ScienceTuesday: The early years of online journalism

ScienceTuesday: The early years of online journalism

📅 Tuesday, 28 April 2026
🕑 1.30 pm to 2.15 pm
🧑‍🎓 Speaker: Prof. Dr Peter Schumacher
📍Canteen/hybrid (see link below)

The launch of ‘Spiegel Online’ in 1994 is regarded as a defining moment in the history of online journalism in Germany. In the years that followed, many newsrooms experimented with this new medium. It was not until the boom of the New Economy around the year 2000 – and the associated focus on internet services – that online journalism experienced a significant surge in development: editorial teams expanded, user numbers rose, and the possibilities for multimedia and interactivity were explored. A new professional profile emerged – and in 2001, the Online Journalism study programme was launched at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences as the first academic course of study in the field. For this project, key figures from those early years were interviewed and coverage in professional journals was analysed. The result: a journey through time to the pioneering era of a medium, featuring success stories and setbacks, oscillating between niche existence and delusions of grandeur.