Die Staatsunabhängigkeit der Medien

Abstract

If the journalistic media are to be able to effectively perform their essential democratic tasks of shaping public opinion and controlling state power, they must be independent of the state. At the same time, this same state must guarantee a diverse range of media and inform the public about its activities. This tension is exacerbated in the Internet age, in which expensive journalistic content production is considered less and less secure. As a result, the state's duty to safeguard media pluralism, for example by organizing a public service system or other support measures, and to carry out active public relations work is updated. This in turn increases the danger that the state will influence media activity or become a media provider itself. What limits the state has to observe in this context is elaborated in this book on the basis of a cross-media genre constitutional and international law analysis of the principle of state independence of the media.