ABSTRACT
Ed Wittich argues that the peculiarities of Germany’s split history provided the opportunity for a more conscious development of democratic, federal institutions in the post-1949 era. They gave an aura of relatively coherent planning in the area of communication policy formulation in comparison with the other countries discussed in this volume, or with what would have been the case had Germany’s history not taken the dramatic course it did in the war years. The state’s deliberate response to Germany’s politico-cultural past, as well as the quasi-imposed democratic order inherited from the Allies, influenced the present communication structure. Another important historical influence on the communication structures of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) results from the relationship of groups within German society to the state. It is the political parties that hold the allegiance of the German people: the state is traditionally mistrusted. Thus while the need for the state to have some effective powers of regulation is recognized, there is considerable caution about state intervention in the communication process. At the same time there is public concern in the FRG about the powerful coalitions of private interests that have become more and more concentrated since the 1950s.
These two major groups—party-political interests and private business interests—conflict with the basic public democratic interest that underlies much of the policy thrust, and provide a central theme of conflict that runs through discussions about the press, publishing, cinema, broadcasting, and telecommunications in the FRG. The attempted policy resolutions described show that democratic principles as a basis for communication policy formulation provide no guarantees of protection against the power of economic and political interests.
