Kurt Imhof

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Kurt Imhof (born January 17, 1956 in Romanshorn ; † March 1, 2015 in Zurich ) was a Swiss sociologist and journalist .

Life

After his apprenticeship as a structural draftsman, Kurt Imhof completed his federal Matura in 1981 on the second educational path . He then studied history , sociology and philosophy at the University of Zurich from 1981 to 1986 . He completed his dissertation, Discontinuity of Modernity, and a doctorate in history with Hansjörg Siegenthaler in February 1989. In 1995 he completed his habilitation in sociology with the font media events as indicators of social change. A contribution to a phenomenology of public opinion.

At the University of Zurich, he was also assistant in various chairs (1987–1991, 1988–1990) and senior assistant (1992–1998). In between and afterwards he held assistant positions, residencies and substitutions - at the ETH Zurich (1996), University of Zurich (1998), University of Bern (1998–1999) and University of Freiburg i. Br. (2000). In 2000 he became professor of sociology and media studies at the University of Zurich. From 1997 to 2012 he headed the research area Public and Society - fög (then strategic management), and since 2013 he has also chaired the Public and Society Foundation .

Kurt Imhof died of cancer at the age of 59.

Act

Imhof's main research interests were public and media sociology, social theory, the sociology of social change, and minority and religious sociology.

He was one of the distinguished and contentious representatives of his guild and was very present in the Swiss media.

"We wanted ... to find out whether there is still the public intellectual with moral incorruptibility and a sense of proportion in Switzerland and Germany and what role the intellectual plays in the political public and in the journalistic media of these countries."

- Stefan Müller-Doohm , March 10, 2015

“Last year Imhof's media criticism of pure reason was 481 pages long. Everything is written long and sociologically cumbersome, so that hardly anyone can read Imhof's immense work. Only the Austrians - and this is no joke - enjoy their work ... If you want to understand what Imhof means, you shouldn't read Imhof. But listen to the man ... Uh, that doesn't look good at all, you think when you talk to Imhof about the media and you are surprised to have been naively satisfied with the Swiss media so far. Imhof himself is in a good mood. Marocaine, wine and coffee keep him happy and the passion for his work ... Hardly anyone delivers more useful headlines to the newspapers than Imhof. They are populist, undifferentiated and boulevard-esque. If Imhof were a newspaper, then it would be a combination of Blick (stylistically) and WoZ (ideologically). The former traditionally functions at the very bottom in its 'quality scoring', the latter is not covered by Imhof's study. However, he's funnier than the two of them. "

- Benedict Neff , September 25, 2013/28. October 2014

In the yearbook he founded on the quality of the media in Switzerland, he documented and diagnosed - to the discomfort of some publishers - questionable trends in Swiss media: "Journalism in the service of corporate interests, reduction of factual questions to personalization, pack journalism and a lack of expertise".

Kurt Imhof was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Population, Migration and Environment (BMU), and since 2010 also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Guardrail Foundation , which is committed to promoting respect, consideration and moral courage in society, especially in public spaces.

Publications

  • with Heinz Kleger and Gaetano Romano (eds.): Crisis and social change. Seismo-Verlag, Zurich.
    • Volume 1: Between Conflict and Concordance. Analysis of media events in Switzerland in the pre- and inter-war period. 1993, ISBN 3-908239-12-5 .
    • Volume 2: Concordance and the Cold War. Analysis of media events in Switzerland in the inter and post-war period. 1996, ISBN 3-908239-29-X .
    • Volume 3: From the Cold War to the Cultural Revolution. Analysis of media events in Switzerland in the 50s and 60s. 1999, ISBN 3-908239-68-0 .
  • with Peter Schulz (Ed.): Media and War - War in the Media. Seismo, Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-908239-45-1 .
  • with Gaetano Romano: The Discontinuity of Modernity. On the theory of social change. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 1996, ISBN 3-593-35510-8 .
  • with Peter Schulz (ed.): Political reasoning in the information society. Seismo, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-908239-50-8 .
  • with Peter Schulz (ed.): Communication and Revolution. Seismo, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-908239-62-1 .
  • with Peter Schulz (Ed.): The publication of the private - the privatization of the public. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen / Wiesbaden 1998, ISBN 3-531-13339-X .
  • with Patrik Ettinger and Boris Boller: Refugees as a topic of public political communication in Switzerland 1938–1947. Supplement to the report Switzerland and the refugees at the time of National Socialism of the Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War . BBL / EDMZ, Bern 1999, ISBN 3-908661-10-2 .
  • with Otfried Jarren and Roger Blum (eds.): Control and regulation problems in the information society. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen / Wiesbaden 1998, ISBN 3-531-13486-8 .
  • with Patrik Ettinger, Martin Kraft, Stephan Meier von Bock a. Guido Schätti: Switzerland in the world - the world in Switzerland. A comparative study on threat build-up and loss of threats as coordinates of Swiss foreign policy (1944–1998). Study within the framework of the NFP “Foreign Policy”. Synthesis report. NFP 42, Bern 2000, ISBN 3-907148-39-8 .
  • with Patrik Ettinger u. Boris Boller: The Refugee and Foreign Economic Policy of Switzerland in the Context of Public Political Communication 1938–1950. Edited by the Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War. Chronos, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-0340-0608-X .
  • with Otfried Jarren a. Roger Blum (Ed.): Integration and Media. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen / Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-531-13792-1 .
  • with Roger Blum, Heinz Bonfadelli a . Otfried Jarren (Ed.): Media company. Structures, characteristics, development dynamics. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-531-14372-7 .
  • with Thomas S. Eberle (Ed.): Triumph und Elend des Neoliberalismus. Seismo, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-03777-038-4 .
  • with Heinz Bonfadelli a. Roger Blum (ed.): Democracy in the media society. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 978-3-531-15299-8 .
  • Media society and medialization. In: Media and Communication Studies. No. 2, 2006, pp. 191-215.
  • The discontinuity of modernity. On the theory of social change. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 2006, ISBN 978-3-593-37595-3 . (Completely revised new edition)
  • with Thomas S. Eberle (Ed.): Special case Switzerland. Seismo, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-03777-047-4 .
  • with Roger Blum, Heinz Bonfadelli a. Otfried Jarren (ed.): Crisis of the beacons of public communication. Past and future of quality media. VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-17972-8 .
  • The public crisis. Communication and media as factors of social change. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 2011, ISBN 978-3-593-39522-7 .
  • with Roger Blum, Heinz Bonfadelli a. Otfried Jarren (Ed.): Stratified and segmented public. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-658-00347-0 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Rainer Stadler : Enthusiastic researcher, keen diagnostician. The Zurich media sociologist Kurt Imhof died on Sunday. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . March 2, 2015, international edition, p. 9. ( nzz.ch ).
  2. ^ Rainer Stadler: Critical overview of the media sociologist Kurt Imhof: Against journalistic frippery . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. October 26, 2012.
  3. ^ Stefan Müller-Doohm: Memories of Kurt Imhof: Intrepid, curious intellectual. The New Zurich Times. March 10, 2015.
  4. ↑ Benedict Neff: If Kurt Imhof were a newspaper, it would be called "Blick" - He despises "all-round journalists" and is himself the best example of an all-round scientist: the sociology professor Kurt Imhof. In: BaZ / TA . September 25, 2013/28. October 2014
personal data
SURNAME Imhof, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss sociologist and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH 17th January 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Romanshorn
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 2015
Place of death Zurich