The management of media brands faces challenges. In order to be able to point out possible solutions, this article first explains the concept and the nature of “media brands.” Subsequently, various theoretical approaches to the explanation of media brands and their management are presented. Regardless of theoretical preferences, it is important to keep in mind the brand-strategic complexity of media management that is subsequently described. Due to their specificity, special attention is paid to the basic strategic positioning options and to the communication management of media brands. In this way, the special features of media brand management become clear in comparison with other products and services.

The principle of separation between editorial content and commercial communication protects both the democratic and the commercial function of mass media. This article compiles all available statutory and professional regulations in Germany as an example of the various aspects of the principle of separation, such as the labeling obligation, the prohibition of paid content and tying transactions, as well as the handling of numerous forms of presentation of editorial advertising. Subsequently, the state of research is reported for the individual aspects of the principle of separation, in particular with regard to description and effect. Finally, proposed solutions for current application and desiderata are compiled.

Kompensationsgeschäfte sind als Kopplungsgeschäfte medienrechtlich verboten. Laut Berichten von Praktiker*innen sind sie jedoch alltägliches Werkzeug im Austausch zwischen Journalist*innen und Verlagen einerseits sowie PR-Akteur*innen und Werbungtreibenden andererseits. Auf Grundlage kommunikationswissenschaftlicher, medienrechtlicher und betriebswirtschaftlicher Literatur sowie einer Befragung von 37 Expert*innen aus der Kommunikationsbranche wird untersucht, welche Formen von Kompensationsgeschäften in der Praxis existieren und welche Rolle Kompensationsgeschäfte im Wechselverhältnis von Öffentlichkeitsarbeit und Journalismus spielen. In der alltäglichen Berufspraxis mancher Branchen und Redaktionen werden im Ergebnis mit großer Selbstverständlichkeit Kompensationsgeschäfte genutzt. Daher wird nach einem definitorischen Abgleich von Induktionen, Adaptionen und Kompensationen eine Erweiterung des Intereffikationsmodells vorgeschlagen.

Robot arms are one of many assistive technologies used by people with motor impairments. Assistive robot arms can allow people to perform activities of daily living (ADL) involving grasping and manipulating objects in their environment without the assistance of caregivers. Suitable input devices (e.g., joysticks) mostly have two Degrees of Freedom (DoF), while most assistive robot arms have six or more. This results in time-consuming and cognitively demanding mode switches to change the mapping of DoFs to control the robot. One option to decrease the difficulty of controlling a high-DoF assistive robot arm using a low-DoF input device is to assign different combinations of movement-DoFs to the device’s input DoFs depending on the current situation (adaptive control). To explore this method of control, we designed two adaptive control methods for a realistic virtual 3D environment. We evaluated our methods against a commonly used non-adaptive control method that requires the user to switch controls manually. This was conducted in a simulated remote study that used Virtual Reality and involved 39 non-disabled participants. Our results show that the number of mode switches necessary to complete a simple pick-and-place task decreases significantl when using an adaptive control type. In contrast, the task completion time and workload stay the same. A thematic analysis of qualitative feedback of our participants suggests that a longer period of training could further improve the performance of adaptive control methods.