Abstract
Conceptually and empirically, media socialisation is not one of the priority fields of media education or media studies. Obviously, the German as well as the international scientific community felt it sufficient to see through reception, i.e. the direct human-media relationship, or media childhood (e.g. Buckingham: 2000). The dynamics of how the media that determine a culture influence the formation of specific personality patterns and how these patterns in turn influence media and mass communication remains a marginal question (cf. Hoffmann 2006). This article focuses on two aspects of this rather neglected field, one systematic and one research methodological. The systematic approach (first focus) is primarily concerned with linking media socialisation with questions of media studies and cultural theory, such as those concerning cultural forms like semiotic spaces. The aim is to outline an operational model of media socialisation on the basis of appropriation processes. The second focus is on adequate research methods, among which media and programme analysis is of great importance. According to one of the goals of media socialisation research, media and programme analysis provides opportunities to examine socialisation patterns in the context of dominant media and cultural forms.
