This volume is the first wide-ranging study of the rise of the mass media in Germany from a social and cultural-historical perspective. Going far beyond the conventional focus on the organizational structures or aesthetic content of the media, it investigates the impact they have had on twentieth-century German society under widely varying political systems, and how in turn the media and their uses were shaped by the wider social, political and cultural context.

This is the first study of mass media in Germany from a social and cultural-historical perspective. Beyond the conventional focus on organizational structures or aesthetic content, it investigates the impact the media has on German society under varying political systems, and how the media is shaped by wider social, political and cultural context.