Enorme Fallhöhe oder eh schon immer gewusst?

Die Verhandlung der Causa BUWOG und Karl-Heinz Grasser in digitalen Öffentlichkeiten

Abstract

The article examines how Austrian political journalists remember and interpret the BUWOG scandal and the person Karl‑Heinz Grasser at the moment of the final verdict in March 2025 within the digital publics of ???? and Bluesky. It takes as its starting point the question of how journalistic practice unfolds under digital conditions when dealing with a long‑running, morally charged political scandal. The qualitative content analysis of 141 posts and reposts by 28 political journalists shows that digital platforms are used primarily as arenas for professional self‑positioning. Journalists engage in selective remembering, activate established interpretive frames, and frequently reference their own or collective editorial output. While factual information and condensed historical context are provided situationally, the communication is dominated by references to journalistic content and brief normative comments on the rule of law, judicial proceedings, and moral responsibility. Personal evaluations appear embedded within professional role performance, particularly among high‑reach actors. Digital acts of remembering thus remain strongly structured by field logics and reproduce the elitist inner public sphere of Austrian political journalism. The study demonstrates that, in the context of political scandals, digital platforms function less as arenas of broad public deliberation and more as spaces in which journalistic interpretive authority and symbolic capital are reaffirmed and updated.