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World and Press March 1 2023

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2 Opinion Page March 1 2023 | World and Press Ignore the purists – listening to a book instead of reading it isn’t skiving or cheating AUDIOBOOKS From audiobooks to podcasts and voice notes, there’s a steady generational shift in the way we understand the world. By Gaby Hinsliff 1 INSOMNIACS do it in the middle of the night. Dog owners do it while trudging round the park. Some people do it in the gym, but lately I’ve taken to doing it alone in the car, on long journeys north through the dark when I need distraction from eve rything circling round my head. 2 Listening, that is; and perhaps more specifically, listening to things you might once have read instead. The growth of audiobooks, podcasts, and even voice notes – those quick selfrecorded clips that are steadily taking over from typed messages on WhatsApp – reflects a steady generational shift away from eyes to ears as the way we take comment Training | mündl. Prüfung in the world, and perhaps also in how we understand it. 3 Reading instinctively feels like the higher art, perhaps because bedtime stories used to be strictly for children, and oral storytelling is associated with more primitive cultures in the days before the printing press. But is that fair? If the effort involved in sitting down and decoding written words with your actual eyes were to gradually fade away in years to come – just as the old-fashioned tether of a landline phone gave way to the freedom of a mobile in your pocket, and cash yielded to the clinical efficiency of credit cards – what exactly would we have lost? 4 Reading is still very far from dead. Lockdown rekindled the love of curling up with a good novel, to publishers’ delight, with more than a third of people claiming to be reading more to fill their days. But the audiobook market, while still small, also notched up its seventh year of double-digit growth in the pandemic year of 2021. Podcasting is growing faster than any other media, with almost one in five Britons listening at least once a week now, according to this summer’s RAJAR survey. … 5 Millennials in particular seem to be all ears; Katie Vanneck-Smith, the former ‘Wall Street Journal’ president and cofounder of the “slow news” website Tortoise, admitted recently that when its members (who are mostly under 39) were asked what they wanted to read, the consensus was “actually, I listen; I don’t read”. 6 To some, that may sound irritatingly goldfish-brained. But that was me when I was on maternity leave and couldn’t seem to find ten uninterrupted minutes to sit down with the paper, so kept Radio 4 on half the day for some semblance of adult conversation. It was also my old next-door neighbour, a once voracious reader who was by then almost blind but could listen contentedly to old-fashioned audiobook tapes for hours, so long as someone occasionally helped her find the next cassette. 7 It’s kids with their earbuds permanently jammed in, all the better not to hear their parents. But it’s their parents too: all the overloaded, frantically multitasking midlifers trying to keep up with whatever zeitgeist they’re afraid of missing out on in an information-saturated world, while going for a run or cooking dinner. … 8 Yet the idea prevails that listening is flighty or unserious, strictly for skivers who can’t be bothered putting in the hard yards. A sniffy 55% of respondents to one YouGov survey back in 2016 deemed audiobooks a “lesser” way of consuming literature, and only 10% thought listening to a book was wholly equal to reading it. The view that listening is cheating prevails, even though nobody thinks it’s lazy for a student to sit through lectures, and going to the theatre isn’t considered intellectually inferior to reading the play at home. 9 One study by Beth Rogowsky, associate professor of education at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, asking students either to read a nonfiction book or listen to the audio version, found no significant differences in how much of it they absorbed. … 10 What troubles me most about listening, I suppose, is that it’s harder to share. You can recommend a podcast to a friend, but you can’t leave it on the train seat for the next person when you get off, as I’ve done all my life with finished newspapers. You can’t give your goddaughter your dogeared, spine-cracked copy of an audiobook that meant everything to you when you were her age. ... Paper doesn’t render itself useless in a power cut, and it leaves no electronic trace in times and societies where information of which the regime does not approve has to be passed on covertly underground. 11 All of which makes me think reading will never yield to listening completely; that like vinyl, handwritten love letters, and cinema in the age of television, it will live on for pleasure or for romance but also because there are times when nothing else quite fits the bill. But if it turns out I’m wrong – well, you didn’t hear it from me. © 2022 Guardian News and Media Ltd 0 – 2 TO SKIVE(BE, coll) s. drücken; s.w.u. skiver Drückeberger(in) — generational shift Generationswandel — insomniac an Schlaflosigkeit Leidende(r) — to trudge round umherstapfen in — distraction Ablenkung 3 – 4 to decode entziffern — tether Leine; h.: Kabel — landline phone Festnetztelefon — to give way to s.th.; s.w.u. to yield to s.th. e-r S. weichen — to rekindle wieder entfachen — to curl up with s.th. es s. mit etw. gemütlich machen — to notch up (coll) erzielen — double-digit zweistellig 5 – 6 to be all ears ganz Ohr sein — cofounder Mitbegründer(in) — irritatingly unerträglich — maternity leave Elternzeit — semblance Anschein — voracious unersättlich — contentedly zufrieden 7 – 8 earbud Kopfhörer — jammed in h.: in die Ohren gestopft — overloaded überlastet — frantically wild — midlifer Mensch mittleren Alters — …-saturated …übersättigt — to prevail vorherrschen — flighty flüchtig — to put in the hard yards (fig) harte Arbeit leisten — sniffy (BE) hochnäsig — respondent Befragte(r) — to deem erachten als — inferior minderwertig 9 – 11 associate professor (AE) Dozent(in) — dogeared … … mit Eselsohren — spine-cracked … … mit geknicktem Buchrücken — to render o.s. s. erweisen als — power cut Stromausfall — trace Spur — covertly geheim — to fit the bill (fig) (genau) das Richtige sein impressum ISSN 0509-1632 Royal Nuisance. | Cartoon: Joep Bertrams, The Netherlands World and Press erscheint 2 × monatlich (Juli und Dezember als Doppelausgabe) in der Carl Ed. Schünemann kg · Die Sprachzeitung · Schünemann-Haus 28174 Bremen Telefon: +49(0)421.36903-76 Fax: +49(0)421.36903-48 www.sprachzeitungen.de info@sprachzeitungen.de Verantwortliche Redakteurin Katrin Günther Redaktionsleitung Sprach zeitungen Melanie Helmers Redaktion Siobhan Bruns Sebastian Stumpf Franziska Lange Aletta Rochau Carol Richards Jessica Stuart Gestalterische Konzeption www.bmalx.de Layout & Umbruch Christoph Lück Druck Druckzentrum Nordsee GmbH Die in World and Press veröffent lichten Artikel bringen Meinungen der zitierten Zeitungen, aber nicht in jedem Fall die der Redaktion zum Ausdruck. Textkürzungen vorbehalten. | By special arrangement with proprietors of copyrights. Copyright strictly reserved under the Berne Convention © 2023 Kündigungs bedingungen Nach Ablauf des ersten Bezugsjahres ist das Jahresabo monatlich kündbar. Das Schnupper abo geht über in ein Jahresabo, wenn es nicht spätestens einen Monat vor Ablauf gekündigt wird. | Es gelten unsere aktuellen AGB. 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World and Press | March 1 2023 Climate activists find a way to get Germany’s attention: Stop traffic ACTIVISM Extreme tactics have stirred debate over whether activists are going too far. mit Übungsmaterial By Christopher F. Schuetze Members of Last Generation block access to the German parliament’s parking garage in December 2022. | Photo: Stefan Müller/Pic One/Picture Alliance 1 THE RADICAL climate activists tried hunger strikes. They glued themselves to famous paintings. They tried to disrupt a classical concert. They confronted lawmakers trying to enter Parliament. They even desecrated an official Christmas tree of the city of Berlin. It took them donning neon vests, walking into traffic at rush hour, and gluing themselves to the streets in Berlin and Munich, causing miles-long backups and bringing drivers to murderous rage, to make their protest impossible to ignore. 2 With their actions, carried out with increasing frequency as 2022 drew to a close, they have attracted enormous attention in a country where cars reign supreme, home to BMW, Mercedes, and Volkswagen and the autobahn. But they have also united almost everyone in politics in Berlin, and much of the public, against them. 3 They have become a target for conservatives and embarrassment for the governing Green Party, which has long been working within the political system toward the same goals. And their tactics have stirred debate even within the broader environmentalist movement over how much is too much in pursuit of climate goals. 4 The answer from the protesters, who are the German chapter of an environmental group called Last Generation, is that the climate crisis warrants drastic action. Founded in 2021 when a small number of activists went on a weekslong hunger strike in front of the Parliament building in Berlin, the group is now wellfunded and has since grown to include a few hundred active members, whose actions have earned, among other things, a reference in the president’s Christmas speech last week – a sign that their protests have struck a nerve. 5 Their immediate demands – things such as ending food waste, enforcing strict speed limits to reduce emissions, and subsidizing rail travel – may seem tame, but their ultimate message is urgent: The world is in a climate emergency and business as usual is not an option. 6 “They mix claims really easy to implement, majority-winning policy claims – things that are quite accessible for a majority of the population – with a system criticism,” said Daniel Saldivia Gonzatti, who studies protests at WZB Berlin Social Science Center. “It’s effective.” 7 And enraging. Friedrich Merz, head of the conservative opposition, called Last Generation a criminal organization and wants authorities to test whether it could be declared illegal. Another politician, Alexander Dobrindt, parliamentary leader of the Bavarian conservative party, compared the group to the Red Army Faction, a notorious band of left-wing terrorists who robbed, murdered, and kidnapped in the 1970s. 8 But to Last Generation’s members, extreme action is the answer to government inaction. “The government has ignored Last Generation activists block traffic on a Berlin highway in October 2022. | Photo: Christian Mang/Reuters/Picture Alliance over one million people on the streets in Germany alone, and the government is ignoring scientists,” said Carla Rochel, a 20-year-old student who was one of the early members of Last Generation, referring to Fridays for Future, a series of peaceful protests that peaked before the pandemic. “That’s why we decided to take to the streets and simply not go away anymore.” 9 On a recent and exceedingly chilly and damp weekday morning, six protesters from Last Generation walked into a crosswalk on a busy road leading to the storied Potsdamer Platz, one of downtown Berlin’s most trafficjam-prone spots, and unfurled banners and then little rubberseating mats. After a second’s pause, they sat down in unison and with seemingly choreographed motion, each began gluing one of their hands to the wet pavement. Within seconds, drivers started honking and trying to In Focus 3 go around the protesters onto the median. Within minutes, police arrived and tried to pull away the protesters. Because the pavement was wet, officers managed to pull four of the activists onto the sidewalk – two more could not be budged, and a special unit had to be dispatched to dissolve the glue using oil and solvents. 10 “One of the scariest moments is when the cars start rolling toward you, pushing themselves through people as though they don’t intend to stop,” said Irma Trommer, 26, who has taken part in similar human roadblocks dozens of times. 11 Not everyone thinks their form of activism is productive. “It annoys me, maybe that’s embarrassing,” said Renate Künast, a Green Party stalwart and former federal minister who has spent nearly two decades in federal politics. Democracy is a process, she said, and even in her position, she can’t make climate dominate the conversation in Parliament. 12 The activists gained a new level of infamy in November when a cyclist in Berlin died after being pinned by a cement mixer during one of the group’s traffic jams. Polls taken just after the accident found that 80% of Germans were critical of the group’s action, and 86% thought the actions ended up hurting the cause of fighting climate change. 13 The notoriety has only galvanized the group, whose numbers have grown from just a couple of dozen in the summer to hundreds of activists and supporters. In December, the group was blocking traffic in Berlin on three to four mornings a week, sometimes at multiple locations. “The future I personally am heading for – if climate policy does not change – is so much more uncertain than anything I am taking on here,” said Trommer, referring to not just the very real possibility of violence she faces from frustrated drivers but a permanent criminal record she could walk away with. “My hope is that by showing that I’m willing to risk myself doing these actions, how crazy threatening the global situation is for people of my age,” she said, rubbing her hand, which was torn off the pavement by a police officer before the glue had set. © 2023 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 0 – 2 TO STIR a debate e-e D. anheizen — to glue festkleben — lawmaker Abgeordnete(r) — to desecrate schänden — to don tragen — backup Stau — murderous Mords- — frequency Häufigkeit — to draw to a close s. dem Ende zuneigen — to reign supreme die Vorherrschaft innehaben 3 – 5 environmentalist movement Umweltbewegung — in pursuit of … im Bestreben … zu erreichen — chapter h.: Lokalverband — to warrant rechtfertigen — funded finanziert — to enforce durchsetzen — to subsidize subventionieren — tame zahm 6 – 8 to implement umsetzen — to be accessible for s.o. für jdn. (leicht) nachzuvollziehen sein — to enrage in Wut versetzen — authority Behörde; zuständige Instanz — Red Army Faction Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) — notorious berüchtigt — band Gruppe — inaction Tatenlosigkeit — to peak seinen/ihren Höhepunkt erreichen — to take to the streets auf die Straße gehen 9 – 10 exceedingly außerordentlich — storied sagenumwoben — traffic-jam-prone staulastig — to unfurl entrollen — in unison gemeinsam — to honk hupen — median Mittelstreifen — to be budged s. bewegen lassen — to dispatch aussenden — solvent Lösungsmittel 11 – 13 stalwart Getreue(r); h.: langjähriges Mitglied — federal Bundes- — infamy; s.w.u. notoriety Verrufenheit — to pin einklemmen — poll Umfrage — to galvanize elektrisieren; h.: weiter antreiben — criminal record Eintrag ins Strafregister

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