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Economic Policy and Journalism
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Economic Policy Journalism

Professorship

The professorship of Economic Policy Journalism is positioned at the intersection between economics, policy and practical journalism.

Since 2013, Prof Henrik Müller has been conducting the related academic programs. An economist by trade, he looks back at a career in leading roles that took him all the way to become deputy editor-in-chief of manager magazin, an investigative monthly. He’s the author of numerous books and has been decorated with several journalism awards. To this day, Müller is contributing a weekly column to DER SPIEGEL (“Müllers Memo”), one of Europe’s leading news media.

In line with the philosophy of the Institute of Journalism, Müller is a firm believer in journalism as a public remit. To fulfill this mission, impartiality and independence are key. Journalists need a deep understanding of their field, enabling them to fend off external influences and stay strongly committed to the factual truth. Economic and business journalism in particular are meant to inform about likely future developments in a clear and unbiased way. That’s why formal training in economics is a precondition to perform this role.

Research Activities

Research activities include advancing text mining techniques (using machine learning approaches such as topic modelling and Large Language Models) or the detection and measurement of economic narratives in the media and their interplay with economic activity and policy making. Müller and his team are part of Dortmund Center for data-based Media Analysis (DoCMA) and Narrative Economics Alliance Ruhr (NEAR), a fertile research network spanning the Ruhr Valley including researchers from the region’s three universities and economic policy research institute RWI in Essen. Students are welcome to become involved in research activities.

Besides studies in empirical economics and communication science Müller is focused on building an analytical framework of economic journalism. This involves positive and normative aspects and represents the foundation of the teaching concept. In particular, it tightly links journalistic practice (research, writing, producing, choice of issues) to its theoretical foundations. In Müller’s view, journalism is a balancing act between providing elucidation and arousing attention.

The most enlightening content is worth little if nobody tunes in. Business journalists’ key task is to reduce complexity. To accomplish this, they make use of narratives: stories constituting cause-effect relationships, or belief systems, that they choose from the surrounding media sphere, consequently alter and spread further. The challenge is to make issues accessible to the broader public, but refrain from giving in to the temptation of populist polarization.