Art Related Cultural Conflicts and How the Media presents them

This study explores the complex and understudied relationship between the arts, (geo)politics and the media in an era of global cultural exchange by investigating how the media represents cultural conflicts over (satirical) art. Research in the past mostly concentrated on satire and politics itself, with its majority in the US; and relating to controversies over art, literature focused mostly on cases that touched upon religion. However, the interplay of culture, satire and international media coverage has received little attention as of today. This study argues that media writers actively influence the representation of cultural and political conflicts through selecting certain frames but not others. By investigating the media coverage of the Böhmermann/Erdogan case by German newspapers, the following aspects and questions were addressed. First, how are art related cultural conflicts represented by the media, which aspects of the controversy are selectively included and which are excluded by the media writers. Second, which speakers were given a voice and which voices are worthy being heard. Third, which frames were selected by media writers to represent the controversy. Finally, this research also compared how ideological differences and target groups can influence the paper’s media presentation. The quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the online media coverage of three German newspapers (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Kölner Express and Deutsch-Türkische Nachrichten) revealed the following insights. First, regarding the general development of the controversy, it was revealed that controversy raises attention especially when political leaders are involved and react to public criticism. Second, it confirmed how powerful cultural objects can be and how the impact of online media report and cross-cultural communication can increase conflicts as well as making them more difficult to solve. Third, through the distinct majority of mentioned speakers being politicians, lawyers and journalists, an existing hierarchy was proven, deciding on who is given a voice and whose voice is worthy being heard. Although the three observed newspapers had in common to include mostly politicians as speakers in the discourse, the presentation was shaped in different ways by means of including certain utterances to emphasize and support different stands in the discourse. Finally, newspaper’s ideologies and target groups considerably influence the way of reporting about them leading to the conclusion that media actively shapes the way cultural conflicts are perceived.