Sinnstiftung durch Massenmedien

The media have become an integral part of everyday life in Western industrial societies, and have thus become an important object of psychological research. Mass media are an essential part of the environment. This is also where personality construction takes place, in the sense that mass media create identity. They present role patterns and contain offers of meaning. Such offers of meaning were investigated in a longitudinal study based on content analysis. Based on quantitative as well as qualitative content analyses of the reporting of the German news magazine "Der Spiegel", the following questions, among others, were addressed: Is the topic of creating meaning presented rather negatively (meaning crisis) or positively (meaning possibilities)? Which offers of meaning are made (based on the 26 life meanings of the questionnaire on life meanings and meaning of life "LeBe", p.