H2 Media

Topic:

The research project "H2Media - Hydrogen in German print media" focuses on analysing the social discourse around hydrogen as a key technology for the energy transition and sustainable development in German print media. The project aims to analyse how hydrogen is discussed in the wider society in Germany, taking into account the related topics, assessments and the perspectives of different stakeholders regarding sustainability and innovativeness. The focus is on analysing content from national print media in Germany through a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The study concludes with the sorting of the different stakeholder groups in the hydrogen discourse and the creation and validation of ontologies for agent-based modelling.

Funding:

Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Project duration:

01.04.2024 - 31.03.2025

Partner:

Department of Communication (IfK) at the University of Münster

Project Description:

Hydrogen is being discussed in political discourse as one of the key technologies for the energy transition and social transformation. Stakeholders from various sectors also see this as an opportunity to enable the necessary industrial transformation to achieve climate neutrality. At the same time, politicians and industry believe that hydrogen has the potential to address recurring economic problems in the German economy. But how is hydrogen being discussed in social discourse? What topics are being addressed in connection with hydrogen? What potential and challenges are attributed to hydrogen? Who has a say in this discourse and how do these actors assess hydrogen in terms of sustainability and innovative capacity? 

In order to analyse the social discourse with the focus on these research questions, the content of journalistic news media is in the spotlight, as they both depict further social debates and influence them through their own reporting. The focus is on national print media in Germany. A quantitative content analysis traces the development of reporting and identifies the dominant topics and actors in the hydrogen discourse. A qualitative content analysis examines the media frames and thus the way in which hydrogen is represented as well as the attribution of meaning to the technology. Furthermore, the perspective of the actors who have their say in this discourse is reconstructed. Based on this analysis, ontologies are created that later can be used for agent-based modelling to model the behaviour of actors in the hydrogen industry and policy.

Contact:

Dr. Torben Stührmann

Universit?t Bremen
FB 4 / FG Resiliente Energiesysteme
artec | Forschungszentrum Nachhaltigkeit

Konrad-Zuse-Stra?e 8a (Neos)
28359 Bremen
Tel. 0421-218-64896
Fax. 0421-218-9864896
E-Mail