found a third person effect regarding the decision makers’ assessment of structural adaptations. The science decision makers describe far-reaching adaptations to media logic when talking about other actors, especially political actors. They also attribute to other actors or stakeholders mediatized actions such as “media campaigns” (university vice-president, Estonia) attempting to directly influence decision making, whereas one’s own activities are rather described as having an influence via creating a favorable public background for science in general. However, the respondents strongly believe in the agenda-setting function of mass media: “Some issues are pushed by the media and politicians then have to act accordingly” (university president, Germany). Thus, politicians will start addressing problems related to science funding (Estonia) or shift the focuses of science funding. This finding is confirmed by a quantitative survey of decision makers at German universities (Marcinkowski, Kohring, Friedrichsmeier, & Fürst, 2013).

Potentially dysfunctional adaptations are observed by the science decision makers in Germany but hardly in Estonia. For example, a German university president complains that funding organizations do not necessarily support the most promising projects, but rather “put their money into ‘sexy’ [projects]. A fundamental question that arises is whether the appropriate incentives are in place.” Examples of dysfunctional aspects can also be identified for universities and nonacademic research. According to the respondents, some scientists are also “black sheep” (university vice-president, Germany): they adjust their research far too much to the demands of mass media in order to get funding. The vice-president of a German university fears that “this trend rubs off on the field of science, leading to scientists trying to make their work look increasingly spectacular.”

In Estonia, the respondents strongly focused on the positive aspects of mediatization and did not identify any major negative impacts that the adaptation processes might have on the organizations or science in general, other than “becoming just another entertainer among many others” (President of the Estonian Academy of Sciences).

Discussion

The concept of mediatization relates to long-term effects of increasing orientation toward public attention in different social fields and concerning various types of actors. The concept sheds light on changes considering the level of actions (e.g., role of media attention to influence decision making) well as structures (e.g., regulations, changing demands of professional roles, extension of PR departments). One important benefit of the concept therefore is that it allows for a broad perspective on mass media–related social change and offers a theoretical framework that enables interpretation of interrelations that usually are being discussed separately in communication studies.

This is one of the first studies to look comparatively at the intensity of mediatization in the field of science, and it offers a framework for further comparisons. We demonstrate in our study that the intensity of mediatization varies between countries and that those differences, in case of science decision makers, can be related to the characteristics of the national science policy constellation, and more generally, also to the characteristics of the science, policy, and media systems.

We consider the science policy fields both in Estonia and Germany as mediatized, indicated by the science decision makers’ perception of media’s importance and its growing role in the constellation of science policy actors. The interviews in both countries demonstrate that science decision makers consider the intensely competitive research environment as the driving factor for media-related adaptations in research institutions. Those adaptions seek to exploit and expand the visibility provided by media and help explain the widening use of PR practices in the institutions as well as deeper visibility-related changes in professional roles and institutional structures.

Some of the differences between Germany and Estonia can be explained by the characteristics of the respective media structures. The German respondents refer to problems and risks relating to changes in the organizational structure of media houses (such as commercialization, increased competition, or the frequent use of freelancers). Both German and Estonian decision makers see media preferring negative news criteria such as scandals. However, the Estonian respondents have a much stronger sense of their communication being, to some extent, immune to these negative trends. The respondents from both countries report taking advantage of the specialist media and specialist journalists within general media to achieve visibility and reach relevant groups in science policy matters. In Estonia, these journalists seem to be more accessible to the science decision makers and decrease the need to adjust to “tabloid-press” trends; in Germany, decision makers perceive the need to carefully cultivate contacts with journalists over time.

Another contextual factor emerging from the interviews is the level of “entanglement” (university vice-president, Estonia) of science and society. Because of the differences in the population sizes, the Estonian stakeholders are much closer to each other than those in Germany. It is likely that the Estonian decision makers in the fields of science, policy, and media personally know each other or are easily accessible for direct contact. This changes the functions of media for them. When direct contacts are preferred, it becomes less relevant to observe other actors or to negotiate with them: The Estonian respondents see media rather as a tool to indirectly influence other societal actors via a steady stream of positive media messages.

This is a notable difference between the two countries when considering the intensity of mediatization. The universities and research institutions in both countries have undergone organizational changes in the form of expanding and strengthening the institution’s PR offices. The German interviewees, however, perceive the impact of mediatization going much deeper into the scientific institutions with potentially dysfunctional consequences, for example, adaptations of research funding priorities to media logic. Whereas the German respondents reflect on the impacts of mediatization on the autonomy of scientific institutions, the ease of access to media that some Estonian respondents report would rather raise the question about the autonomy of journalism.

The interviewees indicate that the dysfunctional transformations within their own institution are prevented by the institutionalization of processes, adaptations of the structures of expectations, and the extension of knowledge of mass media. Various regulations, the transformation of the organizational roles of the decision makers, the extension of PR departments, and other adaptations serve individual actors (Peters et al., 2013) to increase the positive potentials and to minimize the negative potentials of media publicity (Peters, Brossard, et al., 2008) as well as to immunize the core processes of organizations against external influences.

Our results indicate that country-specific structural factors must be considered when analyzing mediatization. As we assumed, the differences between the respective science systems help understand differences concerning decision makers’ perceptions of media logic, their implementation of mass media in their everyday work, and the processes of mediatization. Moreover, differences regarding the respective media systems as well as the national science policy constellations must be considered. While the forces guiding the mediatization processes in various countries or societal fields can be similar, the specific characteristics and impacts of these processes are influenced by country-specific structural factors. Comparative studies are able to cast light on the variables and universalities of mediatization processes.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The study relies on the data from a research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF); grant number: 01UZ1006. The research received support by the European Social Fund in the framework of the DoRa programme, carried out by Archimedes Foundation.

Notes

ORCID iD

Arko Olesk

Author Biographies

Andreas M. Scheu studied communication studies, sociology, and philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. After finishing his PhD on the history of theories of communication studies, he started a postdoctoral position at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University of Münster, where he currently leads a research project funded by the German Research Foundation about mediatization of organizations. His research interests include mediatization, science communication, and qualitative methodology.

Arko Olesk worked as a science journalist in Estonia’s leading publications and received an MSc in science communication from Imperial College London. Since 2013, he is teaching science communication in Tallinn University, where his PhD project focusses on the mediatization of scientists. His other research interests include environmental communication and innovation communication.

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