The Political Economy of the post-Socialist East German Press Market
My project focuses on East Germany during the Wende (transition) period, that is the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the post-Wall period. My goal is to complicate dominant narratives that commonly describe the transition of the East German media system from a state controlled propaganda apparatus to that of a free democratic media system.
I am interested in how far the democratic potential that existed in the moment of revolutionary change in 1990 found its implementation in the East German media in general, and the press in particular. For this, and contrary to current research, I examine the process of media reform from the perspective of an (inter)national market economy. More precisely, my project aims to shed light on the long-lasting political economic influences on the reformation of the East German press. I ask how, by whom and under what (pre)conditions was the East German media system transformed, its market created, and who was most successful in implementing their social, political and economic interests in this process, and with what socio-democratic benefits and losses.
Core concern is the intersection between the normative role the press holds in a democratic society and that of a newly developing, or rather established expanding Western market economy. Though the media was neither unique, nor exclusive but part of a broad political-economic reformation process, it does deserve particular attention in that it was one of the main targets of East German reform movements in 1989/1990. By reassessing post-socialist history through the lens of a changing media and press system in East Germany, this project traces the broader social, economic and political realities of this unique historical moment and its lasting ramifications for post-Wall Germany.