Dr. Sarah Schaefer

Research Interests

My research is situated in the fields of critical sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, linguistics, media studies, and cultural studies. I am generally interested in language mobility in times of accelerated globalisation and in how the media use language to reach their target audiences.

For my PhD thesis, I investigated the use of English linguistic resources on German public service and private adult contemporary radio and the societal and cultural factors shaping this use by journalists. I undertook a quantitative and qualitative linguistic analysis of a self-compiled corpus of radio morning shows (60h) and a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 19 journalists. In my interdisciplinary methodological approach, I combined theories of mobility and hybridity in critical sociolinguistics and cultural studies with media studies models describing the influences that shape media content.
In a recent publication, I have investigated radio journalists' translingual and transmodal practices on German adult contemporary radio and how journalists try to stimulate their listener's visual imagination to achieve communicative success in a non-visual medium.
I am currently working on my postdoctoral project "Community, Identity and Diversity in German Youth Radio" funded by the European Union. In my ethnographic study at a German youth radio station, I am especially interested in examining the translingual and transmodal practices underlying the construction of a collective urban youth identity in professionally produced media messages and what a meaningful engagement with young people on topics of diversity and social cohesion means for journalists working at youth radio stations. In this context, my project sheds light on possible issues that can lead to an unbalanced and negative portrayal of ethnic and linguistic diversity on youth radio to foster a more meaningful engagement of journalists with diversity. An additional multimodal critical discourse analysis of the station's produced media messages allows me to get further insight into journalists' routine practices and to develop approaches for diversity-oriented communication. In this way, my project responds to timely social concerns around difference and voice in a mobile world fraught with deepening division.