This article contributes to the debate on the influence of organizational settings on scientists’ media contact. Drawing on a quantitative survey of researchers ( n = 942) from 265 German universities, the results indicate that a large proportion of scientists from all disciplines participate regularly in the dissemination of research findings. The authors provide evidence that scientists’ media efforts are influenced by how they adopt their university’s desire to be visible in the media, as well as by the university’s PR activities. The increased orientation toward news media is discussed in the light of the new governance of science within Europe.

Ein prägendes Element der wissenschaftspolitischen Reformbemühungen in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten ist der Rückzug des Staates aus der Detailsteuerung von Hochschulen. Daraus ergeben sich vielfältige Konsequenzen, nicht zuletzt ein verändertes Verhältnis von wissenschaftlichen Hochschulen und interessierter Öffentlichkeit. Waren es die Hochschulen über Jahrzehnte gewohnt, dass die Wissenschaftsministerien der Länder gleichsam als institutioneller Puffer zwischen ihnen und den Interessen der gesellschaftlichen Leistungsabnehmer vermittelten, sind sie im neuen Steuerungsmodell nun häufiger und unmittelbarer als jemals zuvor mit den Ansprüchen ihrer gesellschaftlichen Stakeholder konfrontiert. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit einer Reihe von Fragen, die sich aus dieser gewandelten Konstellation von Politik, Öffentlichkeit und Hochschulen ergeben. Wie gestalten die Hochschulen ihr Verhältnis zur Öffentlichkeit? Welche Auswirkungen hat das für die innerorganisatorische Struktur und Kultur von Universitäten und Fachhochschulen? Und welche Rolle verbleibt dem Staat innerhalb der ›New Governance of Science‹? Auf der Basis einer bundesweiten Befragung von Entscheidungsträgern an deutschen Hochschulen lassen sich zwei Trends konstatieren: zum Ersten eine verkappte Politisierung der Hochschulen, die das wissenschaftspolitische Zustimmungsmanagement weitgehend selbst in die Hand nehmen, und zum Zweiten eine sekundäre Medialisierung wissenschaftlicher Organisationen, weil die verantwortlichen Entscheidungsträger zu diesem Zweck das Rollenmodell staatlicher Politik kopieren.

This paper is concerned with analysing potential negative effects of mediatisation of university governance in Germany. Among others, mediatisation reflects a change in expectations on how higher education institutions (HEI) should relate to the public. We start with an exploration of two sets of developments that spawned this change of expectations. On the one hand, the policy idea of a trend to a knowledge society affected what public contributions are expected of HEI. On the other hand, reforms to decentralise HEI-governance compelled universities to orient themselves more directly towards the demands of external stakeholder. Both developments reinforce each other, both are associated with extended needs for actor intermediation, and for consolidating means of orientation. Since performance figures and competition solely allow for a partial mapping of society’s demands and needs, HEI and state administrators alike can be expected to make additional use of the public discourse to evaluate comparatively a multitude of demands and expectations. This results in what we call a model of mediatised university governance. Since the media discourse on higher education is strongly biased towards news values, this type of governance bears a potential for unintended side effects. In the second part of the paper, two empirical illustrations of side effects are discussed. First, the role of media attention in accidentally reinforcing a reputational mismatch of teaching and research is investigated. For a second case, we focus on an overstretching of the information value of media-effective rankings for decision making. The cases draw upon survey data, semi-standardised expert-interviews and content analysis of news media coverage.

This paper analyses potential negative effects of mediatisation of university governance in Germany. Mediatisation reflects a change in expectations of how higher education institutions (HEI) should relate to the public. We explore two sets of developments that spawned this change of expectations. Firstly, the policy idea of a trend to a knowledge society affected what public contributions are expected of HEI. Secondly, reforms to decentralise HEI-governance compelled universities to orient themselves more directly towards demands of external stakeholder. Both developments reinforce each other, both are associated with extended needs for actor intermediation, and for consolidating means of orientation. Since performance figures and competition solely allow for a partial mapping of society's demands and needs, HEI and state administrators can be expected to make additional use of public discourse to evaluate comparatively a multitude of demands and expectations. This results in what we call a model of mediatised university governance. Since media discourse on higher education is strongly biased towards news values, this type of governance has potentially unintended side effects. In the second part of the paper, two empirical illustrations are discussed. First, the role of media attention in accidentally reinforcing a reputational mismatch of teaching and research is investigated. Secondly, we focus on an overstretching of the information value of media-effective rankings for decision making. The cases draw upon survey data, semi-standardised expert-interviews and content analysis of news media coverage.

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