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H2Media: New BMBF Project on Hydrogen in German Print Media Launched in April
(12.04.2024) Hydrogen is discussed in political discourse as one of the key technologies for the energy transition. Stakeholders from various industry sectors also see it as a means to achieve the goal of climate neutrality. At the same time, politics and industry attribute to hydrogen the potential to address recurrent economic issues in the German economy. But how is hydrogen discussed in social discourse? What potential and challenges are attributed to hydrogen? Who are the voices in this discourse, and how do these stakeholders evaluate hydrogen's sustainability and capacity for innovation?
These and other research questions are the focus of a consortium project that started in April and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The project is coordinated by researchers from the Department of Communication at the University of Münster. It analyzes the content of journalistic news media concerning hydrogen. Since journalistic news media not only reflect societal debates on the topic but also influence them through their reporting, they are being closely examined in the project.
The focus is on national print media in Germany. Through a quantitative content analysis, the development of reporting and the dominant themes and stakeholders in the hydrogen discourse are identified. A qualitative content analysis studies the media frames and thus the representation of hydrogen and the meanings attributed to the technology. Furthermore, the perspectives of stakeholders who are featured in the media discourse are reconstructed. Based on these media content analyses, ontologies will be created, and it will be examined how modeling of stakeholder behavior in hydrogen policy and industry can be improved.
The one-year research project is conducted by Prof. Dr. Sigrid Kannengießer, Dr. Stephan Görland, and Dr. Bernadette Uth from the University of Münster, in cooperation with the Department of Resilient Energy Systems at the University of Bremen, led by Dr. Torben Stührmann. The consortium coordination is handled by the University of Münster. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding this sub-project with a sum of €155,000.