This document summarizes a paper on acceleration in journalism. It defines acceleration as an increase in quantity per unit of time. It discusses three types of social acceleration identified by Hartmut Rosa: technological acceleration, acceleration of social change, and acceleration of pace of life. It then examines 8 forms of acceleration seen in journalism: reduction of time between events and coverage; attention to short-term events; faster personnel rotation; increased density of journalists' workdays and products; accelerated news reception; faster news diffusion; and reduced length of issue attention cycles. It concludes with a call for more empirical research and theoretical frameworks to understand these acceleration processes.

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„Journalism in Transition: Crisis or Opportunity?“
ECREA Journalism Studies Section, Thessaloniki, March 27-29, 2014
Acceleration in Journalism:
A Theoretical Approach
to a Complex Phenomenon
Uwe Krüger
Photo:wallpaperstock.net
Photo:caradvice.com.au

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1. Introduction
2. Definition of acceleration
3. 8 forms of acceleration in journalism and their normative
implications
4. Conclusion
Outline

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High speed leads to paradoxes and
dysfunctionalities
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
Photo:MichaelKappeler/dpa
Party conference of the Green party, Berlin

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High speed leads to paradoxes and
dysfunctionalities
• “A proper discussion was hardly possible. (…) If the speed
in which the coverage of party conferences gets part of
the party conferences increased even more, you could
also hold them virtually as weblogs.”
Ulrike Winkelmann, taz, 11.05.2009
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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1. Introduction
2. Definition of acceleration
3. 8 forms of acceleration in journalism and their normative
implications
4. Conclusion
Outline

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Acceleration: A banal meta-word?
• The term „acceleration“ is often used, but mostly as an
unreflected buzz phrase
• Lutz Hachmeister (2012): “The term has become so banal
that it cannot be used anymore at all. But nevertheless, it
is probably the meta-word for everything that has been
going on recently.”
• In contrast, I want to show the usefulness of the term to
understand transition processes in journalism
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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• Acceleration can be defined “as an
increase in quantity per unit of time (or,
logically equivalent, as a reduction of
the amount of time per fixed
quantity).” (Rosa 2013: 65)
• The quantity can be a distance covered
(miles per hour), the number of
communicated signs (e-mails per day)
or produced goods (cars per day), but
also the number of jobs per working life
or the number of activities per day
Hartmut Rosa: Acceleration is an increase in
quantity per unit of time
Photo:caradvice.com.au
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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(1) technological acceleration: intentional, technical, machine-
based acceleration of goal-directed processes (e.g., of
communication: marathon runners, horse-riding messengers,
smoke signals, mail pigeons, telegraph, telephones, Internet)
(2) the acceleration of social change: increase in the rate of
decay of action-orienting experiences and expectations;
contraction of the “present” in politics, the economy, science,
art, work relations, family arrangements, moral orientations
(3) acceleration in the pace of life: shortening or condensation of
episodes of action (eat or pray faster, decrease in rests and
empty times, multitasking)
Hartmut Rosa distinguishes three types
of social acceleration
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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The speeding up of society is a self-propelling
process: The circle of acceleration
Rosa 2013: 156
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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1. Introduction
2. Definition of acceleration
3. 8 forms of acceleration in journalism and their normative
implications
4. Conclusion
Outline

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(1) Reduction of the period between event and
coverage
1755
Earthquake in Lissabon
(1.11.)
2004
Indian Ocean earthquake
and tsunami (26.12., 1:59
CET)
Madrid: 1 week after (8.11.) AFP: 1 hour after (2:59)
Paris and London: 3 weeks
after (22.11.)
CNN: 2 hours after (4:00)
Hamburg and Berlin: 4 weeks
after (2.12.)
Internet: 2.5 hours after (4:30)
Wilke 2010
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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(1) Reduction of the period between event and
coverage
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
• Advantage: Recipients can get information very fast and can
react fast (if necessary)
• Disadvantage: Journalists of fast media have almost no time
for fact-checking, investigation and reflection

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• Research on news values has revealed that events that
occur suddenly and fit well in the news organization’s
schedule are more likely to be reported than those that
occur gradually.
• Disadvantage: As the publication frequencies increase
with new technologies, important long-term trends may
be even less likely to receive much coverage.
(2) Increasing attention to events with a short
time horizon
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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• e.g., within an editorial staff, between staffs or between
journalism and public relations
• Advantages: fresh ideas, curiosity, independence from sources
• Disadvantages: loss of expert knowledge, institutional memory
and professional identity
(3) Faster rotation of personell
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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(4) Increased density of journalists’ working
days
Weischenbergetal.2006:80
9
84
78
33
117
0
50
69
49
140
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
PR, marketing
technical tasks
organization, administration
selection of texts
journalistic research
1993 2005
Minutes per day
N=1.498 (1993) 1.536 (2005)
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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(4) Increased density of journalists’ working
days
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
• Disadvantage: adverse effects on the quality of coverage
(substance, depth)

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(5) Increased density of journalistic products
ARD-Tagesschau 1975 ARD-Tagesschau 1995
12,5 news clips (av. 73 sec.) 14,8 news clips (av. 60 sec.)
sound bite: 26 sec. sound bite: 12 sec.
Zubayr/Fahr1999Screenshots:Youtube
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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(5) Increased density of journalistic products
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
• Advantage: more exciting and entertaining news with more
information (infographics)
• Disadvantage: adverse effects on the understandability and
memorability of news

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(6) Accelerated patterns of news reception
Photo:www.fraulich-online.de/
dwell time at one channel:
1988: 27 minutes
1994: 16 minutes
Change of channels:
1995: 10 times per hour
2005: 16 times per hour
Reinold1994
Ettenhuber2007
Parallel use of 2 media:
1995: 13 minutes per day
2010: 37 minutes per day
Best/Breunig2011
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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(6) Accelerated patterns of news reception
Photo:www.fraulich-online.de/
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
• Disadvantage: negative effects on how deep the recipients
understand and memorize journalistic information

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(7) Faster news diffusion
Rosengren1987:242
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
Hours after event
Percent of
population
knowing the
news
Diffusion of the news „Assassination of Olof Palme“ in 11 countries

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(7) Faster news diffusion
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
• Advantage: Recipients get information very fast and can react
fast (if necessary)

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(8) Reduced length of issue-attention cycles
and increased alteration of discussed issues
Kolb2005:95
In 1997, “we took an
issue a day. But in
2005, we had to
have one for the
morning, another for
the afternoon, and
by the evening the
agenda had already
moved on.“ (Tony
Blair) cited from Rosen-
berg/Feldman 2008: 1f.
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
time
Amountofcoverage

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(8) Reduced length of issue-attention cycles
and increased alteration of discussed issues
Photo:www.fraulich-online.de/
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
• Disadvantage: negative effects on the ability of players to come
to reasonable solutions (or: to generate enough political pressure
to cause effective change)

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1. Introduction
2. Definition of acceleration
3. 8 forms of acceleration in journalism and their normative
implications
4. Conclusion
Outline

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• scattered empirical data exists on some of these aspects
• systematic research on time structures in journalism is
required
• If acceleration processes lead to a declining quality of
coverage, to an erosion of media’s orientation function and to
a dysfunctional public debate, it would be necessary to
discuss those time structures
(1) Need for empirical research
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion

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(2) Need for theoretical framework to
understand empirical observations
Introduction Definition 8 Forms Conclusion
Rosa 2013: 156

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References (I)
Best, Stefanie/Breunig, Christian (2011): Parallele und exklusive Mediennutzung.
Ergebnisse auf Basis der ARD/ZDF-Langzeitstudie Massenkommunikation. In: Media
Perspektiven (1), pp. 16-35.
Hachmeister, Lutz (2012): Journalismus und digitale Geschwindigkeit.
Deutschlandfunk, 20.01., http://diskurs.dradio.de/thema/neuer-journalismus/page/3/
(accessed on 17.09.2013).
Ettenhuber, Andreas (2007): Die Beschleunigung des Fernsehverhaltens.
Sekundäranalyse von Daten aus dem GfK-Fernsehpanel. München: Reinhard Fischer.
Kolb, Steffen (2005): Mediale Thematisierung in Zyklen. Theoretischer Entwurf und
empirische Anwendung. Köln: Herbert von Halem.
Rosa, Hartmut (2013): Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity. New York:
Columbia University Press.

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References (II)
Rosenberg, Howard/Feldman, Charles S. (2008): No Time to Think. The Menace of
Media Speed and the 24-hour News Cycle. New York: Continuum.
Weischenberg, Siegfried/Malik, Maja/Scholl, Armin (2006): Die Souffleure der
Mediengesellschaft. Report über die Journalisten in Deutschland. Konstanz: UVK.
Wilke, Jürgen (2010): Historical perspectives on media events: a comparison of the
Lisbon earthquake in 1755 with the Tsunami catastrophe 2004. In: Couldry,
Nick/Hepp, Andreas/Krotz, Friedrich (eds.): Media Events in a Global Age. London,
New York: Routledge, pp. 45-60.
Zubayr, Camille/Fahr, Andreas (1999): Die Tagesschau: Fels in der dualen
Brandung? Ein Vergleich von Inhalten und Präsentationsformen 1975 und 1995. In:
Wilke, Jürgen (ed.): Massenmedien und Zeitgeschichte. Konstanz: UVK, pp. 638-
647.

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Dr. Uwe Krüger
Universität Leipzig
Institut für Kommunikations- und
Medienwissenschaft, Abteilung Journalistik
Burgstr. 21
04109 Leipzig
Germany
Phon: ++49-341-97-35756
Fax: ++49-341-97-35799
E-mail: uwe.krueger@uni-leipzig.de
Contact