Volume 73 (2025), Edition 2

Media structures—understood as organizations, institutions, and systems—not only shape the behavior of actors but are also maintained or transformed by those actors’ behavior. This theoretical premise positions media structure research as a...

Using Germany as a case study, this article discusses which labor law instruments could help ensure and maintain media diversity with regard to journalistic creators on online platforms, within the context of a platformized public sphere. This...

In Media and Communication Studies, media structures are often portrayed as being in opposition to individual action. While various theoretical frameworks attempt to bridge these levels, empirical research has yet to clarify how and when the...

The dissolution of the separation between advertising and journalistic content—in the form of sponsored content—has gained significance in the context of online media. Sponsored content refers to contributions from external, non-journalistic...

Providing people with reliable information so that they can form their own opinions, offering them a forum for discussing issues of societal concern, and critically scrutinizing those in power: these are the features that make journalism...

News media in many Western countries face significant challenges due to declining interest in news, decreasing media trust, and audiences’ stagnant willingness to pay for news. It remains an open question whether a different, still relatively...

This interdisciplinary contribution focuses on the identification, systematization, and critical discussion of measures to counter (visual) hate in online environments. The study follows a two-stage approach: first, it synthesizes empirical insights...

The analytical model presented in this paper aims to clarify how national legal and regulatory frameworks in EU Member States create or strengthen media system structures that enable the exercise of democratically relevant media functions. It is...