ABSTRACT
Compared to other European countries, the German media landscape is characterized by a considerable variety of MAIs. Among them, the German Press Council and its code of ethics play a central role, while self-regulatory mechanisms at the newsroom level are slowly gaining ground. Media criticism has a long tradition in German journalism; up until now, however, it has had to cope with the inevitable problems of self-referentiality. A lively German media blogosphere and other innovative accountability instruments on the social web offer new stimuli to media self-regulation, even though they still lack differentiation. Despite the diversity of the German media accountability culture, the basic problem of how to attract the attention of a larger non-journalistic audience remains an issue for many of the existing MAIs.
