Manfred Rühl

Manfred Rühl (born December 31, 1933 in Nuremberg ) is a German, social science-oriented communication scientist .

Live and act

As a sixteen year old he received a high school scholarship to Dayton , Ohio for the school year 1950/51 . After graduating from high school in Nuremberg in 1953 , he completed an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk . He became a freelance journalist for daily newspapers, magazines and radio and studied economics and social sciences at the University of Erlangen , the Free University of Berlin and the University of Economics and Social Sciences in Nuremberg , where he graduated in 1960 with a degree in economics . The topic of his thesis was: The striker and his editor . From 1960 to 1962 he was a research assistant at the Institute for Journalism . During the transfer of the Nuremberg University of Economics and Social Sciences to the Economics and Social Science Faculty of the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg , he acted as a faculty assistant. From 1964 to 1968 he worked as a research assistant for communication science at the (new) chair for political and communication science. The doctorate took place in 1968 with the dissertation The newspaper editorship as an organized social system under Franz Ronneberger . In 1969/70 Rühl was Scholar-in-Residence at the Annenberg School of Communications, a sub-division of the University of Pennsylvania . From 1970 to 1976 he headed a project in the DFG special research area 22 "Socialization and Communication Research " at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. In between, from 1973 to 1974, he was the chair of journalism at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz . In 1976 he was appointed to the professorship for communication science at the University of Hohenheim , where he was responsible for the postgraduate course in journalism. In 1978 he completed his habilitation in communication science at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg with the journalism and society. Inventory and theory draft . From 1983 to 1999 he held the chair for communication science at the Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg . In summer 1980 and winter 1993/94 he was visiting professor for journalism at the University of Zurich . In 1999 he retired.

In 1963, Rühl was one of the founding members of the German Society for Media and Communication Studies (DGPuK) , and since 2004 he has been an honorary member. From 1978 to 1982 he was chairman or deputy chairman of the company. In 1970 he became a member of the International Communication Association (ICA); from 1977 to 1980 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the ICA. Since 2013, the Institute for Communication Studies at the Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg has been awarding the Manfred Rühl Prize for outstanding master’s theses.

Manfred Rühl's main research areas are:

• Communication science theory building
• Theories of reflection and theories of application
• Organizational communication
• Journalism, journalism, public relations
• Theory history of communication science and communication politics

Starting from system-theoretical ideas, Rühl works on problems of human communication systems, aiming at a general theory of communication science. In contrast to behavioral and action-scientific theorizing, communication theories enable the analysis and synthesis of meaningful, informative, thematically limiting messages and their understanding in social contexts. Basic assumptions of a general theory of communication science can already be observed in the late 17th century. Christian Thomasius prefers self-thinking in science and everyday life when he formulated a theory of mutual dependence on people, communication and society in his introduction to ethics (1692). In Zeitungs Lust und Nutz (1695), Kaspar Stieler differentiates between communicating and publishing, and he propagates newspaper reading as a necessity for the "politicus" in a (future) bourgeois society. The Young Hegelian Robert Eduard Prutz (1845) describes journalism and democracy as two sides of a social development product. The economists and social scientists Karl Knies, Albert Schäffle, Karl Bücher and Max Weber on the one hand, Charles Horton Cooley, Robert Ezra Park, Harold Dwight Lasswell and other social scientists from the Chicago School on the other, observe connections between communication, the public, public opinion, railways and telegraph , Urban and organizational cultures, money, credit, time and society, for the "discovery of communication as a field of research, teaching, and professional employment" (Lasswell 1958). For half a century journalism, public relations, advertising, propaganda and other persuading or manipulating forms of global social communication have been theorized and (empirically) controlled. World communication, world society and world public (s) are tried out as key theories of a self-organizing communication science (Rühl 2018).

Fonts (selection)

• The newspaper editorial office as an organized social system . Bertelsmann Universitätsverlag, Bielefeld 1969; 2nd expanded and revised edition: Universitätsverlag, Freiburg (Switzerland) 1979, ISBN 3-7278-0202-2 .
• Journalism and society. Inventory and theory draft . From Hase & Koehler, Mainz 1980, ISBN 3-7758-0975-9 .
• Communication and experience. Ways of application-related communication research . Publishing house of the Communication Science Research Association, Nuremberg 1987, ISBN 3-921453-26-7 .
• Public Relations Theory. A draft (with Franz Ronneberger ). Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1992, ISBN 3-531-12118-9 .
• Theories of public communication - problem areas, positions, perspectives (with Günter Bentele ). Ölschläger, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-88295-183-4 .
• Journalism in the networked age. Professions - Forms - Structures (with Beatrice Dernbach and Anna Maria Theis-Berglmair ). Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1998, ISBN 3-531-13106-0 .
• Publish. A history of meaning in public communication . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen and Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-531-13370-5 .
• Communication cultures of world society. Communication science theory . Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-14063-6 .
• Journalism and journalisms in transition. A communication science perspective . Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-17867-7 .
• Journalism and public relations. Theory history of two world societal achievements . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-06533-1 .
• Organizational communication from Max Weber to Niklas Luhmann. How interdisciplinary theory building can succeed . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-08923-8 .
• Renew media studies. What we know and what we can know about public communication . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-12839-5 .
• Communication science. Self-description of a social science . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-22481-3 .

literature

• Günter Bentele, Kurt R. Hesse (Hrsg.): Journalism in society. Festschrift for Manfred Rühl . Universitätsverlag Konstanz, Konstanz 1994, ISBN 3-87940-521-2
• Ulrich Saxer: Concepts as a tool for thinking. Speech at the “Communicative Homage” on the occasion of Manfred Rühl's 60th birthday, given on February 11, 1994, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg . In: Publizistik , Vol. 39, 1994, pp. 205–209.
• Walter Hömberg: versatile complexity artist. Manfred Rühl 65 years . In: Publizistik , Vol. 44, 1999, H. 1, pp. 97-99.
• Andreas Scheu: Manfred Rühl. A pioneer in German communication studies. Master thesis. Institute for Communication Studies and Media Research, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich 2005-
• Manfred Rühl: Encouragement to theorize. In: Michael Meyen, Maria Löblich (eds.): “I invented this subject.” How communication science came to German-speaking universities. 19 biographical interviews (= theory and history of communication science. Volume 4). Von Halem, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-938258-67-5 , pp. 76-100.
• Manuel Wendelin: Communication Science. In: Oliver Jahraus, Armin Nassehi et al. (Ed.): Luhmann-Handbuch. Life - work - effect. JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02368-1 , pp. 352-356.
• Alexander Filipovic: The monastery as a theoretical building. Manfred Rühl's preoccupation with organized silence and speaking. In: Commicatio Socialis. Vol. 47, 2014, issue 3, pp. 346–349.

Web links

• Literature by and about Manfred Rühl in the catalog of the German National Library
• Manfred Rühl on the website of the Otto Friedrich University Bamberg

Individual evidence

• Harold D. Lasswell: Communications as an emerging discipline. In: AV Communication Review. 6, 1958, pp. 245-254.
• Niklas Luhmann: Communication with card boxes. An experience report. In: Horst Baier, Hans Mathias Kepplinger, Kurt Reumann (Hrsg.): Public opinion and social change. Public Opinion and Social Change. Festschrift for Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1981, pp. 222-228.
• Robert E. Prutz. 1971. History of German Journalism. First part. Facsimile print after the 1st edition from 1845. With an afterword by Hans Joachim Kreutzer. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
• Janina Rummel. 2019. "People make city history!" A participation project of the Nuremberg City Archives for the Capital of Culture application. NORICA. Reports and topics from the Nuremberg City Archives, 15: 24-33.
• Kaspar Stieler. 1969. Newspaper Lust und Nutz. Complete reprint of the original edition from 1695, ed. by Gert Hagelweide. 2nd edition Bremen: Schünemann.
• Christian Thomasius. 1995. Introduction to the moral doctrine [On the art of loving reasonable and Tugenhracht. As the only means of attaining a blissful / gallant and hilarious life]. Reprint: Hildesheim u. a. Olms (first 1692)

Remarks

1. ↑ Manfred Rühl: DER STÜRMER and its editor. Attempt a journalistic analysis. Unpublished thesis. University of Economics and Social Sciences Nuremberg 1960 (typewriter manuscript).