The Media In Germany
Ryan Krebs
ENGL 191 sec.21
12/15/09
The media system in Germany has seen many different systems. In the former East Germany, the government tightly controlled the media but in the former West Germany the media was independent and free of censorship. The media system in Germany today was set up after world war two by the four-allied powers5. There were different ideas on how to set up the system but in the end the three western allies all had the same idea of a media system independent of the government. “Article 5 of the Basic Law expresses how the Constitution interprets the freedom of the press: “Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. There shall be no censorship.”’ Today the media in German is made up of four main industries, which include the newspaper, the Internet, the radio, and the television.
The newspaper in Germany is enjoyed by millions of people everyday. Germany has one of the highest number of newspaper readers in Europe. According to BBC News 305 newspapers are sold daily for every 1,000 inhabitants1. All newspapers in Germany are privately own. Most Germans get their news from local or regional newspapers. After German reunification the print media saw major changes. The most popular newspaper in East Germany was circulating 1 million copies at its peak but by 1991 that figure had drop to just 100,000 copies2. Today the Bild Zeitung is Germanys number one circulated newspaper with about 5 million copies circulating daily2. Newspapers are not only limited to print form in Germany. Most newspapers offer a website where readers can read their favorite paper online. This may be one of the causes of declining circulation in Germany. According to the World Organization of Newspapers, Germany has seen a 9.35% decline in circulation from 2002-2006 and a 2.1% loss in the year 2006 alone10. In comparison to the United States circulation feel 5.18% from 2002 to 2006 and a loss of 1.9% in the year 2006 alone10. Overall since German reunification readership in Germany has been steadily declining.
The Internet is the fastest growing media industry in Germany. From the years 2000 to 2007 Germany has gone from 24 million Internet users to just over 50 million users7. That’s over a 30 percent increase in just eight years. Compared to the United States, Germany has a similar percentage of its overall population using the Internet. In 2007, the United States had 70.2% of its population using the Internet compared with 61.1% of the German population6. Although the media in Germany is separate form the government, the government still has the power to censor what it feels is wrong. For example, on June 18, 2009, the German government started to censor child pornography on the internet11. Another form of censorship occurred in the mid-1990’s when Germany blocked certain sites that contain things that were banned in Germany, particularly websites that contained race hate propaganda. But this has also caused problems due to the high amount of websites out there, this was very hard to do. In July 2000, Reuters reported that, "Germany, which has some of the world's toughest laws banning race hate propaganda, has conceded defeat to the cross-border reach of the Internet and given up trying to bar access to foreign-based neo-Nazi sites. Deputy Interior Minister Brigitte Zypries, the government's Internet security chief, said this week in an interview with Reuters that it was unrealistic to try to shield Germans from foreign Web sites, even though police do aim to stop homegrown Nazi and other offensive material, such as child pornography4." In the United States it is very hard to block websites due to legal issues and the first amendment. Only those websites based in America that are doing something illegal may be shut down. A few examples of websites that could be shut down would be child pornography sites and sites that show pirated movies on them. Schools, libraries, and other business have taken censorship into their own hands in the United States by installing software that blocks certain sites, but this also has its flaws because of all the content that is out there on the web it is virtually impossible to catch everything.
Radio first appeared in Germany in the 1920’s and were there as a form of public network institutions12. The radio in Germany was also highly influenced by the allied powers at the end of the war. Initially after the war the allied powers wanted to ban all radio broadcasting stations that were ran by German organizations5. After several disagreements a public radio station was established and was modeled after that of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)8. By the mid-1950’s the public radio system was starting to take shape. At the time it consisted of eight radio stations12. Today there are about 460 radio stations in Germany. Of those 460 stations, 75 are public and 385 are private12. There are several main differences between the public and private stations. First of all, public stations receive funding from the government whereas private stations receive their money through advertisements. Another big difference between the two is that public input is very low in the private sector compared to the public sector. In order to broadcast in Germany a new station must get a license to do so. A license is issued through the Landesmedienanstalten (State Media Authorities)9. Up until 1986 there were no private stations in Germany9. This is because the German government always denied any requests for a license and said, “that due to the rather poor technological pre-requisites of analogue distribution channels and the corollary (the impossibility to have frequencies in abundance) an economically oriented broadcasting system would threaten the freedom of speech. Therefore,
only a pluralistic and financially independent broadcasting system could
provide sufficient freedom of speech9.” It was with the development of fiber optic cables that made the previous statement no longer valid and eliminated the German governments only legitimate reason for blocking private stations. Web-radio is also growing fast in Germany. Six to seven percent of the Internet users in Germany use Internet radio. However, that is quit low compared to the United States where 16 percent of Internet users listen to web-radio9. The most popular web-radio station in Germany is DasWebRadio.de, and has a monthly audience of 510,000 listeners9.
Television in Germany used to be limited to only three channels. That was only until the year 1987. Prior to 1987 the only channel choices were public channels. Today many more channels can be seen thanks to the emergence of cable and satellite. About 30 percent of German households receive television via satellite12. Households receiving television through cable, account for 58 percent of households12. Leaving 12 percent of households getting television through an antenna. As of 2004, about 98% of households in Germany had at least one television12. Each German household that has a television is required to pay a fee of $21 a month3. That accounts for $7 billion a year that funds the German public broadcast system, which is the largest one in Europe3. That money goes to the 22 public television channels available in Germany today3. These public television channels broadcast mostly things like regional news, cultural coverage, and educational programming. There is no censorship on broadcasting in Germany, people are free to express what ever they want with the exception of hate-propaganda.
Overall Germany has a very free media system. In 1999 Germany received the highest ranking for freedom of the press from The Freedom House Survey of Freedom of the Press2. Germans love their sources of media and show their continued use of these resources from day to day. The media is forever changing and Germans are grasping on to this by taking on the Internet with increasing usage across the country that is continually growing.
Bibliography
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2Benfield, Richard. Germany. http://www.pressreference.com/Fa-Gu/Germany.html (accessed December 12, 2009).
3Business Week. Germany's Very Public Battle Over Public TV. December 6, 2004. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/cintent/04_49/b3911069_mz054.htm (accessed December 12, 2009).
4Electronic Frontiers Australia. Internet Censorship. http://www.efa.org.au/issues/censor/cens3.html#ger (accessed December 12, 2009).
5Gunther, Richard, and Anthony Mughan. Democracy and the Media. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2000.
6Internet World Stats. "Usage and Population Statistics." Internet World Stats. 2007. http://www.internetworldstats.com/am/us.htm (accessed December 12, 2009).
—. Usage and Population Statistics. 2007. 7http://www.internetworldstats.com/eu/de.htm (accessed December 12, 2009).
8Johnston, Carla. Global News Access. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1998.
9Muhlenfeld, Hans-Ullrich. "European Journal of Communication." 2002. http://ejc.sagepub.com.libproxy.stcloudstate.edu/cgi/reprint/17/1/103 (accessed December 12, 2009).
10World Association of Newspapers. World Press Trends. June 4, 2007. http://www.wan-press.org/arcticle14361.html (accessed December 12, 2009).
11Bundesministerium fur Wirtschaft und Technologie. Kabinett beschlibt Netzsperren gegen Kinderpornos. April 22, 2009. http://www.bmwi.de/bmvi/navigation/presse/pressemitteilungen,did=298564.html (accessed December 12, 2009).
12Facts about Germany. Culture and Media. 2009. http://www.tatsachen-ueber-deutschland.de/en/culture-and-media-content-09/broadcasting.html (accessed December 12, 12).
