European elections in the media: portuguese coverage of the 2009 european elections

Abstract

For this year’s European elections, the European Parliament (EP) has chosen the motto “this time it’s different”. But is it really? Despite the new elements that will make these elections innovative and different in terms of the EU’s architectural framework, the main issue will probably be – as in previous elections – the fact that the citizens are not aware about the role of the European Parliament, let alone the novelties introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon that seem to have granted it more effective powers. The argument being that only the media can help reach a widespread audience of European citizens and thus foster participation at these elections, we will look at the media coverage given by some Portuguese newspapers to the EP elections in 2009. Although it is still early to carry an analysis of the current media coverage for the 2014 EP elections, this will give us a basis for future comparison between these two major democratic moments.