Abstract
This chapter traces Germany’s influence within IAMCR which increased from 1970 when an IAMCR Conference was held for the first time in Constance, Germany. Founding a research association with Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic representatives was a unique act, and the chapter explains how the ending of systemic conflict between Western capitalism and Eastern socialism between 1989 and 1991 had consequences for the roles played in the association. These are highlighted against a backdrop of complex historical, political, and science-policy interests and contributions to social science-based communication research and theory formation.
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Notes
- 1.
See IAMCR Archive, https://iamcr.org/node/10510. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 2.
See IAMCR Archive, https://iamcr.org/node/10510. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 3.
When the GDR is mentioned in this text, this means first and foremost the political and government structures and party and government decision-makers. Decisions concerning memberships and activities in international associations were taken centrally (also due to the foreign currency required). The objectives, expertise, and positions of the individual scientists who assumed the actual memberships and performed the activities in the international organizations did not necessarily coincide with the party or government line.
- 4.
It is no coincidence that the sphere of communication (press and information freedom, dialog, etc.) is highly featured in the slogans and demands of the Peaceful Revolution of 1989. The call to start a civil rights movement Neues Forum (September 1989) began with the following diagnosis: “In our country, the communication between state and society is obviously disturbed. […] The disturbed relationship between state and society is paralysing the creative potential of our society and hindering solution of the local and global issues at hand.” https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/material/180971/gruendungsaufruf-des-neuen-forum-10-september-1989 Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 5.
These studies were initiated and coordinated in the special Communication Section of the GDR UNESCO Commission, an advisory board attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This body was thus the only, albeit non-public, institution for the coordination of and exchange on scientific research in the field of (political) communication.
- 6.
The objectives did not, or did not primarily, include scientific exchange. The country’s (official) self-image gave credence to the idea of Marxism-Leninism holding the key to scientific truth. There was nothing to learn in the social sciences and humanities, and particularly not from the West. This belief differed markedly from the GDR’s commitment to international organizations in technical and natural sciences as well as in medicine. Such involvement meant participation in an international exchange, furnishing or contributing knowledge that could be put to good use in one’s own country (knowledge and technology transfer).
- 7.
The VDJ would later be the GDR’s only institutional member in the IAMCR.
- 8.
Dusiška, E. Biographische DatenBanken, https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/recherche/kataloge-datenbanken/biographische-datenbanken/emil-dusiska Accessed 15 June 2022. “But Hermann Budzislawski was a real scholar and a very good journalist. He was the creator of the Leipzig school. Franz Knipping was very professional too. Emil Dusiška was much stronger on the ideological side than Budzislawski or Knipping” (quoted by Zassoursky, 2018).
- 9.
The following comments are taken from the archives of the Journalism Section in the Leipzig University archives (UAL-Sektion_Journalistik_064 and 065), in particular, from Dusiška’s two reports on the conference.
- 10.
No information on the amount of these funds is stated in the archive files mentioned. It was customary at this time for the host of the general meeting and the conference to assume the travel and lodging costs of IAMCR IC members.
- 11.
Dusiška, E. Information on the international scientific conference of the journalism section on the theme “Mass Communication and Social Consciousness in a Changing World.” Leipzig, 1974a (UAL_Sektion_Journalistik_064, sheets 3–12), p. 2 et seq.
- 12.
One can assume that this or similar wording can also be found in the requests submitted for support of the conference and in the resolutions mentioned, thus rendering it binding.
- 13.
Dusiška, E. Report on the international scientific conference of the journalism section on the theme “Mass Communication and Social Consciousness in a Changing World” and the IX General Conference of AIERI (17–20 September 1974 in Leipzig) (27 September 1974). Leipzig 1974b (UAL_Sektion_Journalistik_064, sheets 13–42).
- 14.
This large number could be considered very remarkable or rather astonishing in view of the initial communication and media science situation presented. The GDR’s official participants meanwhile included a large number of civil servants and employees of the journalist association, of ministries, parties, and local authorities, as well as journalists and employees of different media, all of whom it would have been difficult to label as acknowledged scientists.
- 15.
Dusiška, E. Information on the international scientific conference of the journalism section on the theme “Mass Communication and Social Consciousness in a Changing World.” Leipzig: 1974 (UAL_Sektion_Journalistik_064, sheets 3–12), p. 4.
- 16.
Dusiška, E. Information on the international scientific conference of the Journalism Section on the theme “Mass Communication and Social Consciousness in a Changing World.” Leipzig: 1974, (UAL_Sektion_Journalistik_064, sheets 3–12), p. 20 et seq.
- 17.
Beyond these two, Günter Heidorn deserves particular mention. Günter Heidorn (1925–2010) was a lawyer and a historian, who wrote his PhD on “German style newspaper reporting.” He was Rector of the Universität Rostock in the 1960s and GDR Deputy Ministry of Higher and Technical Education from 1976 to 1988 https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/recherche/kataloge-datenbanken/biographische-datenbanken/guenter-heidorn. Accessed 15 June 2022. He was presumably the “longest-serving” IAMCR member from the GDR and headed the association’s History Section for a long period. In his ministerial function, Heidorn promoted participation of GDR scientists in IAMCR activities.
- 18.
For an overview, see https://www.munzinger.de/search/portrait/Lothar+Bisky/0/20508.html. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 19.
The GDR higher-education reform of 1968–1969 introduced the terms ‘dissertation A’ and ‘dissertation B’ borrowed from the terms for academic qualifying theses used in the Soviet Union. The first term applied to a “normal” dissertation and the second term replaced the traditional term typically used until then in German higher education: “Habilitation” or postdoctoral lecturing qualification.
- 20.
The thesis was accepted by the philosophy faculty, to which Journalism Section representatives officially had no access. A report for the MfS (Stasi) later in March 1977 stated: “As already reported and again made known, the director Prof. Dr Dusiška fundamentally questions Dr Bisky’s political integrity in relation to the UNESCO cultural study, the mass communication and mass media congress in Leicester, England, and Dr Bisky’s image in foreign capitalist countries, etc.” (BStU/MfS AP no. 74150/92).
- 21.
This lecture is entered in the publications list and also published on an archival and memorial website for Lothar Bisky. http://www.lothar-bisky.de/index.php/archiv-gedenkseite/reihe-wissenschaft-theorie/jugend-und-kommunikationsforschung Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 22.
The Doctoral Thesis, Universität, was completed in 1975. Under the restrictive conditions in the GDR, the book opened up access to the international debate on media and society since, at the same time, it was a critical and comprehensive introduction to the newly emerging subject area.
- 23.
Unless otherwise mentioned, the following statements refer to an e-mail personal communication addressed to one of the authors, 5 September 2020.
- 24.
At the Institut für internationale Studien in the mid-1980s, Kleinwächter set up an interdisciplinary research project on political, legal, economic, and cultural aspects of cross-border communication that dealt, among other things, with the concept of the internet, just emerging at the time. Research group members included Angela Kolb, later Minister of Justice of Saxony-Anhalt, and Karola Wille, later Director of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR radio). The Institut für internationale Studien was dissolved in December 1990. Kleinwächter, who was a member of the Media Control Council of the GDR Volkskammer from January to September 1990, went to Tampere University in 1992. He lectured at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, D.C. from 1993 to 1995, and at Aarhus University’s Department for Information Studies from 1998 until his retirement in 2014.
- 25.
See, in particular, IAMCR in Retrospect 1957–2007, https://iamcr.org/history Accessed 15 June 2022 and Hamelink, C. & Nordenstreng, K. (2016) “Looking at history through the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR),” https://iamcr.org/node/3578. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 26.
See https://iamcr.org/member-institutions and https://iamcr.org/member-directory. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 27.
See www.dgpuk.de. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 28.
See https://dgkf-communications.de. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 29.
See www.dgpuk.de. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 30.
See https://www.dgpuk.de/de/chronik.html. Accessed 15 June 2022.
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Becker, J., Krotz, F., Stiehler, HJ. (2023). Germany in IAMCR. In: Becker, J., Mansell, R. (eds) Reflections on the International Association for Media and Communication Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16383-8_11
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