Abstract
Combining citations and network analysis, this study examines information flows between 10 European elite newspapers from 2000 to 2009 and identifies this network’s most central actors, sub-groups and structural features. At the same time, the article contributes to the literature with an alternative and network approach to the study of the European public sphere. Results indicate that The Times and The Guardian are the most quoted by other foreign newspapers, while the top monitors of information are The Guardian and El País. A longitudinal analysis of structural network metrics indicates a less dense but more inclusive information exchange that can be interpreted as sign of a qualitative transformation of the European communication space in the direction of a horizontal integration.
Highlights
Combining citations and network analysis, this study examines information flows between 10 European elite newspapers from 2000 to 2009 and identifies this network’s most central actors, subgroups and structural features
The study of information flows between media sources from different countries explores the dynamics underlying transnational communication spaces
There is no prevalent and accredited methodology for gathering data about transnational information flows, but there is a rather consolidated research literature that focuses on the interaction among European mass media within the context of study of a European public sphere (EPS)
Summary
Combining citations and network analysis, this study examines information flows between 10 European elite newspapers from 2000 to 2009 and identifies this network’s most central actors, subgroups and structural features. The first approach focuses on the attention of national media for EU politics and issues Studies in this mode are based on content analysis methods that measure EPS by frequency of words that refer to EU affairs as proxy indicators of salience in European mass media, usually newspapers or television reporting (Gehards, 2002). The dominant themes being discussed and reported in national media seem to vary little across the EU (Sievert, 1998; Medrano, 2001; Meyer, 2002) The conclusion of this kind of research is that there is no EPS to speak of in a meaningful sense given the low salience of European issues in mass media, the significance of the European dimension has increased slightly over the 1990s. On European issues, differences across Europe are not large, demonstrating similar level of attention, and more importantly several European themes are framed in rather similar ways across national media, leading to similar interpretative schemes and structures of meaning (Eder, 1998, 2000; Eder and Kantner, 2000; Van de Steeg, 2000)
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