Auf den Spuren der Lügenpresse

Zusammenfassung

Die sogenannte Flüchtlingskrise 2015/2016 wurde von weiten Teilen der deutschen Bevölkerung auch als eine Krise der Medienberichterstattung wahrgenommen. Umfragedaten zeigen, dass zum Teil mehr als die Hälfte der Deutschen der Ansicht war, die Massenmedien stellten Fakten, z. B. zu soziodemografischen Merkmalen und zur Kriminalität von Zuwanderern, falsch dar und berichteten zudem einseitig positiv über Zuwanderung. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wollen wir deshalb die Richtigkeit und Ausgewogenheit der Medienberichterstattung in der „Flüchtlingskrise“ untersuchen. Dazu haben wir eine quantitative Inhaltsanalyse der Flüchtlingsberichterstattung von drei führenden deutschen Tageszeitungen und drei reichweitenstarken Fernsehnachrichtensendungen zwischen Mai 2015 und Januar 2016 durchgeführt. Um zu prüfen, ob die Medien Fakten falsch darstellten, haben wir die Berichterstattung mit statistischen Informationen über soziodemografische Merkmale und die Kriminalität von Zuwanderern verglichen. Unsere Daten zeigen, dass die Eindrücke von weiten Teilen der deutschen Bevölkerung allenfalls teilweise zutrafen: Die Medienberichterstattung stellte die relevanten Fakten überwiegend korrekt dar. Sie war zwar meist einseitig, diese Einseitigkeiten fielen jedoch nicht durchweg zugunsten der Zuwanderer aus. Zudem waren im Zeitverlauf deutliche Veränderungen in der Berichterstattung erkennbar, die vor allem im Zusammenhang mit den Vorfällen in der Silvesternacht 2015/16 standen.

Abstract

No other political issue has attracted Germans’ public attention in recent years in much the same way as the so-called “refugee crisis” which started in 2015. When it became clear that more and more people from Syria and other countries were trying to reach Central Europe via the Mediterranean and land routes, politics all across Europe was at odds on how to handle the expected increase in immigration. After Angela Merkel’s decision not to close German borders, about one million migrants reached Germany in 2015. The initially predominantly positive mood towards immigrants (“welcome culture”) changed in the course of the year in view of the rapidly increasing number of immigrants and especially after the incidents on New Year’s Eve 2015/16 in Cologne and other German cities when a series of sexual assaults on women took place involving also immigrants. However, many people perceived the “refugee crisis” also as a crisis of media coverage. Survey data show that more than half of the Germans believed that mass media failed to accurately present facts, e. g., concerning migrants’ sociodemographic characteristics and criminality. Moreover, many Germans perceived media coverage as biased in favor of migration. In this study, we aim at investigating the accuracy and balance of media coverage during the “refugee crisis”. Based on former research, we assume that the accuracy of media coverage can best be determined by a comparison of media coverage and external indicators of reality like official statistics. The balance of media coverage can be defined as the fact that in the media coverage different actors, topics and viewpoints are represented approximately equally or equally to their distribution in real life. In general, former research shows that media coverage about migrants is usually neither accurate nor balanced.

To test whether Germans’ perceptions about the accuracy and balance of media coverage during the “refugee crisis” were correct, we manually content analyzed about 5000 news items from three national newspapers (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Bild) and three television news broadcasts (Tagesschau, heute, RTL Aktuell) between May 2015 and January 2016. To test the accuracy of media coverage, we compared media coverage to statistical information on migrants’ sociodemographic characteristics and criminality. First, we compared the amount of media coverage on immigration to the actual immigration rates in Germany. The data initially show a large increase in media coverage between June and September 2015, which runs largely parallel to the increase in the number of immigrants registered in Germany. However, this relationship almost disappeared during the second half of the investigation period. The number of immigrants increased until October, while the number of media reports dropped sharply in September already. Due to the events on New Year’s Eve, media coverage about immigration again increased in January 2016, although the number of immigrants had clearly decreased. To check whether media coverage about migrants corresponded with the actual distribution of migrants’ gender and age, we compared the references to age and gender in the news media with official statistics on age and gender of asylum seekers. In contrast to the assumptions of large parts of the German population, most media (except Tagesschau) closely mapped the sociodemographic characteristics of immigrants in text and pictures. Again mirroring the official statistics, media clearly focused on migrants from Syria in their coverage. Greater deviations in the reporting of the facts were evident with regard to immigrant crime. On the one hand, the analyses suggest that immigrant criminality was rather under-reported prior to the events on New Year’s Eve 2015/16 and rather over-reported afterwards. On the other hand, media disproportionately focused on serious crimes such as violent and sexual offenses in their reporting about migrants.

With respect to balance, we found various kinds of biases. First of all, considering all of our indicators only a small minority of the news items were balanced in itself. Concerning the overall bias of media coverage, the bias in favor of the refugees perceived by a large part of the German population was reflected by a very positive tone about migrants at the beginning of the investigation period. Later, this tone clearly turned negative as a consequence of the rising number of migrants and the events on New Year’s Eve. However, the positive tone about immigrants when portrayed as human beings was contradicted by the portrayal of migration as a risk and danger rather than a chance when it was discussed as an abstract topic. While media coverage was highly consonant in both cases, our third indicator of balance shows differences in the coverage of the media that were in accordance with their general editorial lines. While conservative news media gave priority to the needs of the German population, liberal media gave priority to the needs of the migrants. Consequently, the media coverage of immigration during the “refugee crisis” was not balanced but rather inconsistent. Taken together, our results show that the above-mentioned perceptions of the German population about media coverage were at best partly correct: media coverage presented the essential facts predominantly in an accurate manner. However, it was mainly imbalanced but did not favor migrants’ interests consistently. Particularly since the incidents relating to the “New Year’s Eve in Cologne”, the quite positive tone of the coverage changed and painted an increasingly critical picture of migration.