Legitimated Persons and Vox Populi attitude towards Europe in French, Italian, Polish and UK TV news (original) (raw)
European Journal of Communication, 2011
This edited volume sets out to examine the Europeanization of media discourse vis-à-vis advancing European integration and to explore its relation to political practice and the 'European democratic deficit'. The studies presented investigate patterns of communication and interaction that emerge alongside institutional and policy regulation at the EU level and these are used to draw conclusions about how conditions of Europeanization, transnationalism and globalization affect the ways democratic politics is performed.
2010
The traumatic failure of the European constitution seems to underpin doubts about a European public sphere that effectively interacts with the European Union and holds it to account. Is a European public sphere truly impossible? Has it been emerging as many social scientists have claimed – however only on the basis of more recent observations? This dissertation provides the first long-term historical analysis of a political European public sphere and its development over time. Starting out from a thorough consideration of the theoretical, conceptual and methodological innovations provided by social scientists in recent years, the study focuses on how British, French and German quality newspapers covered major European Council summits from The Hague in 1969 to Maastricht in 1991. Findings - based on quantitative and qualitative analyses of both reporting and commentary using a variety of methods - suggest that major events of European integration have long been accompanied by a vivid debate in the media. Moreover, the European public sphere underwent a notable structural transformation. The growth of a more developed European political system since the 1970s has led to a more politicised, more differentiated, more inclusive – and hence potentially more democratic – European public sphere in terms of participation in the debate and the range of issues covered. There was a notable increase in transnational communication. A discourse analysis of the commentary demonstrates changes in European identification – from a rather uniform association of Europe with progress to overcome the nation state towards a greater pluralism in European self-understanding, including Euro-scepticism, but also a sense of greater European responsibility in the post-Cold War world. The study suggests that an emerging European public sphere was much more responsive to the development of European integration than has previously been assumed.
Agents of transnational debate across Europe
Javnost-The Public, 2008
This article aims at assessing the theoretical and empirical role of the national press in the emerging European public sphere. The study draws on Europeanisation as the emerging framework for transnational communication across European nation states. It assumes that the press itself may perform as a political actor and make a substantial contribution to Europeanisation by advocating European integration and by broadening its scope to include the perspectives of all EU member states and the EU itself. In order to discern the infl uence or role of the media-its "voice"-this study analysed the content of editorials of 28 newspapers in seven European countries along two dimensions. First, the receptiveness of the press towards European perspectives is investigated by measuring the degree to which its editorials feature European scopes. Second, the study examines newspapers' attitudes about European integration as a political project. The overall fi ndings point to a remarkable representation of European perspectives, and substantial support for EU integration, by the national press in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The newspapers in the Netherlands and Switzerland were somewhat more parochial, but still supportive. We also see that the United Kingdom (UK) media deviate substantially from these patterns. This study concludes that, in contrast with the fi ndings of earlier studies, the press must be regarded as a signifi cant agent of Europeanisation fostering transnational linkages of public debate.
European Journal of Social Theory, 2008
Among scholars and intellectuals, Europe is often celebrated as a post-national space, i.e. a space built around cosmopolitan values rather than culturally and/or ethnically specific factors. This view is also often sketched in normative terms, being rarely based on what people actually think of this post-national Europe. The present article essays to fill this gap, by focusing on two post-national questions: is European identity constructed in the absence of an Other? Does Europe stand for the separation of the 'cultural' from the 'political'? Relying on qualitative information collected in four regional case studies in Western Europe, this article maintains that the 'post-national' view finds expression also among people. Yet, it coexists with a 'national' view, which continues to shape how people see themselves and the world, Europe included. The paper argues that it is exactly in the interaction, at times contradictory, between these two views that the normative idea of Europe as a post-national space should be analyzed.
Communications, 2014
The paper explores the process of the Czech journalists setting the 9 EU agenda in the media during the 'hot phase' of the Czech national parliament 10 election campaigns in 2002, 2006, and 2010. Unlike most studies that concen-11 trated on the media agenda in the European Parliament election campaigns, 12 we focused on periods that were neither strictly key events nor routine, but 13 that were more intensively covered by the media and simultaneously generated 14 more influential political representation defining national political attitudes to-15 wards the EU. Articles that referred to the EU during the 'hot phase' were con-16 tent analyzed. The results suggest that in the Czech press, the EU agenda is 17 less and less visible, and, moreover, that it is increasingly negatively framed 18 and reduced to an economic agenda. 19 6 1 1 2 DE GRUYTER MOUTON 3 458 Marína Urbániková and Jaromír Volek 4 29 members. There are a multitude of reasons for this result, one of which could 30 be the Czech media and the way they report on EU issues. 31 Our research explores how the EU agenda is presented in the media and 32 contributes to the broader discussion of the participation of the mass media in 33 shaping the EU agenda. Unlike previous studies, which concentrated either on 34 key-event periods (e.g. the EP elections, summits, etc.) or routine periods, this 35 study is focused on a period that is, from the EU perspective, neither strictly a 36 key event nor routine, and that is at the same time a period of intensified 37 electorate/audience attention -the 'hot phase' of national parliament (NP) 38 election campaigns. 39