„Die Presse verrät ihren Beruf“. Theodor Geiger (1891–1952) – ein (fast) vergessener Klassiker auch der Kommunikationswissenschaft

Abstract

Theodor Geiger, who emigrated from Germany to Scandinavia in 1933 and never returned after 1945, was one of the last universal scholars in the field of social science. Among many contributions, Geiger provided decisive contributions to the sociology of law, to social stratification, and to the sociology of education and ideology criticism. Yet, his extensive research in the field of journalism, the public sphere and the media has only received scarce attention so far. His expertise as a classic also in the field of communication studies can, above all, be seen from the still existing topicality of his theoretical-normative, and at the same time empiric-analytical investigations. In his analysis of the intelligentsia which in his view includes journalists, he postulates that ideology critique based on facts and sober rationality should be the main task of this public-related occupation, which should confront all parties involved in the political power struggle in a fundamentally independent distance. In his ‘Criticism of Advertising’ he reconstructs the history of the development of this phenomenon, characteristic to affluent capitalistic societies, and designs a systematic typology of the methods of persuasive public communication. He also unmasks in precise economic argumentation as ideological errors the common assumptions that cross-financing by adverting would enhance the journalistic quality and would mean real money-saving to audiences. Moreover, of his empirical research on radio reception can teach us that there are realistic chances of popular distribution of cultural products, as well as methodical potentials are resulting from his experiment. From the example of Theodor Geiger, a classic forgotten in communication science and journalism, productive possibilities of an interdisciplinary subject history can be derived which does not understand itself as hagiography.