Even though the absolute number of traffic fatalities is decreasing, the number of cyclists killed has been stagnating for years and has even increased again recently. In 2020, 18 cyclists died in Berlin.

This research project addresses the question of how the discourse on people killed in traffic accidents unfolds against the background of the emergence of the mobility law in Berlin.

According to Hajer, a discourse coalition comprises "(...) the ensemble of a set of story lines, the actors who express these story lines and the practices to which these story lines correspond" (Hajer 2004). Which actors form a discourse coalition? What story lines connect them? In which practices - for example, in the vigils for killed cyclists initiated by Changing Cities e.V. (Berlin) - is the discourse produced, reproduced and transformed? Who participates in the discourse, possibly also through silence?

The concept of institutional work (Fuenfschilling und Truffer 2016) provides the theoretical basis for our argumentative discourse analysis (Hajer 2004). Media such as newspaper articles, journalistic commentaries, and observations of court proceedings will be analysed and reviewed, and the findings will be tested in expert interviews. It is assumed that in connection with the emergence of the Mobility Act, there has been a shift in the discourse about people killed in traffic.