Manfred Rühl

Manfred Rühl (born 1933, Nürnberg) is a German professor emeritus for communications at the University of Bamberg, a leading communication theorist, an original and productive researcher in journalism and public relations.

From 1956 onwards he studied economics, communications, sociology, political science, and philosophy at the University of Erlangen, Free University of Berlin, and Nürnberg College of Economics and Social Sciences. In 1960, he graduated with a diploma in economics at the Nürnberg College of Economics and Social Sciences. In 1968, he received a doctorate in social sciences, and in 1978, he qualified with a habilitation for communications, both at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

In 1964, Rühl started to work as an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Political and Communication Sciences of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. From 1969 to 1970, with a postgraduate fellowship, he was Scholar in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication. He is or was Research Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (1971-1976), Associate Professor at the University of Hohenheim (1976-1983), and Full Professor at the University of Bamberg (since 1983), also frequently a visiting professor at the universities of Mainz and Zürich.

A founding member in 1963, Rühl served as President of the DGPuK - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (1980-1982), and as a Member-at-Large at the Board of Directors, ICA - International Communication Association (1977-1980). He reviewed for many institutions and journals from DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, AvH - Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, DAAD - Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, SNSF - Swiss National Science Foundation to Publizistik, Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, Journalism Quarterly, and Journal of Communication.

Manfred Rühl's research interests span systems theory, comparative functionalism, communication theory, communication policy, public communication, journalism, public relations, organizational communication, and market communication. Communication systems have become one of the most popular, "non-normative" and "non-linear" theoretical models in contemporary communications. Rühl's work marked a radical change in perspective, when he conducted since the 1960s empirical studies of journalism that focused on an organized social system instead of journalistic individuals, based on communication instead of action or behavior, but on communication as a reality that occurs within differing systems and environments. Within his reference theoretical framework, public]] communication is studied as applied organizational communication, market communication, and societal communication as journalism, public relations, and other systems of persuasion and manipulation. In the course of recent decades, many scholars, particularly in the German speaking countries adapted his approaches and developed them further.

• Die Zeitungsredaktion als organisiertes soziales System. Bertelsmann Universitätsverlag Bielefeld (1969); 2nd edition, Universitätsverlag Fribourg, Switzerland (1979), ISBN 3-7278-0202-2.
• Journalismus und Gesellschaft. Bestandsaufnahme und Theorieentwurf, von Hase & Koehler Verlag Mainz (1980), ISBN 3-7758-0975-9.
• Theorie der Public Relations. Ein Entwurf (Franz Ronneberger, coauthor), Westdeutscher Verlag Opladen (1992), ISBN 3-531-12118-9.
• Kommunikation und Erfahrung. Wege anwendungsbezogener Kommunikationsforschung. Verlag der Kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Forschungsvereinigung, Nürnberg (1987), ISBN 3-921453-26-7.
• Theorien der öffentlichen Kommunikation - Problemfelder, Positionen, Perspektiven (Günter Bentele, coeditor). Ölschläger Verlag München (1993), ISBN 3-88295-183-4.
• A market concept for media problems. A few theses. The Journal of Media Economics 6:1, 1993, 13-24.
• Publizistik im vernetzten Zeitalter. Berufe - Formen – Strukturen (with Beatrice Dernbach and Anna Maria Theis-Berglmair). Westdeutscher Verlag Opladen (1998), ISBN 3-531-13106-0.
• Publizieren. Eine Sinngeschichte der öffentlichen Kommunikation. Westdeutscher Verlag Opladen, Wiesbaden (1999), ISBN 3-531-13370-5.
• Organisatorischer Journalismus. Tendenzen der Redaktionsforschung. In: Neverla, Irene/Elke Grittmann/Monika Pater (Hrsg.): Grundlagentexte zur Journalistik. Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft (2002), 303-320.
• Kommunikationskulturen der Weltgesellschaft. Theorie der Kommunikationswissenschaft. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften Wiesbaden (2008), ISBN 978-3-531-14063-6.
• Journalism in a globalizing world society: A societal approach to journalism research. In: Martin Löffelholz & David Weaver, eds.: Global journalism research. Theories, methods, findings, future. Malden: Blackwell (2008), 28-38, ISBN 978-1-4051-5332-4.
• Public relations methodology: Should we bother (if it exists)? In: Betteke van Ruler, Ana Tkalac Verčič & Dejan Verčič (Hrsg.): Public relations metrics: Research and evaluation. New York, London: Routledge (2008), 21 -35, ISBN 978-0-8058-6273-7.
• Journalistik und Journalismen im Wandel. Eine kommunikationswissenschaftliche Perspektive. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (2011), ISBN 978-3-531-17867-7.
• Journalismus und Public Relations. Theoriegeschichte zweier weltgesellschaftlicher Errungenschaften. Springer VS Wiesbaden (2015), ISBN 978-3-658-06533-1.
• Organisationskommunikation von Max Weber zu Niklas Luhmann. Wie interdisziplinäre Theoriebildung gelingen kann. Springer VS Wiesbaden (2015), ISBN 978-3-658-08923-8.
• Publizistikwissenschaft erneuern. Was wir über öffentliche Kommunikation wissen und was wir wissen können. Springer VS Wiesbaden (2016), ISBN 978-3-658-12839-5.

• * Manfred Rühl's Publications (http://www.uni-bamberg.de/kowi/personen-einrichtungen/manfred-ruehl-emeritus/)