Abstract (eng)
Direct face to face communication, as well as communication taking place indirectly in institutionalized form, plays an important role in an active democracy. Any new medium has an impact on the communication process as such as well as on the self-awareness of the interacting people. The not uncontentious technical term Web 2.0, used synonymously to the notion of social media, embraces not only the successive changes the Internet has undergone step by step, but also the external concomitants of this technical progress in a a changing environment. Both, the concept of the agenda-setting function of mass media, which deals with the question of reciprocal influence of media and public agenda, as well as the question if this becomes more or less important thanks to social media, will be discussed. In this context, the positive and negative aspects of the use of social media are of particular interest, notably if their use will lead to a democratization of democracy or to more protests. In order to verify the theoretical part, the effects of the use of social media were examined,on the basis of a standardized catalogue of questions sent to political actors at regional, national, and international level as well as to representatives of NGOs, and an analysis was undertaken with a special focus on immigration- and asylum policy.