Datensatz

Zusammenfassung

The article examines the Max Planck Society’s (MPG) public communication regarding its Starnberg Institute (C.F. von Weizsäcker, J. Habermas), which was closed in 1981 following a long public debate in the media. It analyzes the MPG’s interaction with the media and the impact the media’s coverage had on the institute and the MPG. The integration, beginning in 1971, of the new MPG press office into Germany’s largest research organization aimed to professionalize the MPG’s public relations and contact with the media; it proved, however, to be a slow and difficult process. The author sheds light on phenomena not yet examined by historians: changes in organisational structures, procedures, and relationships between key players in the realm of public communication about academia inWest Germany in the 1970s.