Manufacturing consent through integration: Social networks of German journalists in the elite milieu and their effects on coverage

Abstract

Most of the previous research concerning the interaction between journalists and their elite sources was done by questioning the players, the results being anonymized. This study has chosen a different methodological approach in order to pinpoint any possible influence by elite sources on journalistic content. First, a social network analysis focuses on the social environment of German journalists, in particular that of four senior foreign policy editors with the leading newspapers Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt and Die Zeit. These were involved in a number of associations, think tanks and policy-planning groups, which have ties with the German federal government, the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization where they potentially had contact with national and international political and business elites. Following this, a frame analysis shows that the output of the four journalists on the controversial issues of the definition of security (‘extended security concept’) and of deployments of the German army abroad (especially in Afghanistan) follows the same line as that of the identified peer groups. Finally, the implications of this coincidence are discussed.