Separated by the Atlantic Ocean, two entirely different media worlds developed in Germany and the United States. Or so it seemed when, during the Allied occupation of Germany, the two societies encountered each other, only later to disparage their respective media traditions. A report to the American sector's military government stressed that “the traditions of German newspapers … are unsuited to developing a democratic mentality or only to maintain such a mentality. … German newspapers … are usually written and presented in a very boring way … going, as it were, over the heads of many of their readers.” German journalists saw things differently, reprimanding the American mass media for their “principle of being without principle” and their hunt for “sensation in every area”: “dominated by ‘sob stories’ and society stories, [American] newspapers are produced for the ‘man of the street’ this is done by eliminating the political and emphasizing the ‘human side.’”

This snapshot from the era of occupation reflects durable prejudices on both sides that derive primarily from the stronger market orientation of the American media. What is at issue in this stereotype? Have the mass media in the United States always been more commercial in nature? What was the orientation of the German media if not toward the market? Have there not been more parallels than differences in the media histories of the two countries? Can a transatlantic comparison distinguish which media system was more compatible with a “democratic mentality” and which with dictatorship? To answer these questions, one must take a close look at both societies.

In the nineteenth century, a new type of mass media emerged on both sides of the Atlantic that was directed toward an anonymous, transregional, and diverse mass public. Emerging mass media promoted developments that were fundamentally similar in both countries. They brought about a steadily advancing “mediatization” of politics and society, meaning that political and social systems increasingly conformed to the conditions of a mass media environment. Everywhere it occurred, mediatization was a powerful spur to the formation of national identities because the mass media were increasingly able to serve as a dominant forum – ubiquitous in the public mind – molding the themes and the language of political debate within emerging nation-states. In public spheres shaped by the mass media, national images overtook regional and local ones.