The Five Principles of European Political Communication

Abstract

Over the last few years, there is an increasing awareness that the European Union (EU) should become more democratic. For a democratic EU, it is essential that citizens can exert influence on the policies of European institutions and have sufficient information about the EU. However, media largely fail to bring enough political news about European affairs. This chapter will analyse the main principles of political communication on the EU, based on the work of Gadi Wolfsfeld: Making sense of media and politics. Two cases are analysed to see whether the principles of Wolfsfeld, which are formulated for national politics, also hold for European politics. The research question is: what are the main principles that apply to political communication on the EU? This analysis focuses on two case studies that vary in the amount of coverage that they received: the Value Added Tax Mini One-Stop Shop rules (VATMOSS) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The analysis shows that the five principles of Wolfsfeld on national political communication should be reformulated for political communication on the EU. While all reformulated principles have a clear relation with the relative lack of coverage of the EU, we can wonder whether the media fulfil their role to inform the public satisfactorily.