CAMRI Seminar
Jörg Becker: Journalism and media/communication studies under Hitler: 
The example of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
University of Westminster
Harrow Campus (tube stop: Northwick Park, Metropolitan Line)
Wed, April 2, 2014
14:00-16:00
Room A6.08

http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/research-seminars/journalism-and-mediacommunication-studies-under-hitler-the-example-of-elisabeth-noelle-neumann-her-nazi-ideology-and-the-spiral-of-silence 


Registration at latest until Monday, March 31, by e-mail to 
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It is generally known that propaganda played a crucial role in Germany 
under Hitler. Concrete examples of journalism and media studies 
conducted during this time in Nazi Germany are however far less known 
and have hardly been analysed. In this talk, Jörg Becker sets out the 
context of media and communications in Nazi Germany and discusses the 
example of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, who during the Nazi time was both a 
media and public opinion researcher as well as a journalist. 
Noelle-Neumann (1916-2010) has internationally mainly become known in 
Media and Communication Studies for her approach of the spiral of silence.
The role she played in National Socialism has long been a blind spot of 
research and public attention. New evidence shows that she was much more 
involved in different Nazi activities as publicly known. Her engagement 
with the Nazis had many consequences for the post World War II 
situation. Until the early 1950s the US Government refused to grant her 
an entry visa into the US but changed this negative attitude towards her 
when they changed their politics from anti-Fascism to anti-Communism.
Inside Germany Noelle-Neumann's former Nazi-involvement had two 
different results after 1945:
* With the support of her old Nazi network she was able to start her new 
privately owned Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research;
* Old social-Darwinist and Nazi ideas from her 1940 PhD dissertation 
could survive in her book on the spiral of silence in 1980.
In this talk, Jörg Becker analyses and uncovers the ideological 
underpinnings of a person who was an important part of and major 
influential figure in German and international Media and Communication 
Studies after 1945.

Summary and review of Jörg Becker's German book about Noelle-Neumann:
http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/489

Biography
Professor Dr Jörg Becker has taught at the Departments of Political 
Science at the University of Marburg in Germany and the University of 
Innsbruck in Austria. He studied German, political science and pedagogy 
in Marburg, Bern and Tübingen and obtained his PhD in 1977 and his 
habilitation in 1981. In 1987 he became honorary professor at the 
University of Marburg. He held a Heisenberg scholarship of the German 
Research Foundation (DFG) from 1987 until 1992.
His fields of teaching and research are international, comparative and 
German media-, communication and cultural studies, technology 
assessment, peace research. He has published numerous works in more than 
10 languages. Example publications are the monograph “Communication and 
Conflict. Studies in International Relations. Preface by Johan Galtung” 
(2005) and the collected volumes “Information Technology and a New 
International Order” (1984), “Communication and Domination. Essays to 
Honor Herbert I. Schiller” (1986), “Transborder Data Flow and 
Development” (1987), “Europe Dpeaks to Europe. International Information 
Flows between Eastern and Western Europe. With a preface by Willy 
Brandt” (1989), “Internet in Asia” (2001), “Internet in Malaysia” 
(2001), “Internet in Malaysia and Vietnam” (2002).