Media – Media Effects – Media Ethics

In the period 1970-1990 we were involved in various ways in the intensive public discussions about the effects of the then still relatively new medium "television". We investigated its significance empirically in the everyday life of families (5.7, 5.12).  We analyzed the state of research on the influence of TV-violence on children and adolescents (cf. 4.14). I took part in debates about the presumed consequences of the privatization of the media (cf. 4.15, cf. 4.23) as well as the foreseeable changes through new technologies such as HDTV (cf.1.10). Furthermore, I served as an expert for the Federal Constitutional Court in the case of the "murder in Lebach" (4.4, 4.5). At the core is the relevance given to personal development versus the freedom of the media.  

In other publications we linked insights from ecological socialization research with the concept of a "media ecology" (4.26, 5.29). This enabled us to understand the effects of media, especially on children and adolescents, as an interplay of content, technologies, their organization and commercialization, and consequences for personality development (cf. 1.13) and related socio-ethical considerations (cf. 5.23).