Read-Me - Forschungsdatensammlung: Die Amerikaberichterstattung der Kölnischen Zeitung 1890-1904 (Research Data Collection: The Kölnische Zeitung’s Coverage of the Americas 1890-1904)
Disclaimer: This Readme is in English, but the research dataset is written entirely in German. All information regarding the description and methodological approach is also available in German at the beginning of the main PDF-Document.



A GENERAL INFORMATION

1. Title of the dataset: Die Amerikaberichterstattung der Kölnischen Zeitung (1890-1904)

2. Brief description of the research project and its aims: 
The analytical tables were compiled as part of a dissertation project at the Institute of History at the University of Bonn, focusing on the development of German-American relations and German perceptions of America during the age of imperialism (title: "The German ‘Weltpolitik’ and the ‘American Danger’ — Antiamericanism and the German Image of America in the Age of Imperialism" // German-Original: "Die deutsche 'Weltpolitik' und die 'amerikanische Gefahr' — Antiamerikanismus und das deutsche Amerikabild im Zeitalter des Imperialismus"). 
The Kölnische Zeitung, as one of the largest German daily newspapers in the German Empire, was examined here as a case study for an analysis of the quantitative and qualitative development of contemporary reporting on America.
The documents in this research data collection consist primarily of analysis tables on the Kölnische Zeitung’s coverage of the Americas. 
All data is compiled into a single PDF document, which also includes a table of contents as well as further methodological and content-related explanations (including a list of keywords) (mostly the same as in this Read-Me-File, but in german). 
The PDF document then presents the analysis tables for the fifteen years of the Kölnische Zeitung examined, in chronological order. Each of these volumes is preceded by a brief statistical analysis and a summary of the core topics. 
To allow users to edit or add their own annotations, all individual volumes (with identical content as in the PDF) are also included as Word documents. The page references correspond to the compiled PDF document. 

3. Author Information
	A. Investigator Contact Information
		Name: Maximilian M. Kösters
		Institution: Institut für Geschichtswissenschaft (Universität Bonn)
		Email: max-koesters@t-online.de 

	B. Project Supervisor (Principal Investigator) Contact Information
		Name: Prof. Dr. Joachim Scholtyseck 
		Institution: Institut für Geschichtswissenschaft (Universität Bonn)

4. Date of data collection: 2021-2023

5. Language of the dataset: German (deutsch)

6. Geographic location of data collection: Germany



B DATA & FILE OVERVIEW

1. File List: 

Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung_1890-1904_alle_Auswertungstabellen
=> main document; available in .pdf format; consists of all data tables as well as additional explanations 

Jahrgang_1890_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1891_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1892_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1893_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1894_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1895_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1896_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1897_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1898_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1899_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1900_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1901_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1902_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1903_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
Jahrgang_1904_Die_Amerikaberichterstattung_der_Koelnischen_Zeitung
=> data tables for each individual year of the research period
=> available in .docx format (Word) to allow users to edit the files and add their own annotations
=> the content is identical to the combined PDF-document (page numbers are also the same as in the PDF-document)



C SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION

1. The data was derived from the historical German Newspaper "Kölnische Zeitung", which is also availible online: https://zeitpunkt.nrw/ulbbn/periodical/titleinfo/9715712 

2. Licenses/restrictions placed on the data: CC BY 4.0	( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

3. Publications that cite or use the data: PhD Thesis, not yet publicized; working title: "Die deutsche 'Weltpolitik' und die 'amerikanische Gefahr' — Antiamerikanismus und das deutsche Amerikabild im Zeitalter des Imperialismus". Upon the publication of the thesis, its full citation will be updated in the dataset’s metadata field "Related Publication".



D METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION

Methodologically, all issues from the fifteen-year period under examination—between 1890 and 1904—were first reviewed individually, and every news item containing a reference to the United States (or Latin America) was entered into the analysis tables. 
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) was not employed in this analysis, as it became apparent that the existing text recognition of the digitized newspaper issues was too error-prone to achieve the desired result: a record of the quantitative and qualitative development of reporting on the Americas. 
Nevertheless, following the initial independent review, a keyword search was additionally conducted for particularly relevant word stems (especially "ameri" as well as topic-specific terms such as "Samoa" and "Hawaii") to ensure that as few news items as possible were overlooked. 
Regarding the source material, it should be noted that a small number in the low double digits of newspaper issues were missing or incomplete in the available collection, which is noted accordingly in the analysis tables. However, in contrast to the many thousands of newspaper issues from this period—typically two to four per day, including supplements—this is a negligible number that did not occur with any particular frequency in any of the years, so the results are not significantly skewed. 

The tables of this data collection analyzing the Kölnische Zeitung’s coverage of America are organized chronologically and further divided into individual years. Each of these years is preceded by a statistical analysis of the news reports as well as a brief summary of the most important developments and key themes in the coverage of America for that particular year. 
To ensure consistency in the analysis, news items in the Kölnische Zeitung with a thematic connection to the United States were divided into three categories, distinguished primarily by their length: specifically, these are (1) "knappe Meldungen" ("brief reports") ranging from 1 to 10 lines, (2) "Meldungen" ("reports") ranging from 11 to 20 lines, and (3) "Artikel" ("articles") and "Artikelähnliche-Berichte" ("article-like reports") exceeding 20 lines. However, this does not explicitly distinguish between informative and opinion-based contributions. The reason for this is that classifying the reporting into the journalistic formats commonly used today was hardly practicable within the scope of the research, as these were often not yet established in the newspaper industry of the imperialist era. Although many of today’s categories already existed at that time—or at least precursors to modern categories can be identified here—a clear distinction between informative and opinion-based articles was often absent.
In general, however, it can be noted that the vast majority of news items classified as "knappe Meldungen" ("brief reports") were wire service dispatches and similar purely informative items, whereas the expression of opinion occurred primarily in "Artikeln" ("articles") and "Artikel-ähnlichen Berichten" ("article-like reports"). However, making a further distinction between articles and reports for the period around 1900 is difficult, since only some of the longer pieces were given headlines, and both types could — but did not necessarily — contain expressions of opinion by the author (editor or reporter). Where headlines were present, however, they were included in the analysis tables. Likewise, it was noted if an article was an editorial — that is, a piece placed at the top of the front page (though this was only the case in exceptional instances with regard to the U.S.). 

As part of the compilation of research results, individual news items were tagged with keywords (see the list of all keywords in the PDF-Document). 
In addition, other methods were used to visually highlight certain classifications. The following applies: 
- All entries classified as articles or article-like reports (i.e., news items with more than 20 lines) are highlighted in bold. 
- Strikethrough entries are news items that were deemed potentially interesting in the political-historical context during the research and were therefore deemed worthy of recording, but which had no direct connection to the United States and were consequently not included in the evaluation statistics. The same generally applies to strikethrough keywords, which likewise served only to record or highlight additional content within the respective article, without being relevant for quantitative analysis. 
- In addition, a color code was developed to make it easier to identify specific features of individual articles as well as connections between different articles. The following applies: 
	- Series of articles—in most cases written during trips to America and thus most comparable to today’s feature stories—were marked in blue (in the first two columns of the table) to indicate the connection between articles that usually spanned months at regular or irregular intervals. Where there were several different article series in the same year, these were assigned different shades of blue. 
	- News items about the American press that went beyond a mere reference to its information were tagged with the keyword "Press" and highlighted in yellow. 
	- All news items were marked with orange highlights if their subject matter appeared to be potentially particularly relevant to German-American relations (however, this remains dependent on the specific topic and can serve only as a guide for users of the analysis tables to narrow down the large volume of news items somewhat).
- In addition, as part of the research, a general assessment was made of the extent to which the descriptions contained a judgmental connotation regarding the United States — that is, whether they conveyed, implicitly or explicitly, a positive or negative impression of the United States. This was recorded in the last column, "Assessment," with seven distinctions ranging from clearly positive to value-neutral/unjudgmental to clearly critical of the U.S. The news items with a clearly and generally pro-American connotation are marked with the symbols "+" and "(+)" and additionally highlighted in green, while the value-neutral news items, which had at most a very slight connotation, are marked with the symbols "*", "*(+)" and "*(–)" and are not highlighted in color. News items with a clearly and generally anti-American connotation, on the other hand, are marked with the symbols "–" and "(–)" and highlighted in red. 
As a special case, reference should also be made to the keyword "American danger", which is the focus of the dissertation within the framework of which this research was conducted. When used as standard in the analysis tables without special markings, it generally identifies all news items in which a threat to the German Reich originating from the United States was described, either directly or indirectly. In contrast, the keyword is placed in parentheses in all news items in which the idea of a threat from the United States was directly or indirectly refuted. Additionally, the keyword was occasionally listed with a strike-through to indicate that while a threat scenario did not play a role in the relevant news items, they were nonetheless related, in a broader sense, to economic competition from the United States. 
It should also be noted that for articles related to Latin American countries that were placed outside the specific category "America" (or "Brazil" / "Chile"), the keyword "(Latin America)" is enclosed in parentheses, as the number of articles on Latin America was also statistically recorded as a comparative figure. Brief reports and reports (under 20 lines) relating to Latin American countries outside the "America" category, however, were not relevant for the statistical survey. Although these were also included when found incidentally, a systematic search, such as the one conducted for U.S. news, would have entailed a disproportionate amount of additional effort; therefore, these entries outside the categories "America," "Brazil," or "Chile" do not claim to be exhaustive. 

List of abbreviations (in german with englisch translations in parentheses):
B-A-Bündnis	= 	Britisch-Amerikanisches-Bündnis (British-American Alliance)
B-J-A-Bündnis 	= 	Britisch-Japanisch-Amerikanisches Bündnis (British-Japanese-American Alliance)
CH 		= 	Schweiz (Switzerland)
D-B-A-Bündnis 	= 	Deutsch-Britisch-Amerikanisches Bündnis (German-British-American Alliance)
DE 		= 	Deutschland (Germany)
dt. 		= 	deutsch (german)
GB 		= 	Großbritannien (Great Britain)
F-A-Bündnis	= 	Französisch-Amerikanisches Bündnis (French-American Alliance )
FR 		= 	Frankreich (France)
frz. 		= 	französisch (french)
GR 		= 	Griechenland (Greece)
HAPAG 		= 	Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft 
IT 		= 	Italien (Italy)
J-C-Krieg 	= 	Japanisch-Chinesischer Krieg (Sino-Japanese War)
KöZ 		= 	Kölnische Zeitung 
NAZ 		= 	Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 
NL 		= 	Niederlande (Netherlands)
O-R 		= 	Osmanisches Reich (Ottoman Empire)
Ö-U 		= 	Österreich-Ungarn (Austria-Hungary)
R-J-Krieg 	= 	Russisch-Japanischer Krieg (Russo-Japanese War)
RU 		= 	Russland (Russia)
S-A-Krieg 	= 	Spanisch-Amerikanischer Krieg (Spanish-American War)
USA 		= 	Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika (United States of America)