Talking exports: The representation of Germany’s current account in newspaper media

This paper uses quantitative and qualitative text analysis methods to study the discourse surrounding Germany’s current account surplus across seven national newspapers. The results of the analysis highlight that the German surpluses are a contested discursive subject across the different newspapers. From this result, the overall balanced reporting in the business paper Handelsblatt as well as the critical stance of the important broadsheet Süddeutsche Zeitung stand out. That newspapers publish comparatively few articles openly defending the German surpluses after 2014 is likewise a surprising finding. The paper discusses and situates these results within the recent growth model literature in comparative political economy.