Autonomous Driving in Newspapers and Magazines

Framing Analysis: Autonomous Driving in Newspapers and Magazines

Project Partners

• Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken
• Dr. Anne Reif

Description

In the module "Scientific methods of media usage, reception and impact research" during the summer semester of 2017 the students of the master's program in "Media Technology and Communication" deepened their knowledge of quantitative content analysis. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr Monika Taddicken and Dr Anne Reif, the students analysed over 500 articles on the scientific topic of "autonomous driving" from national newspapers, regional local newspapers in the area of automotive companies and automotive magazines. Following the frame elements defined by Entman (1993), an extensive codebook was developed to determine, for example, how often problems (e.g., loss of individual self-determination, safety gaps) or benefits (e.g., mobility/comfort) of autonomous driving were addressed. In the module "Data Analysis in Communication Research" (following winter semester of 2017/2018), cluster analysis was conducted to identify different frames of media coverage.

Building on their work from this seminar, students Julia Brandhorst, Janina Schuster, Morten Diestelhorst and Lennart Hauk continued to work on the project as part of the communication research project module, whereupon the results were jointly presented at two specialist conferences and finally appeared in 2020 as a publication in the specialist journal "Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft".

Publications

• Taddicken, M., Reif, A., Brandhorst, J., Schuster, J., Diestelhorst, M., & Hauk, L. (2020). Wirtschaftlicher Nutzen statt gesellschaftlicher Debatte? Eine quantitative Framing- Analyse der Medienberichterstattung zum autonomen Fahren. M&K Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 68(4), 406-427. https://doi.org/10.5771/1615-634X-2020-4-406

Presentations

• Reif, A., Taddicken, M., Brandhorst, J., Diestelhorst, M., Hauk, L., & Schuster, J. (2018, November). A beneficial technology for the German economy: Media frames of autonomous driving [Presentation]. 7^th European Communication Conference, Lugano, Switzerland.
• Taddicken, M., Reif, A., Brandhorst, J., & Schuster, J. (2018, May 9-11). (Verlust der) Selbstbestimmung durch autonome Fahrzeuge? Eine quantitative Framinganalyse der Medienberichterstattung zum Autonomen Fahren [Presentation]. Annual Meeting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (DGPuK), University of Mannheim, Germany.