Dieter Paul Baumert

Dieter Paul Baumert (born December 23, 1898 in Berlin ; † in the 20th century (date and place not known)) was a German media scholar .

Life

Baumert was born Paul Wilhelm Richard Baumert on December 23, 1898 in Berlin . He was the second son of the police secretary Richard Baumert and his wife Emilie Baumert (née Petermann). He attended from the age of ten, the tenth Robert cell - high school and was on 15 November 1916, military service obligation. In January 1919 he was released and attended the Königstädtische Oberrealschule in June, where he received his school leaving certificate . In April 1913 matriculated he at the Philosophical Faculty of the Friedrich Wilhelm University (now Humboldt University of Berlin ) to political science to study. With the death of his father in December 1923, he was financially dependent on his work as a student trainee . This enabled him to gain experience from professors in the fields of newspaper studies and newspaper practice. On July 23, 1927, he passed the Rigorosum .

In 1928 he received the doctoral degree through his dissertation The emergence of German journalism: A social history. Study dedicated to the epochs of journalism. It came about at a time when Berlin newspaper science had yet to establish itself. No further information is known about the author after its publication, including the date of death.

Scientific work

Periods of journalism

Baumert divides the history of German journalism up to the 1920s into four periods. He is not limited to written forms of expression, but focuses on general social news satisfaction and presentation, as well as the public perception of a journalist in a historical context ( structural change ). He himself describes this subdivision as a functional distinction and distinguishes himself from technical and content-related criteria of the time such as that of Robert Eduard Prutz .

Pre-journalism

Baumert describes the time before the beginning of the newspaper industry as pre- journalism in the Middle Ages and the early modern period . According to him, there was no journalism before the newspaper industry, but only sporadic news transmission, which usually did not represent a branch of its own. It was only through the newspaper industry that the specific tasks and framework conditions for a journalist were created. Most likely to the profession of journalism professional would after him poets and minstrels rankommen, due to their current poetry as a wandering journalist were called. As early form of journalistic works he calls letter messages and flight and pamphlets . Most of the reports were on disasters and religious and political issues. The recipients were mostly only traders and the nobility. With the development of printing and transportation, the development of journalism also advanced.

Corresponding journalism

According to Baumert, the period occurred immediately after the beginning of the newspaper industry in the 17th century. Above all, he sees the Thirty Years War as the beginning of the spread of the newspaper in Europe. Baumert notes that there were few journalistic standards at the time and that what the journalist learned from somewhere was mostly reported indiscriminately. The majority of the contributions were written by part-time wage clerks. The writers collected new information through correspondence and there was no editing, so that the collected content was little changed. The exchange of information between the journalist and the reader is also understood as correspondence. The content was also seldom classified and evaluated by printers or postmasters because they were not qualified for it. At that time there was also a lack of clearly differentiated journalistic forms of representation , which is why Baumert sees newspapers more as pure news papers. During this period, Baumert also criticizes the lack of sources and the anonymity of the authors, which limits their trustworthiness.

Writing journalism

According to Baumert, this period begins at the end of the 18th century and extends into the middle of the 19th century. With the French Revolution , the rise of civic education and urbanization , journalism had to adapt more to the needs of the general people. The actual daily press was literarily polished up by writers. Due to the long period of censorship, the thought of enlightenment showed up in journalism. Baumert shows that writing or literary journalism developed economically independently of the newspaper industry and was mostly published by economically independent publishers and by part-time journalists who acted out of predominantly idealistic and non-economic interests. They received their main income as scholars, book authors or diplomats. Nonetheless, permanent jobs were created for daily writers at the time. Overall, consumption rose sharply and for the first time there were special universal scientific magazines. Well-known writers such as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller founded various journals in order to be able to speak to the population. In the pre-March period , journalism was shifted from a literary-philosophical orientation to a political orientation. The journalists usually took on several tasks and published their works themselves . Generally understandable journalism for the common people and an advisory press worth reading for the educated still had to develop.

Editorial journalism

According to Baumert, this period begins in the second half of the 19th century and emerged through professionalization from literary and corresponding journalism. At this stage there is already a permanent editorial team that works together on texts and an organization in publishing houses that ensures regular publication. Characteristic for this period is the interaction of news and daily literature. This development was also favored by urbanization and increased local journalism . Technical developments such as telegraphy and the Linotype typesetting machine and the social and economic change at the time of industrialization were just as important . In 1874, the Reich Press Act created a legal framework in Germany that allowed more freedom of the press , but which was restricted again when the First World War broke out.

Functions of journalism

From his period theory he therefore developed three functions of journalism. For example, the correspondence function is intended to determine messages for business interests, while the writing function is responsible for the presentation, making it understandable for the reader and the entertainment value while reading. The task of the editorial function is to check the content for quality by an organization in publishing houses and to ensure topicality , universality , periodicity and continuity .

reception

Baumert's theory became an important part of newspaper studies , but was also respected in journalism , communication studies , media studies and social history . This is how it was formulated by several sociologists and historians. He was criticized for a lack of inclusion of personalization by the reader in the historical development. His theory deals exclusively with the development of journalism in print media up to the 1920s and therefore does not go into more recent developments and the influence of media that emerged later. In the new edition of the book from 2013, the German communication scientist Walter Hömberg explains the importance of theory and its reception by science.

literature

• The Origin of German Journalism: A Social History Study, 1928, new edition 2013 by Walter Hömberg, Munich / Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, ISBN 978-3-8487-0154-4

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} The emergence of German journalism - a socio-historical study. Retrieved September 5, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Thomas Birkner: Prejournalism | Journalism. Accessed September 5, 2019 (German). 
3. ^ Thomas Birkner: Corresponding Journalism | Journalism. Accessed September 5, 2019 (German). 
4. ^ Thomas Birkner: literary journalism | Journalism. Accessed September 5, 2019 (German). 
5. ^ Thomas Birkner: Editorial journalism | Journalism. Accessed September 5, 2019 (German). 
6. ↑ Stefanie Averbeck: Communication as a process: sociological perspectives in newspaper science, 1927-1934 . S. 505 ff . ( google.de ).