A study on the educational mandate of the Second German Television (ZDF) has for the first time examined the educational expectations and perceptions of the population and related them to basic attitudes and orientations. For this purpose, 1,237 German-speaking people over the age of 14 were interviewed in October and November 2023, and the findings were published in mid-2024. Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt, Prof. em. Dr. Uwe Hasebrink and Dieter Storll were involved in an advisory capacity in the design and evaluation of the study and have presented the key findings in detail in an article. The article is written in German and published open access in “Media Perspektiven”.
Key findings:
- More than 60 percent of those surveyed believe that ZDF makes an important contribution to people’s education; other points, such as the accessibility of content or the way in which German history is presented, also received high approval ratings.
- The study identified four types of different educational orientations. The respondents were also categorized according to their confidence in the future and their satisfaction with democracy. The types differ, sometimes significantly, in their expectations and how they are met.
- At the format level, it was found that, for example, information programs and documentaries are watched specifically for educational purposes. However, respondents also attribute educational functions to entertainment formats.
You can download the article here.
Schmidt, Jan-Hinrik / Storll, Dieter / Hasebrink, Uwe (2025): Die Bildungsfunktion des ZDF aus der Sicht der Bevölkerung. Studie zum öffentlich-rechtlichen Bildungsauftrag [The Educational Function of the ZDF from the Population’s Perspective. A Study on the Public Service Educational Mandate]. In: Media Perspektiven, 6/2025, pp. 1-30. Available online: https://www.ard-media.de/fileadmin/user_upload/media-perspektiven/pdf/2025/MP_6_2025_Die_Bildungsfunktion_des_ZDF_aus_Sicht_der_Bevoelkerung.pdf.