Vincent Wyss
Vinzenz Wyss (* 1965 ) is a Swiss communications scientist and professor of journalism at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur. The Swiss media and communications scientist specializes in journalism theory, journalistic quality and quality assurance, media ethics and media criticism.
Life
Vinzenz Wyss studied German, media and sociology at the University of Zurich from 1987 to 1994 . From 1991 to 1998 he worked as an editor / presenter for the private radio Radio 32 in Solothurn. At the University of Zurich from 1994 to 2003 he worked as an assistant (with Ulrich Saxer ), senior assistant, research assistant (with Otfried Jarren ) and most recently as managing director of IPMZ Transfer. In 2002 he did his doctorate on "Editorial Quality Management ".
Since 2003 he has been Professor of Journalism at the IAM Institute for Applied Media Studies at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, where he helped develop the CAS Community Communications . From 2009 to 2014 he was President of the Swiss Society for Communication and Media Studies . With MQA - Media Quality Assessment, Vinzenz Wyss runs an evaluation center recognized by OFCOM - Federal Office of Communication, with which quality management concepts in media organizations are evaluated and improved. He is also active as President of the Education Commission of SRG Zurich / Schaffhausen and as a member of the Board of the Association for Quality in Journalism.
Research and Teaching
His main areas are:
- Journalism, journalism theory and journalism research
- Journalistic quality and quality assurance, editorial research
- Media ethics, media criticism
- Transfer research (science transfer)
- Narration research and religious communication
Multi-system relevance as a journalistic key difference
As part of his research and teaching activities, Vinzenz Wyss has developed a journalism concept that is strongly based on Niklas Luhmann's system-theoretical perspective ( sociological systems theory ). The central question from which the definition of the journalistic concept of quality must start is: What problem does journalism solve for society - exclusively in contrast to other functional systems such as politics, business, science, art, religion or education? . The concept of journalistic quality can be derived from the social function of journalism with recourse to a systems-theoretical perspective. This function is referred to in abstract terms as “permanent self-observation and synchronization of society” . Journalism links the communications of the other dynamic functional systems, which are drifting apart, objectively, temporally and socially. He focuses on topics that show conflicting or irritating relationships between different - non-compatible - system rationalities. It establishes - mostly with recourse to narrative patterns - references from one system logic (e.g. political) to another (e.g. legal, economic, scientific, etc.) and then communicates when a topic is from the perspective of more appears relevant as a social functional system (social dimension) and generates resonance or follow-up communication in several systems at the same time (time dimension) .
The journalism audience plays a central role in this achievement. Via the communicative reception of the audience, communication services from politics, business, science, religion, etc. can be carried into other systems, irritate and trigger follow-up communication. The public roles of journalism are always at the same time the performance or public roles of other systems: governments and citizens, corporate leaders and consumers, religious leaders and believers, etc. - they are all potential public roles of journalism, which in turn can only fulfill its function if its offers also be used by an audience . Journalism can help the audience to orientate themselves about topics that have or can become relevant for social decision-making or what collective and private decisions result in or can do.
Based on the relationship with the audience and the journalistic key difference “multi-system relevance”, the first quality requirement that journalism must expect from journalism is independence - and thus the thematization performance and evaluation according to the system's own inclusion and exclusion rules. This is followed by the concept of diversity, with which the expectation is expressed that the service is not provided exclusively from the perspective of a certain system, but precisely with the inclusion of different - contradicting - system logics and perspectives. The ability to connect to social introspection required for synchronization can only be achieved if it establishes social observation linked to the present time (topicality), and credibility presupposes that journalism is based on socially binding models of reality (factuality, correctness, transparency). Finally, narrativity is conceived as a further central quality standard, because understanding presupposes that social complexity can connect not only with argumentation but also narrative with the world of the audience.
Study on the political attitudes of journalists
In 2017, Vinzenz Wyss and Filip Dingerkus carried out an evaluation of data for the SonntagsZeitung , which was collected as part of an international journalism study between 2014 and 2016. The Swiss-wide survey of journalists was carried out by the Institute for Applied Media Studies at the ZHAW in cooperation with the University of Neuchâtel and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). A total of over 900 media workers from more than 200 editorial teams from all language regions, media types and hierarchical levels were asked about their profession.
Wyss analyzed the political attitudes of journalists for the SonntagsZeitung. The evaluation showed that almost 70 percent of all SRG journalists describe themselves as left-wing. 16 percent locate themselves in the political center, 16 percent see themselves as right-wing. No SRG journalist positioned himself on the far right, but 7.4 percent are on the far left. In private media in Switzerland, 62 percent of journalists describe themselves as left-wing. 14.5 percent locate themselves in the middle and 24 percent describe themselves as right. Almost 10 percent are on the far left, almost 2 percent on the far right.
Wyss does not see the danger of one-sided reporting in this. The journalistic criticism and control function correlates more strongly with left socio-political ideas. A distinction had to be made between the role of the journalist and the role of the citizen: "A left professional journalist can also question a left politician from a distance and critically." Wyss distanced himself from the headline "Almost three quarters of all SRG journalists are left-wing" and the associated tenor of the Tagesanzeiger article. In an interview with Watson.ch he said: "We asked the participants in our study to position themselves on a scale from 0 to 10 - with 0 on the far left and 10 on the far right. Now the journalist in question only has the value 5 as 'Middle' defined, and all to the left of it lumped together. "
Fonts
- Wyss, Vincent; Studer, Peter & Zwyssig, Toni (2012): IMPLEMENTING MEDIA QUALITY. Quality assurance in editorial offices. A guide. Zurich: Orell Füssli.
- Uncovering narration: On the consequence of media system relevance as the key difference in quality journalism. In: Roger Blum , Kurt Imhof , Heinz Bonfadelli , Otfried Jarren (eds.): Crisis of the beacons of public communication: past and future of quality media. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-17972-8 , pp. 31-47.
- (with Guido Keel): Journalism research. In: Heinz Bonfadelli, Otfried Jarren, Gabriele Siegert (eds.): Introduction to journalism. 3rd, completely revised edition. Haupt, Bern 2010, ISBN 978-3-8252-2170-6 , pp. 337–378.
- Journalism as a dual structure: Basics of a structural theory of journalism. In: Martin Löffelholz (Ed.): Theories of Journalism. A discursive manual. 2nd, revised edition. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 2004, ISBN 3-531-13341-1 .
- Editorial quality management: goals, standards, resources. UVK, Konstanz 2002, ISBN 3-89669-368-9 ( Research Field Communication Science. Vol. 15).
- Mirko Marr, Vinzenz Wyss, Roger Blum, Heinz Bonfadelli: Journalists in Switzerland: characteristics, attitudes, influences. UVK, Konstanz 2001, ISBN 3-89669-315-8 ( Research Field Communication. Vol. 13).
Web links
- Vinzenz Wyss on the website of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences
Individual evidence
- ↑ (see also Arnold 2009)
- ↑ (see Wyss 2009)
- ↑ Almost three quarters of all SRG journalists are on the links tagesanzeiger.ch, accessed on January 31, 2018
- ↑ “No Billag Propaganda” - researcher foams over report on “left” SRG journalists watson.ch, accessed July 20, 2019
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wyss, Vincent |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss communication scientist and professor for journalism at the ZHAW in Winterthur |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1965 |