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Abstract:
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.
