Manipulations in Contemporary German Press

Abstract

On the basis of the previously developed theoretical model of media educational activity, which contributes to the development of media competence of the audience in the process of analyzing the reliability of media texts, the authors of the article suggest the following technology of countering media manipulations and false information, based on tasks related to answering the following challenging questions: What is the source of information? Can you verify the source? What is the main message? What facts are presented to support the main idea? Is there any information missing? What is the purpose of transmitting this message? Who will benefit if people accept this message as true? Who will lose? From whose point of view is the message presented? Does the message refer to logic or emotion? What effect is it aimed at? Does this media text allow you to share different points of view? What values and priorities are transmitted as a result? Based on this model and problematic issues, the authors analyzed 337 articles in German newspapers during the period 2020-2021. Meanwhile, it was found that 98.2 % of the texts (331 out of 337 articles) expressed negative opinions about Russia, about its politics and economy.