The questionable role of the media in the development of the Republic of Austria

Being centered in the heart of Europa, Austria is often considered as the Bridge between the East and the West. In shares boarders with Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, the Czech, the Slovak Republics and Lichtenstein, whilst having surface area of only 84.000km2.

With it's 8,6 million inhabitants Austria is truly not one of the most important economic forces in the world. Nevertheless, Austria managed to remain playing a key role in various international diplomatic decisions. It is no coincidence, that several departments of the United Nation Organisation or the OPEC have their headquarter in Vienna.

When studying the European press, the obligatory starting point remains Mainz, Germany, where Johannes Guttenberg invented the printing press and thereby granted the general public of Europe, for the first time in history, increasingly free access to information. Whilst our generations take this for granted, it took centuries until the "first age of printing" (1) emerged.

The more interesting starting point, when analyzing the development of press in Austria, however, remains 1862, when the practice of of pre-publication censorship was formally abolished by law. Until then, under the control of Metternich, censorship was in wide use in the Austrian Empire (Biedermaier or Vormärz period) and this important step was of particular weight for the achievement of press-freedom. To continue with the analysis, it is important to point out, what press-freedom specifically implied: 

"In the first instance, of course, it implied abolition of practices like licencing and censorship. More generally, press freedom meant acceptance of the principe of the legitimate freedom of the press to become  a Fourth Estate in the political realm. Newspaper become freer to engage in political to beta, to publish social and political comments, and even to criticize state authority without fear of punishment or imprisonment." (2)

During the following years, press played an increasingly important part of the political sphere and the development of the countries governments. Between the end of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth century Austria underwent massive political changes from various movements. 

Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I, in the Aftermath of World War I the former Empire was broken up and set up based loosely on national grounds and languages dominating different geographical locations. 

The now following interwar years were particularly difficult for Austria in terms of socio-economical positioning. Most likely, because the newly, more or less random, created borders tore apart what had been a common economic area.

Then, with the Christian Social Party, Austria moved towards centralization of power in the Fascist model, up to the point when Austria became part of the Third Reich in 1938. Following the end of the Second Word War, only four newspapers were remaining. Compared to 22 just seven years earlier. 

During the next years, funding newspapers turned out to be extremely complicated: the country was split into four parts, each occupied by a different Allie, where one had to apply for a license. Additionally, the lack of paper was another disadvantage for Vienna, compared to the southern and western part, which could produce earlier. Finally, technical equipment and printing tools were rare. Printouts were one of the main instrument of the Nazi Regime's propaganda machinery. Therefore, the Allies declared the equipment as weapons and confiscated most of it. 

In 1955, when the "Zweite Republik", the "Second Republic" was made official, finally fully independent on foreign influences, 35 different Austrian newspapers were available. 

Apart from the newspapers, one other key innovation was to influence the Austrian media situation. It took until 1955 that the ORF, the "Österreichischer Rundfunk", or "Austrian Broadcasting Company" started its first television broadcast. The ORF is closely comparable to the BBC, even though it lacks the turbulences of the first decades after the launch of the BBC. I will return to the ORF a little further down. 

According to the famous Insitut für Kommunikationswissenschften (3) from Graz, a few key developments formed the market of newspapers to the situation we know today: 

First began, in 1946, a significant decline of the overall circulation of newspapers, which dropped until in 1957, when barely 1,2 million copies were printed in the whole country. Following the introduction of a new mass medium after the invention of the television broadcast, the circulation suddenly started to rise and after only eleven years the number of printed copies doubled. However, the number of newspapers shrank down to only 19 in 1973.

The next years the Austrian press market was dominated by two main players. First, the most important one, the Kronenzeitung, a tabloid comparable to the "Sun", that sold about one million copies a day and the main competitor, the Kurier, which sold about half as many. Together, they covered more than half of the sold newspaper copies during 1989. Just like in the United Kingdom, newspapers driven by political parties lost more and more influence and had to rely almost solely on party funding. 

Then, in a new wave of concentration, driven by foreign (German) capital entering the market, two more newspapers emerged and finally increased the competition. With "Media-Print", "Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" and "Springer-Verlag" more than 31% of the overall circulation of newspaper copies were directly related to German capital in 1991. 

However, in 1995, 7 newspapers accounted for more than 70% of the overall circulation of the country, with the "Kronen-Zeitung" selling more than one million copies and being by far the largest one. 

The "Kronen-Zeitung", often referred to as the "Krone" is a tabloid, that has than established a so strong market position, that it is one of the most widely read dailies per capita in the world, with approximately 3 million readers in a country of about 8,6 million people. (4)

Hans Dichand was the founder of the renewed version of the "Kronen-Zeitung", the newspaper's editor in chief and writer of various closely watched columns.

It can safely be expressed, that Mr. Dichand was the one person in the history of media in Austria who held the most power and expressed the utter most influence of any non-political figure.  

Over the years, Mr. Dichand managed to create a newspaper with unique reach and influence, read by one in four Austrians, an opinion shaper which Austrian politicians cross at their peril.

During the past decades, backing of the "Kronen-Zeitung" was crucial for success in Austrian political life. And receiving the support from the "Krone" was manly depending on the personal opinion of Mr. Dichand. 

The personal position of Mr. Dichand - or Uncle Hans, as he is often referred to - and consequently the political positioning of the most influential Austrian newspaper, can be defined as social right wing and economic left wing. 

A very interesting example of the influence of Uncle Hans's power, was during the 1990s, when the Krone had a massive part in helping the extreme-right populist Jörg Haider and his Freedom Party into government. More recently, in 2008, Dichand single handedly replaced chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer. 

Social Democrat Werner Faymann published an open letter of submission to Dichand in the Kronenzeitung, with the promise to introduce referenda on major EU decisions in the future - a personal matter for the militant anti-EU fighter Dichand. 

Consequently Dichand threw his weight behind Faymann to support him in becoming chancellor, in a massive campaign fueled solely by the Kronenzeitung. (5) Faymann promptly became the paper’s pet, which in instantly boosted his popularity ratings.. Interestingly enough, Faymann won and is chancellor of Austria. 

This incident has resulted in an outcry about the stability of the policies of the Social Democratic Party. In particular, about the corruption of the system and the politicians. 

It is no surprise, that the Kronen Zeitung has often been accused of abusing its near monopoly to manipulate public opinion in Austria.

"Can it be that a single, solitary man of 89 years of age calls the politics shots in Austria? Not parliament, not the parties, not the public." (6)

Also noteworthy,

".. a high-calibre symposium was held recently called “Auslaufmodell Demokratie?” (“Democracy: A Phase-Out Model?”). In Russia the term “sovereign democracy” is gaining currency, while in China they talk about “authoritarian democracy”. Austria bids fair to enrich this debate with the phenomenon “media democracy”." (6)

Austria's difficulties regarding the separation of media from political influence do not end with newspapers. The ORF, the Austrian Broadcasting Company, is another important issue of the undemocratic media/politics relationshipt in Austria.

This becomes fairly obvious from a first glance at the control structure of the Austrian Broadcasting Company: A board of 35 trustees represents the "Kuratorium", the supreme body, which is composed of 9 members who are appointed by the federal government, 6 who are appointed according to the current strength of the parties in government, one by each of the nine counties, and 11 by the "Publikumsrat" and the employers of the ORF. Their main task is essentially to appoint the Director every four years. And it is every four years that it becomes clear how strongly the Kuratorium is set up by party members or individuals with party affiliation. 

Consequently, actual media policy becomes more or less impossible in Austria. There is no strong regulator  comparable to the British "Ministry of Communication", competencies are spread widely across all sectors, including the Federal Chancellery and no standing committees of any sort operate as observant powers. 

Quite recently, since the change of government in 2000 and the arrival of the new ÖVP / FPÖ and ÖVP / BZÖ government, critics have again been accusing the government of attempting to influence the ORF. To be precise, the new federal government came under heavy criticism for replacing senior officials of the ORF. This process was called "Umfärbeaktion" or "to change color". 

Critics spoke of "threat and intimidation" of the ORF news editors and ORF journalists warned that the independence of the broadcaster was in danger. "Attempted intimidation and influence" and numerous interventions by the government parties, including by the head of the FPÖ Peter Westenthaler and Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel. (7)

In 2002, in the world ranking of press freedom ranked Austria behind countries like Ecuador or Benin on 26th place (now 7th). (8)(9)

Elmar Oberhauser, a senior ORF employer, was accused of abusing sports coverage to give the right-wing parties a propaganda platform. In particularly, that he once canceled the news program "Zeit im Bild" for a long sports show including interviews with the right wing Minister of Sports Riess-Passer and FPÖ leader Joerg Haider (concerning the "FC Kärnten"), something that was according to ORF regulations only possible in the special case of extraordinary events.

The internal critique of ORF journalists and employers towards their leadership culminated at the Robert Hochner-Prize Ceremony on 17 May 2006 in Vienna, in the speech of the TV journalists Armin Wolf, who accused the head of the government, among other things, of "almost unbridled" politically influencing the broadcasting programs. 

Additionally, the TV license fee has risen considerably in Austria since 1990, instead of typically just keeping up with the inflation. Over all, the dependence of public broadcasting on the license fee has risen, during the same time that the advertising market had become more competitive, which becomes obvious when comparing the increased turn-over of private television compared to public service channels. (10)

What are the challenges facing Austria's media over the next few years?

Generally the economic and finance-crisis, such as the decreasing trust in traditional print-media and the increase in amateur journalism, has caused problems to media companies. 

Different factors have led to drop of advertisements revenues,  the additional decline in newspaper- and magazine-subscriptions has lead to massive budget problems. 

Recently, it is becoming more and more easy for public relations companies to influence news coverage, because readers often don't recognize so called “advertorials” - articles, which appear like news stories but are sold to companies. 

One last thing: Hans Dichand die on the 17^th of July 2010 and his legacy is yet to be continued..

last time modified: Oct. 2, 2011, 8:03 p.m.