PurposeThe article discusses findings from a research project on the communication history of the League of Nations. It departs from the League's normative goal of “open diplomacy”, which, from an analytical standpoint, can be framed as an “epistemic project” in the sense of a non-linear and ambivalent negotiation by communication of what “open diplomacy” should and could be. The notion of the “epistemic project” serves as an analytical concept to understand this negotiation of open diplomacy across co-evolving actors' constellations from journalism, PR and diplomacy.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs a mixed-method approach, including hermeneutic document analysis of UN archival sources and collective biography/prosopography of 799 individual journalists and information officers.FindingsIt finds that the League's conceptualisations of the public sphere and open diplomacy were fluent and ambivalent. They developed in the interplay of diverse actors' collectives in Geneva. The involved roles of information officers, journalists and diplomats were permeable, heterogenous and – not least from a normative perspective – conflictive.Originality/valueThe subject remains under-researched, especially from the perspective of communication studies. The study is the first to approach it with the described research framework.

This chapter consists of two main parts: the first summing up why we may look to the classics to understand mediatization processes in the long term, e.g. through a historical perspective, especially with regard to the history of communication. The second part looks more closely at the writings of three classic authors: Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies and Ernest Manheim (a direct student of Tönnies), and thus illustrates the first part. Manheim was the first European thinker to use the term "mediatization" explicitly to explain the cultural and social shift in mass-mediated societies as early as 1932/1933. He was a forerunner of Habermas in describing the rise of a public sphere since the 17 th century. A further reference is Jürgen Habermas himself and his historical perspective on the rise of the bourgeois public sphere, demolished by the mass press from the late 19 th century onwards, as well as his assumption of the mediatization of the lifeworld in his theory of communicative action. Habermas' more recent work of the 1990s and 2000s, on the concept of public communication and civil society, is not as culturally pessimistic as it first seems. The frameworks of mediatization research by Winfried Schulz and Jesper Strömbäck explain which (historical) stages of mediatization are visible in the classics of first modernity.Keywords: mediatization as a historical process, phases of mediatization, history of mediatization research, public sphere theory, Jürgen Habermas, Ernest Manheim, Max Weber, communication history, media history, history of communication research This chapter focuses on two arguments: one summing up why we should look at the classics to understand mediatization processes in the long run, e.g. through a historical perspective, especially regarding the history of communication. The second argument looks more closely at the writings of three classic thinkers: Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Ernest Manheim (a student of Tönnies) and thus illustrates the first argument.All cases originate in the German tradition − even though Weber, Tönnies, and Manheim have also had impact on transnational theory building. This is especially true for their successor Jürgen Habermas and his approach to think and rethink the public sphere and social communication. Habermas is not a sociological classic Brought to you by | University of Michigan Authenticated Download Date | 7/11/15 10:23 AM

This article is looking at the status quo of mediatization research in French and Spanish speaking communities of communication researchers. It argues that problems of mediatization are discussed in these communities namely under the term 'mediation' (médiation, mediación). This term does not mean exactly the same as 'mediatization as a metaconcept' which Friedrich Krotz has proposed in the last decade - but there are common lines of thinking: both, mediatization and mediation, focus on (1) communication as social and symbolic action, (2) the role of technical media and digitalization in postmodern societies, (3) the transcultural background of changes in the lifeworld (not at least via globalization processes), structured more and more via technical mediated communication. The author outlines mediation research in France and Latin America, focusing especially on basic readings in these fields, namely the works of Paul Béaud (for France and the francophone Switzerland) and Jésus Martín-Barbero for Latin America as well as for France. Both lines, the French and the Latin American ? which are interwoven ? are not very well known in western and northern Europe.

O artigo apresenta ao leitor alguns aspectos da história das ciências da comunicação na Alemanha, das origens até os anos 1960. Sublinhando as preocupações da atual geração em reavaliar seu passado, três momentos são analisados. Dominante no período que precedeu a ascensão do nazismo, o primeiro se caracteriza pelo desenvolvimento de uma abordagem empírica e interdisciplinar. O segundo revela o modo como o campo se submeteu ao novo regime e com ele colaborou, interrompendo sua atividade científica. O terceiro corresponde à situação do pós-Guerra e se caracteriza pelas tentativas de modernizar a área, adotando os conceitos e métodos de pesquisa originados dos Estados Unidos. A conclusão dá sinal de que o ciclo de reavaliação do passado está, agora, em vias de encerramento nas ciências da comunicação da Alemanha.

Ob wir den Begriff der Kommunikation engoder weit fassen, sozial ist sie aufjeden Fall. (Luckmann 1984a: 77) DiesesZitat vonThomas Luckmann mag banal erscheinen. Bedenkt man aber,dass die Kommunikationswissenschaft seit ihrer zeitungswissenschaftlichen Gründung1 916 darum ringt,sich in permanent wandelnden Medienumgebungen einen immer wieder angemessenen Kommunikationsbegriffzugeben, ist diese Aussageschon nicht mehr so selbstverständlich. Dann eröffnet sich vielmehr die Frage, ob "das Soziale an der Kommunikation" auch unter sich wandelnden Medienumgebungen unverändert oder doch mindestens ähnlich bleibt?¹ Wandelns ich Kommunikation und Medien miteinander und wenn ja, wie? Erfüllen je neue oder andere Medien vergleichbar bleibende kommunikative Leistungenoder Bedürfnisse, kommen andere hinzu?Wie wird Gesellschaft durch Kommunikation möglich? Zwar geht die Fachgeschichted er Kommunikationswissenschaft seit Wolfgang Riepl (1913) davona us, dass kein Medium das andere ersetzt,s ondern Medien sich komplementär entwickeln (vgl. Peiser 2008). Das muss allerdings nicht heißen, dass soziale Kommunikation (auf individueller oder gesellschaftlicher Ebene) sich nicht ändert oder ändern kann. Mit Friedrich Krotz darf man annehmen, dass der Medienwandel kommunikativesHandelnverändert,ebenso wie kommunikativesHandeln aufden Medienwandel zurückwirkt (vgl. Krotz 2012: 45). Die komplexeG rundfragen ach den gegenseitigen Bedingtheiten und Wechselseitigkeiten vonM edien-u nd Kommunikationswandel wird (auch) in diesem Buch nicht hinreichend beantwortet werden können (weiterführend zu den diesbezüglichen Problemen Kinnebrock/Birkner/Schwarzenegger2015).Vielmehrgeht es im Folgenden um die Frage, wie ‚die' Klassiker der Sozialwissenschaften Kommunikation im Medienwandel beschrieben haben und inwiefern dies für das Verständnis des aktuellen Medienwandelsr elevant sein kann. Mit anderen Worten: Können wir mit den kommunikationssoziologischen Darlegungen und Auseinandersetzungen der Klassiker heute noch arbeiten?W as erklären sie uns und inwiefern sind sie für uns hilfreich? Lässt sich vermitteltü ber die Klassikerliteratur der Prozess der Mediatisierung,e inschließlich des Kommunikationswandels in den letzten 100 Jahren besser verstehen? Lässt sich auch die Ideengeschichte unserer Wissenschaft − gerade im Zusammenhang mit dem Medienwandel − besser nachvollziehen, wenn man die longue durée des Nachdenkens über gesellschaftliche Kommunikation und Medien einbezieht?  Dies impliziert auch einen Begriffswandel, in der Weimarer Zeitungswissenschaft etwa wurde der Kommunikationsbegriff bis aufA usnahmen nicht verwendet,wohla ber der Begriff der "Mitteilung" (vgl. Averbeck 1999;A verbeck/Kutsch 2000). Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 8/19/15 4:53 PM  InsbesondereThomas Luckmann und Ernest Manheim können genauso gutals "englischsprachige" Klassiker gelten, habena ber beide lange Perioden ihresj eweiligenS chaffens in Deutschlandz ugebracht.A uf einer Reihe internationaler Klassiker,a ngefangenb...