European News Research Articles

Making News Media Ownership Chains Transparent by Relational Databases

The multi-tiered shareholder identification and registration systems are dominant within the European Union member States, but in the Nordic countries, the holding structure is based on a direct holding model. Share registers of all listed companies are public, so basically, anyone may have a full outlook on the corporate ownership structure whenever they want.However, even the Nordic corporate governance model allows you to hide your ownership from public scrutiny by using other companies, most preferably unlisted ones, as intermediaries. The more complicated the chain of intermediaries, the more difficult it is to understand the ownership pattern and level of ownership concentration, which is especially important when evaluating the diversity and functioning of the news media markets.This is why maximum transparency requires not only public share registers but also a structural database, which has also been designed to show the full chain of direct and indirect ownership of each legal owner. This article analyses the relational database model developed for studying and presenting multilevel direct and indirect ownership structures of European news media in the first phase of the Euromedia Ownership Monitor project funded by the European Union.

Framing of Russia-Ukraine War: Comparisons of Global News

This study examined the news framing of the Russia-Ukraine war in global news media outlets. Using the framing theory, a literature review of prominent news frames covering wars and conflicts was drawn. Two hypotheses were set for the major news frames more than others and the relationship between the emphasis on the frames and news organizations’ national interests. Based on predicted framing themes, news frames were obtained from topic modeling with 48,364 news stories. An analysis with a verification sample was implemented to compare the topics with news publishers’ national interests. Five news frames from topic modeling were found: humanism, politics, peace, war, and the economy. In the coverage of the news about the war by global news organizations, the humanism and peace frames were related to Ukraine, whereas the war frame was associated with Russia. The relationship between national interests and pronounced news frames found that European news emphasized humanism more than other regions. The national interest of news outlets was reflected in the news of the war. Study implications and suggestions in terms of news framing and national interests were discussed.

The owner-market fit and responses to competing logics

ABSTRACT This study investigates how the owner identity of media organisations affects their response to competing professional and market logics. To this end, a qualitative comparative multiple case study was conducted in the European news media sector. Our findings suggest that not only owner identity, but also the field position of the organisation is associated with particular market choices and the priority that is given to one market over another. This in turn has consequences for the degree of tension between coalitions with competing logics. Additionally, we find that the best owner-market fit for prioritising the democratic role of the press is a journalist employee cooperative that mainly serves a subscription market. Previous research on logics has addressed the role of ownership but did not include customer and employee cooperatives. Therefore, our findings provide important new insights.

Framing Policy Reform in Europe. A Comparative Study of Frame Variation Across Countries, Newspapers, and Time

ABSTRACT Politicians must navigate the complexities of social policy reform to ensure sustainable fiscal policies while considering their impact on citizens. News media play a crucial role as a source of political information, influencing public attitudes towards policy changes through selective framing of issues. This study focuses on how European news media frame the controversial policy reform of raising the retirement age, and explores factors that potentially explain variations in framing across contexts. Using a manual content analysis of newspapers in Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom over the period 2011–2020 (n = 1059 articles), we examine country-, newspaper-, and time-related factors to explain the relative presence of issue-specific diagnostic and prognostic frames in European news coverage of pension reform. While the results show that all three types of factors determine the coverage of the reform measure to some extent, in particular variations across newspapers and over time are prevalent. The most striking differences are that left-leaning newspapers emphasize frames related to inequality, and that over time, framing crystallizes into a more concentrated set of diagnostic and prognostic frames. This article sheds light on European news coverage of a much-debated policy issue and its contextual dependency.

The Resurrection of Borders Inside of the Schengen Area and its Media Representations

The bordering processes inside of the Schengen Area are traditionally under the scrutiny of border studies scholars. The European Union has been repeatedly displayed as a laboratory for a free cross-border movement, often with synonyms like an ostensibly borderless area (Scott 2012). This so-called Schengen culture (Zaiotti 2011) developed due to intensifying cross-border contact and integration between EU member states. However, in the decade between 2010 and 2020 this Schengen culture has been repeatedly challenged by the geopolitical crises and nationalistic political narratives and decisions. This study concentrates on this debate about borders in the selected European news. The analysis of news articles from six newspapers (Mladá fronta, Hospodářské noviny, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Der Standard, and Die Presse) shows how the context of the border debate evolved under the impact of migration crises and coronavirus crisis. Throughout the decade of the 2010s, this study witnesses the gradual securitization of borders inside of the EU and illustrates how the symbolic language and various narratives contributed to this development.

Where do they care? The ECB in the media and inflation expectations

ABSTRACT This paper examines how news coverage of the European Central Bank (ECB) affects consumer inflation expectations in the four largest euro area countries. Utilizing a unique dataset of multilingual European news articles, we measure the impact of ECB-related inflation news on inflation expectations. Our results indicate that German and Italian consumers are more attentive to this news, whereas in Spain and France, we observe no significant response. The research underscores the role of national media in disseminating ECB messages and the diverse reactions among consumers in different euro area countries.

One-way ticket to Zürich: presentations of ‘Suicide tourism’ in European news media

ABSTRACT In recent years, stories of individuals travelling to Switzerland for an assisted death have been the subject of a notable number of news reports, particularly in the UK, giving the impression that this is largely a British practice. Coverage of individuals undertaking this journey, colloquially known as ‘suicide tourists’, frequently features in newspaper media in other European countries however, presented as a rousing reminder of the incongruity between the modern desire for greater choice over one’s death, and the law on assisted suicide making this practice a crime in all but a few European nations. In this mixed-methods study I explore the framing of suicide tourism in the newspaper media of four Western European countries between 2002 and 2021. A quantitative analysis of trends in reporting was carried out initially, complemented by a qualitative thematic analysis of news stories using a critical discourse framework. Four themes indicative of a wider ‘European’ discourse employing common frames, language, and meaning were identified: 1/suicide tourism as an individual choice grounded on a desire for autonomy and self-determination 2/Dignitas as an ‘emergency exit’ 3/the law on assisted suicide as outdated and coercive, and 4/dying in Switzerland as a ‘good death’.

Media Communication in the European Union: How do Media Cover EU? A Comparison Analysis of Germany, Croatia, Belgium and Greece

This paper examines the extent to which media and journalists cover European Union issues, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Are the media undermining the EU by the way they report it? How has journalism responded to the transformation of politics resulting from European integration? In order to answer to these research questions, we carried out a survey across four European countries – Germany, Croatia, Belgium, and Greece – searching for elements of convergence and divergence in the coverage of European news. Subsequently, we attempted a comparison of the amount of news produced by the European Union with the corresponding quantity of news produced in the chosen countries. The results show that there is a gap between the news that is produced by the European Union, compared to what is broadcasted at a national level, but also that there is a great difference between how each country chooses to cover issues of European interest.

European news media in the decade of digitalisation: Persisting democratic performance with uneven developments

This article discusses how the performance of leading European news media evolved between 2010 and 2020 regarding normative expectations of liberal democracies, focusing on the role of digital journalism. The rise of platforms, news media crisis and consolidation of digital journalism in the 2010 decade challenge established discourses on the normative roles of news media. It is unclear to what extent media performance may have changed, especially outside the United States. This article draws on 2010 and 2020 data from the Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) to compare the performance of news media in Austria, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. It argues that leading news media in these countries have had an overall similar contribution to democratic roles as before the 2010 decade. However, there are uneven developments, as digital journalism has strengthened the watchdog dimension while failing to attract younger audiences for the news industry. Additionally, countries with stronger public media ownership performed fairly better, indicating that technology alone is not the main factor to fulfil democratic expectations.

Comparative Analysis of Xinhua News and European News

Comparative Analysis of Xinhua News and European News

Ræningjarímur séra Guðmundar Erlendssonar í Felli og erlendar fréttaballöður

News ballads are poems about recent events or the poets’ contemporaries that were printed on cheap paper and sold by street vendors or performed/sung in the squares and streets of towns and cities in Europe in the early modern period. This genre has not been studied in Icelandic literary history hitherto, since poems belonging to news ballads (or disaster ballads) have not been printed but only preserved in little-known manuscripts. We can see, however, from the book of poems by pastor Guðmundur Erlendsson (primarily in the manuscripts JS 232 4to and Lbs 1055 4to, preserved in the National Library of Iceland, Reykjavík) that seventeenth-century Icelandic poets knew of news ballads. Here I examine four of his poems belonging to this genre. One deals with an earthquake in Italy in 1627; the second describes the fall of the German city Magdeburg in 1631; the third describes the execution of King Charles I of England in grotesque and horrendous detail; and the fourth portrays the king himself, bidding farewell to his wife and children and to the crown. One may infer from the texts of Guðmundur’s poems that they were intended for performance and entertainment. They feature dramatic staging, an exciting plot, and a clear moral message addressed to the audience at the end. All the poems are based on real events that happened in the poet’s time; that is, natural disasters, disasters of war, and political execution. They are presumably translations of European ballads, but the poet places the events in the context of the reality of his audience in Iceland. The poems demonstrate that the genre of news ballads reached Iceland no later than the early seventeenth century, thus expanding the repertoire of early modern Icelandic poetry. Also of note is the fact that Guðmundur Erlendsson’s Rover rhymes do not deal with ancient heroes or fictional characters from the distant past, as was the general rule for seventeenth-century rhyme cycles, but with tragic events from the poet’s own time, the so-called “Turkish Raid” of 1627. In the rhymes, the trail of the raiders is traced around the country; place names are mentioned to support the veracity of the narrative, as are the names of people assaulted or captured by the raiders. The narrative is dramatic and suspenseful, and descriptions of the pirates’ actions are presented in grotesque detail. The last rhyme contains a warning to the audience and a moral message. The terrible events happened because of the disobedience and immorality of Icelanders, and the poet urges his compatriots to obey the Lord and pray for peace in the country, just as he did in the ballads. Thus, the poet not only translated European news ballads into Icelandic, introducing the genre to his audience/readers, but he also used the genre’s characteristics and subject matter in an innovative way in a rhyme cycle on a contemporary event in Iceland. It is entirely possible that the influence of news ballads was more prevalent in Icelandic poetry of later centuries. That needs, however, further research.

Tobacco Tax Increases: A Discourse Analysis of the French Print and Web News Media from 2000 to 2020.

Lobbying led by the tobacco industry and tobacconists is a barrier to reducing smoking prevalence in France. Here, we analyze the discourse of the tobacco industry and other key actors (public health agencies, politicians, etc.) in the French general-audience news media from 2000 to 2020 around tobacco tax increases, which is one of the most effective tobacco control measures, especially amongst youth. We queried Europresse (a European news media and specialized press database) using the keywords "increase", "price or taxes", and "tobacco or cigarettes", and found 5409 topic-relevant articles, from which we extracted 8015 arguments for or against the measure. In total,64.3% were against the measure (mostly on grounds of "ufueling the black market"), 32.1% were for the measure (mostly claiming it is "effective at reducing smoking prevalence"), and 1.8% proposed alternative measures. Tobacconists, the primary source of media content on the topic, led a discourse that was strongly opposed to tax increases. Public health agencies, which attracted only half as much media attention, were strongly supportive of the measure. Analysis of discourses relayed in the French general-audience press revealed overwhelming opposition to tobacco tax increases, and this discourse was widely advanced by tobacconists. The results were congruent with international literature that had highlighted a similar set of arguments to those found in the French general press that were broadcasted by the tobacco industry and its allies (tobacconists in France) in an effort to block this evidence-based public health measure.

Visual portrayals of fun in the sun in European news outlets misrepresent heatwave risks

AbstractThe ways in which news media communicate about heatwaves can influence how society conceptualises and addresses heatwave risks. We examined visual news coverage of the 2019 heatwaves in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, using content and visual critical discourse analyses. Many visuals were positively valenced (in contrast to article texts), framing heatwaves as ‘fun in the sun’. The most prevalent type of images in all countries were photographs of people having fun in or by water. When images did depict the danger of heat extremes, people were largely absent. We conclude that this visual framing of heatwaves is problematic: first, by displacing concerns of vulnerability, it marginalises the experiences of those vulnerable to heatwaves; and second, it excludes opportunities for imagining a more resilient future. We conclude with suggestions to diversify the visual discourse on climate change and heatwaves in the news media.

Mapping the European media landscape – Meteor, a curated and community-coded inventory of news sources

We present Meteor, a new inventory for European news sources (i.e. EU + UK, CH, NO, IL): https://wp3.opted.eu/ . This inventory will facilitate researchers’ efforts to select sources across platforms and gather related textual data. It contains the names of print and online news sources, social media accounts, news blogs, and alternative news media sources, as well as rich meta-information for each entry (e.g. language, audience size, topical focus, ownership structures, access to full-text archives, secondary data, related research). Meteor accounts for the fuzziness of hybrid media systems through an interlinked knowledge graph. Entries are submitted by researchers, validated, continuously updated, and openly accessible to the public. Our inventory allows users to find various European news sources based on a wide range of criteria, putting scholars in a better position to navigate the European media landscape.

The Travelling of News in 1848: The February Revolution, European News Flows, and the Finnish Press

This article explores media coverage of the European revolutionary turbulence of 1848, particularly the outbreak of the February Revolution in France. By utilizing several European newspaper repositories, the article sheds light on the role of newspapers in the spread of revolutionary news in the European media space across various political borders and language barriers. In our case study, we examine how information on the February Revolution travelled to the Grand Duchy of Finland, an area situated at the crossroads of different communication networks, that was influenced by the reactionary politics of Russia but still culturally connected with Sweden. Benefitting from digitized collections of Finnish, Swedish, Austrian, German, and British newspapers, this article provides a transnational perspective on the mid-nineteenth-century European media landscape. Instead of trying to encompass a comprehensive outlook on news reporting during the European upheaval in 1848, we are focusing on the emergence of early reports of the outbreak of the February Revolution in various countries, and looking at how the circulation of news was extending or going beyond national boundaries, as news about the revolution arrived in Northern Europe and at the borders of the Russian Empire.

Robojournalism – A Copyright Study on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in the European News Industry

Abstract The copyright protectability of outputs generated by, or with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hotly debated question in academia and by many institutions. In practice, sophisticated AI algorithms have become a meaningful assistant in the European news industry for the reporting of sports (Retresco’s collaboration with the German Football Association), weather (textOmatic’s collaboration with FOCUS Online) and finance (the Guardian’s ‘Guarbot’). Furthermore, for the first time in copyright history a court in China assessed the validity of a company’s copyright claim over the articles produced by the corporation’s algorithm. The protection with copyright of this ‘robojournalism’ is no longer just a buzzwordy trend. From a technological perspective, robojournalism currently relies on assistive, generative and distributive technologies. The first two seem to be the most problematic from a copyright perspective as they challenge the well-rooted human authorship requirement. Experts have been able to agree so far that it does not look like AI technology is going to be a disruptive force in the media industry. However, researching the impact of AI in journalism matters a great deal. There are numerous benefits stemming from the use of AI in the newsroom – from expanding news coverage, through faster content production, all the way to leaving journalists more time for the more ‘creative’ and investigative tasks where the algorithm remains weak. This paper addresses, first, the protectability of the outputs of robojournalism under the existing European Union copyright laws. It then goes on to introduce findings related to the practical significance of robojournalism in the European news industry. Here, our focus is on the business, media, and communications studies’ perspectives of automated journalism. Our results demonstrate that the extent to which European journalism relies on assistive and generative technologies to produce written output does not justify, from a copyright perspective, the changing of the current anthropocentric copyright system. These findings have wider implications as AI-generated outputs have prompted many to talk about market failure if copyright (or related rights) protection was to be refused for such works.1

Grateful fresh advices and random dark relations: Maghrebi news and experiences in English expatriate letters, 1660-1710

ABSTRACT This paper examines information flows between England and the Maghreb – how news was witnessed, gathered, mediated and distributed – to understand how English-speaking expatriates in the Maghreb influenced public perceptions of the other. Using little-known manuscript material and printed news about the Maghreb, I argue that expatriates were instrumental in the detailed, up-to-date and largely polemic-free coverage in seventeenth-century English periodical news, and key players in the contest over representations of European news in the Maghreb. By exploring the everyday processes that governed communication, the paper offers new insight into reciprocal and productive Anglo-Maghrebi interactions in the era of Mediterranean corsairing.

AI Errors in Health?

The ever-greater use of AI-driven technologies in the health sector begs moral questions regarding what it means for algorithms to mis-understand and mis-measure human health and how as a society we are understanding AI errors in health. This article argues that AI errors in health are putting us in front of the problem that our AI technologies do not grasp the full pluriverse of human experience, and rely on data and measures that have a long history of scientific bias. However, as we shall see in this paper, contemporary public debate on the issue is very limited. Drawing on a discourse analysis of 520 European news media articles reporting on AI-errors the article will argue that the ‘media frame’ on AI errors in health is often defined by a techno-solutionist perspective, and only rarely it sheds light on the relationship between AI technologies and scientific bias. Yet public awareness on the issue is of central importance because it shows us that rather than ‚fixing‘ or ‚finding solutions‘ for AI errors we need to learn how to coexist with the fact that technlogies – because they are human made, are always going to be inevitably biased.

Social Media Sharing of Articles About Measles in a European Context: Text Analysis Study

BackgroundDespite the existence of an effective vaccine, measles still threatens the health and lives of many Europeans. Notably, during the COVID-19 pandemic, measles vaccine uptake declined; as a result, after the pandemic, European countries will have to increase vaccination rates to restore the extent of vaccination coverage among the population. Because information obtained from social media are one of the main causes of vaccine hesitancy, knowledge of the nature of information pertaining to measles that is shared on social media may help create educational campaigns.ObjectiveIn this study, we aim to define the characteristics of European news about measles shared on social media platforms (ie, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest) from 2017 to 2019.MethodsWe downloaded and translated (into English) 10,305 articles on measles published in European Union countries. Using latent Dirichlet allocation, we identified main topics and estimated the sentiments expressed in these articles. Furthermore, we used linear regression to determine factors related to the number of times a given article was shared on social media.ResultsWe found that, in most European social media posts, measles is only discussed in the context of local European events. Articles containing educational information and describing world outbreaks appeared less frequently. The most common emotions identified from the study’s news data set were fear and trust. Yet, it was found that readers were more likely to share information on educational topics and the situation in Germany, Ukraine, Italy, and Samoa. A high amount of anger, joy, and sadness expressed within the text was also associated with a higher number of shares.ConclusionsWe identified which features of news articles were related to increased social media shares. We found that social media users prefer sharing educational news to sharing informational news. Appropriate emotional content can also increase the willingness of social media users to share an article. Effective media content that promotes measles vaccinations should contain educational or scientific information, as well as specific emotions (such as anger, joy, or sadness). Articles with this type of content may offer the best chance of disseminating vital messages to a broad social media audience.

Accountability disclosure of SOEs: comparing hybrid and private European news agencies

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the financial and non-financial accountability disclosure patterns of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), as hybrid organizations.Design/methodology/approachAdopting the hybridity concept and resorting to stakeholder theory, this paper works on a comparison between the accountability disclosure patterns of hybrid and private organizations operating in the same industry. European national news agencies are selected as units of analysis and an extensive web content analysis is performed on three categories of information.FindingsSOEs are found to disclose a broader spectrum of information than private organizations, and differences between them have been found. Nevertheless, both financial and non-financial disclosures are underdeveloped in the two organizational types.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper illustrates how hybridity explains SOEs’ accountability disclosure patterns. Results could not be complemented through information on disclosure through alternative channels. Future studies are encouraged to perform simultaneous comparisons among hybrid, public and private organizations, as well as considering industry specifics.Practical implicationsAs web accountability disclosure helps to address the demands of distant stakeholders, efforts are needed to enhance SOEs’ web accountability disclosures and not to undermine democratic accountability relationships.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the accountability mechanisms and style of SOEs. Using a framework for hybrid organizations provides an understanding of how SOEs, as hybrid organizations, disclose information for accountability. In turn, this allows, and then promotes, the investigation of social phenomena by conceiving hybridity as a standalone institutional space.