Freedom of press

After the NS Regime, the allied states reorganized the foundation of the German press to adapt to the role model of British and American freedom of press. Thus, British and American media are widely recognized in Germany. British newspapers are more numerous and diverse in comparison to German newspapers. There are at least ten independent quality newspapers that are recognized by a large audience in the UK alone. Besides, they reflect a lot more their readers political views as, for example, German quality newspapers. The most renown German daily newspapers have become less controversial over the years and, today, it is more difficult to divide readers into liberal or conservative ideologies (e.g. Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). Furthermore, American and especially British press is known to be more intense when it comes to reporting about famous people and more polarized. The Internet with its new digital formats opens further sources of information, that are in addition easily accessible to most Germans. Therefore, I believe that American and British media have recently become more prevalent in German culture. Besides, I feel that British media might be more credible to the Germans than American news reporting, e.g. the serious BBC news towards scandalous Fox News.

The Omnipresent British and American Influence on German Media

I would state that the domestic media sector is influenced by the British as well as the American media in many different ways. When we take a closer look at the content of German television we can observe that large parts are either American productions or strongly affected by it. In addition to traditional television, rather new media sources like Netflix nowadays offer a great variety of movies and TV shows that have a mainly American focus. Furthermore, these web-based on-demand services are a fierce competition for traditional formats.

Another highly influenced sector is the book marked. Like television literature has a great impact on the perception of the “American lifestyle” - whatever that might be - is considered desirable in large parts of German society.

The Prevalence of Foreign Media in German Culture

Upon hearing Germans talk about American news media in general – the political tendencies of large newspapers and their standpoints on certain subjects, but also the limited news focus related to the narrow coverage by the regional press – Americans are often dazzled by how well informed Germans seem to be about the state of American news media. The general prevalence of foreign media in Germany, though, is a simple fact for most. In addition to being part of the press review in every serious newspaper or radio format, reports from the British and American news press find their way into various news formats.

As a further aspect, the social media contributes to the prevalence of American and British media worldwide when platforms like facebook distribute news of any kind to a large audience via the means of personal networks. Thus, articles from newspapers like the Guardian (British), but also from periodicals like the New Yorker (American) get transmitted to a German audience who besides reading content their friends suggested on their timeline will be surrounded by yet more foreign media.

Moreover, when influential events like the American elections or the vote on Brexit draw near, the German press – and thus the German society – pays close attention to the respective country’s media coverage of the events. Other instances that are being followed closely include the American or British stance on global matters. The news’ perspective then serves as a means to analyze the position of a country’s society in order to better understand reactions and standpoints.