NaDiRa short study: Racism debates in flux

Development and politicisation of racism in the German (media) public sphere

National Monitoring of Discrimination and Racism (NaDiRa)

Project head: Dr. Elias Steinhilper ,  Prof. Dr. Sabrina Zajak

Project team members: Dr. Moritz Sommer

Project team:

• Elias Steinhilper
• Moritz Summer
• Sabrina Zajak
• Andreas Blätte
• Tim Henrichsen
• Florian Gilberg

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Project description:

The project examines how the topic of racism has been treated in the German media public sphere between 2000 and 2020. Firstly, the study looks at how salient the topic is over time. Secondly, it sheds light on which actors have their say in the debates about racism. Thirdly, we trace the conflictuality and polarisation of the debate over time. For this purpose, we analyse the coverage of racism in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung between 2000 and 2020 using a computer-assisted, quantitative content analysis.

Results:

Media coverage of the issue of racism has been characterised by key episodes over the last 20 years, including:

• the debates surrounding the first NPD ban in 2000,
• the attacks of 11 September 2001,
• the busting of the NSU in 2011,
• the "long summer of migration" in 2015, and
• the worldwide protests of the Black Lives Matter movement since summer 2020.

Overall, a U-curve can be seen: After racism was relatively salient in the early 2000s, there follows a less salient phase from 2005 to 2010 and then a significant increase from 2011, which continues in 2015 and then 2020.

The politicisation of racism has increased in the German media public since 2011. Since then, the media debate has become more visible, the actors have become more diverse and the debate as a whole has become more conflictual. However, this development is not linear. Instead, it is characterised by various surges of attention and changing configurations of actors.

Surprising insights:

We had expected the issue of racism to become more visible in the German media public sphere as a result of the Black Lives Matter protests. Nevertheless, we were surprised by the extent: the monthly number of articles explicitly dealing with racism is in some cases ten times higher from June 2020 than in the years before.

Furthermore, we had expected that migrant self-organisations and other actors affected by racism would become more visible over time. However, this assumption was hardly confirmed. On the contrary, racist actors seem to become more visible. 

Significance for practice:

Our results allow a first systematic look at how the media debate on racism develops over time. They help to classify current debates historically. And they show which events and which actors shape the debate - and which do not. Last but not least, the results show how important collective mobilisations like the Black Lives Matter movement are for the media debate: BLM has succeeded in fundamentally changing the way racism is discussed, at least during a certain period of time.

Short studies in preparation for the Racism Monitor:

In order to prepare a comprehensive racism monitor, DeZIM called on scholars* from the DeZIM research community in 2020 to develop innovative study ideas. These should extend existing research projects, pursue new and innovative approaches or build an infrastructure to research racism. By 2021, more than 120 researchers at the six locations of the DeZIM research community had conducted a total of 34 short studies. These are divided into six thematic priorities:

• Health system
• Education system and labour market
• Institutional racism
• Dealing with experiences of racism
• Participation and the media
• Racist ideologies and attitudes

Funding: Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Third-party funding)