Short Biography
of Dr. Peter Diem
My native
city is Vienna, the capital of Austria. Born on April 7th, 1937, I grew
up in
Vienna.
My studies comprised English Interpreting and Law (University of Vienna
‘58/'60)
and Political Science (Southern Illinois University, M.S. '61).
After 12
years as campaign manager and public opinion expert with the Austrian
People's
Party (OEVP - Christian Democrats) and two years of market research for
the
Fritz Molden Publishing House, I started to build up audience research
for ORF,
the Austrian Radio and Television Corporation, in 1979.
With the
help of my department, responsible for audience research in public
service
radio and TV, the ORF introduced a modern TV people meter system (TAM)
in 1990.
I was chairman of GEAR (the
Group of European Audience Researchers) for three consecutive years.
Most of
the work of my former department is documented on the website of the
ORF at http://mediaresearch.orf.at.The site contains a wealth of
information about the
electronic media in Austria. Towards the end of my service in the ORF,
I
included online research into my program - inspired by the superb
performance
of ORF ON (cf. http://orf.at and
my papers on internet research). Since my retirement at the
end of 1998,
online market research has become my main field of interest. From 1999
to 2011
I acted as a consultant for GfK, Austria's leading market research firm (http://www.gfk.at/index.en.html) and its partner
companies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Building up
commercial
online market research for CEE included both
quantitative and qualitative methods.
Privately,
I am interested in political symbols such as flags, arms, and national
anthems.
My book "Die Symbole Oesterreichs" ("The Symbols of
Austria") is unfortunately out of print.
However, its full text is available on the web at: http://oktogon.at/buchtext.htm.
The materials on political symbols have been supplemented and updated
and is
available at
http://www.austria-lexikon.at/af/Wissenssammlungen/Symbole
For a list
of my other books cf. http://www.peter-diem.at/frontpages/bio.htm
Together
with Dr. Trautl Brandstaller I work for the creation of a "House of
Austrian History". For details please go to: http://members.aon.at/proaustria
Since 2009
I am serving as co-publisher of the Austrian Online Knowledge Wiki
called
“Austria-Forum”: http://austria-forum.org which comprises more
than 250.000
text and multi-media entries.
For more
information please cf. http://peter-diem.at and http://oktogon.at
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