Participants' Reports
Alumni Conference: Common Global Responsibility
Georgetown University, Washington, DC
November 6-9, 2003

Working Group Three: Politics and Media
Hosted by Goethe-Institut Washington
Chair: William Gilcher


The working group had the following activities:
Keynote speechby Rüdiger Lentz, Deutsche Welle
Followed by four sessions with seven presentations (plus remarks from discussants)
“Germany, the US, and the Iraq War: Using Media to foster Understanding or to reinforce Division?” (2 sessions)
“Using and Mis-using the Media: Media and [Mis/]Communication?” (2 sessions)

Notes from Sessions 1 and 2:

One of the underlying problems is a cultural/social issue and involves totally different attitudes toward religion and secularism on the 2 sides of the Atlantic. A lack of understanding of the differing cultural attitudes affected the reporting on both sides and increased the depth of the rift between the US and Germany/Europe.

Rüdiger Lentz and others noted the different language used in the reporting of the Iraq war. The US reporting was marked by a war-related vocabulary; the European reporting by a peace-related vocabulary. TV coverage of the conflict could be characterized as being of 2 different wars—with both kinds of coverage incomplete.

On the issues of religion, one presenter (Brent Goff) noted that there is more in common (in terms of attitudes toward the importance of religion) between Evangelical American Christians and German Turks than there is between Americans and Germans in general.

Another presenter (Carolin Brinkmann) talked about the metaphor systems used in reporting and argued that the public use of dualistic metaphors like the “Axis of Evil” is dangerous and to be avoided. The speaker argued for a boycott of the armament of language and suggested that the metaphors used by politicians be interpreted and analyzed by the media. This is a responsibility of journalists and others involved in media on both sides of the Atlantic—part of the responsibility to interpret “the other.”

There is a clear correlation between attitudes toward the Iraq War and the sources of people’s news. News sources made a difference in public perceptions and misperceptions about the war and continue to do so.

“Germany, the US, and the Iraq War—using Media to Foster Understanding or to Reinforce Divisions?”

Summary of Sessions 2 and 3 moderated by Daniel Scheschkewitz, Deutsche Welle, and Birgit Becker, Troisdorf:

The transatlantic rift existed not only in the political sphere; the media have also contributed to the deepening of the rift.


We found that the media played a decisive role in reinforcing the division. In both countries the reporting was largely influenced by the prevailing mood in the public and in the political world. Whereas in the US media the war was by and large seen through the patriotic lens and viewed as a heroic struggle of patriots against an oppressive regime, the German media reporting was tinged with anti-American sentiment and general opposition to the war. While the US media concentrated their coverage mainly on real-time reporting on the soldier’s march to Baghdad, the German media focused more on the victims of the war, casualties and the allegedly inhumane conduct of the war (cluster bombs , etc.) by the US. This created two completely different pictures of the war in the two countries. This might also have been affected by different traditions and approaches to news-reporting in the two countries: whereas American journalists are supposed to report first the facts, German journalism is characterized by the inclusion of opinion from the beginning. We were made aware of the fact that very often news content and opinion are not as strictly separated as they should be. This may also in part explain the strong anti-war slant in parts of the German media. There was also a strong feeling among participants that in both countries journalists tried to cover the war in ways that suited the public (“news is what sells”).


Recommendations:

We need a deeper understanding of the ways in which media organizations in both countries work. Hardly anyone among the German participants knew about “ Fox TV” even though their ratings were the highest in the US during the war. Hardly anyone among the American participants knew exactly about the dual nature of the German TV market. More exchange programs for journalists would be useful. Also, many participants felt they needed to develop a better sense about the mutual reinforcement of public opinion and media coverage. Who is influencing whom?

The “So-What” Question

What should this working group take away as findings and conclusions:

  1. Be careful of stereotypes. Transatlantic discourse continues to be marked by the use of easy stereotypes. We need to aim at a more civil, congenial discourse, characterizing people in human terms and personalizing the discussion, rather than falling back on abstract characterizations of people we don’t know.
  2. Tone back the rhetoric. Our leaders need to start talking seriously again.
  3. Take a critical look. Journalists and others involved in the media need to take a critical and analytical look at the what our leaders are saying—on both sides of the Atlantic.
  4. Study the gaps and work on them. Where are the gaps in the Transatlantic Dialogue? It is our responsibility to work on them.
  5. Be careful how we indoctrinate young people. We need to encourage young people to have an open discussion across the Atlantic without depending on received ideas and stereotypes.
  6. Media has an impact: be careful with it. We need to be more self-aware; we can work at getting accurate reports out to the public. But we can also reinforce misperceptions if we’re not careful. In our choice of metaphors, be careful to be responsible.
  7. Be especially aware of the cultural factors—for instance the differing attitudes toward religious thought on the two sides of the Atlantic.
  8. Avoid “stenographic journalism.” Be sure to give background to quotations from leaders so that our readers/listeners/viewers understand the meaning.
  9. The largely untold story in discussions of the transatlantic rift is that business seems to have been largely unaffected. This story needs to be researched and brought to the public’s attention.
  10. Deal with the problem of education. We have to deal with the “numbness” of American education. There is an information and knowledge gap in both countries. Germans know more about the US than Americans know about Germany, but Germans don’t really understand how the American system works.
  11. Exchange programs are crucial. We should target educators, business school grads, and journalists—perhaps even at a younger age than in the past. It’s important to have lived somewhere other than where you come from—but it’s also important to understand your own culture, your own system.
  12. Foreign language education needs to be supported by all because “the world is a veryintermingled place.” We need to teach that.
  13. The organizations sponsoring the conference should be challenged to broaden the dialogue beyond the elites and the community of the converted to the level of the average citizen.
5/12/03