Medienhaus Wien (MHW) is an independent non-university research and training company. Its shareholders are Andy Kaltenbrunner, Matthias Karmasin, Alfred J. Noll, and Astrid Zimmermann. It is funded by third-party research, cooperation and development projects, income from teaching at academies and universities, and the shareholders’ own contributions. Proceeds are invested in new research projects. MHW publishes the research book series Journalismus-Report (Journalism Report) for the empirical total survey of the situation of Austrian media and journalists. At the national level, the team works closely with the Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies (CMC) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences/University of Klagenfurt (Josef Seethaler, Tobias Eberwein). Internationally, the MHW has worked for many years with leading institutions and researchers in the field, such as the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt/D (Klaus Meier), the Miguel Hernández University of Elche/E (Jose García-Avilés), the Zurich University of Applied Sciences/CH (Vinzenz Wyss), with Lucy Küng and Nic Newman (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University/GB), Christopher Buschow (Bauhaus University Weimar/D) and Colin Porlezza (Università della Svizzera italiana Lugano/CH and City University/GB). Medienhaus Wien is therefore active in research, education, consulting as well as in the development of qualification and innovation support in the media sector.
Research In recent years, the focus has been on innovation in journalism with MHW (together with the CMC institute) leading the Austrian part of the FWF-funded D-A-CH basic research project “Journalism Innovation in Democratic Societies” (2020–2023). In addition to case studies on successful examples of innovation, MHW’s research focuses on financing and funding opportunities for innovative journalism. Since 2018, a focus of our media policy research is the analysis of public spending on subsidies and advertising. Andy Kaltenbrunner and the team’s ongoing analysis of the federal government’s spending on advertising has received particular attention. Medienhaus Wien’s first EU project on “Media Accountability and Transparency in Europe – MediaAct” (2010-2013) in an EU consortium is still the scientific basis for several other international research projects. With the first days of the lockdown in March 2020, an accompanying research project on media use and trust during the Corona pandemic started. Together with the Austrian Gallup Institute, a dozen survey waves were conducted. The effects of the Corona crisis on media production, journalism and brand development were examined. Finally, another focus is research on socio-demographics, attitudes and professional reality in Austrian newsrooms. The most recent national general survey on the socio-demographics of the 5,350 professional journalists in Austria and 500 representative personal interviews on professional attitudes is “Der österreichische Journalismus-Report. Eine empirische Erhebung und eine repräsentative Befragung” (“The Austrian Journalism-Report. An empirical and a representative survey”), which was published in 2020 by the Facultas-Verlag.
Training and Consulting The transfer of research results into practice is important to MHW in order to create a basis for decision-making in public institutions, media policy, editorial offices and new journalistic projects. We have supported the strategy development of state media institutions, municipalities, international journalist associations, and new journalism networks. Early MHW-studies, for example for the Austrian Ministry of Science and the City of Vienna, led to new educational programmes (2002/2003). Studies of an advisory nature have been commissioned, for example, by the Vienna Film Fund on funding development with regard to young audiences (2013), the Austrian Federal Chancellery on quality analysis in journalism (2017), the North Rhine-Westphalia State Media Authority on Journalism Innovation Programmes (2021/2022). MHW partners and staff teach and present at dozens of courses, industry conferences and academic symposia every year. Since 2010, MHW has organised industry conferences on the future of journalism in the series “Journalism 2020” from 2010 on (with Alan Rusbridger, Phil Meyer, Wolfgang Blau and many others), together with Fjum, before the Corona pandemic, the annual Viennese “Media Innovation Days” (with Amanda Michel, Maria Ramírez, Romanus Otte, Jost Lübben, Maren Urner, Rob Wijnberg and others) and from 2010 to 2014 the “Hedy Lamarr Lectures” together with the CMC Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (with Saskia Sassen, Eric Kandel, Helga Nowotny, Pippa Norris, Otfried Jarren, Sree Sreenivasan, Ruth Wodak and others).
Development The conception and curriculum development of Vienna’s first university programme for journalism and media management (2003) was one of the foundations of the Medienhaus Wien network. In the development of educational programmes, this was followed by the Vienna UAS programme for film, TV and media production (2011), the development and management of the Executive Master’s programme for International Media Innovation Management (2011–2016) at the German University for Continuing Education/Steinbeis University of Applied Sciences together with the Poynter Institute (USA) and Universidad Miguel Hernández (Spain). MHW developed the concept for the founding of the Viennese training academy “Forum Journalismus und Medien (fjum)”. MHW co-founder Daniela Kraus took over the management and development of the leading continuing education academy for journalists from 2011 to 2019. Andy Kaltenbrunner and MHW have continued to accompany European funding programmes for innovation in journalism with research and concrete programme development, for example on behalf of the City of Vienna in the founding of the “Vienna Media Initiative”, which has been funding journalistic innovations by intra- and entrepreneurs with 3 million euros annually since 2020.
Rode-Prize The MHW annually awards the Walther Rode Prize for high-quality journalism characterised by an unbiased attitude to everyday political opportunism. The prize is awarded each autumn at a festive event with a congratulatory speech and academic justification.