Media diversity in the regional area

Local and regional journalism performs an important function for society: It provides publicity for socially relevant topics in regions and communities and enables public discourse on these topics. Local and regional journalism thus creates the basis for the participation of the population in the democratic process at the municipal and cantonal level.

The crisis of journalism is endangering this function: The number of media is decreasing and in more and more regions only one or no independent newspaper exists anymore. While alternatives for information almost always exist on the national and international level, the lack of a newspaper in the regions often leads to a stunting of public discourse. 

On the basis of two analyses, the fög examines the effects of media concentration in terms of content on the diversity of reporting in the cantons of Zurich and Aargau. Of key interest is the question of whether and how this diversity is changing in the wake of increased editorial cooperation - i.e., the introduction of central editorial offices that provide different media titles with the same content. To achieve this, the fög receives support from the Gemeinnütziger Fonds of Canton Zürich and the Lotteriefonds Canton Aargau.