Europeanization Of National Public Spheres Research Articles

Agents of Europeanization: Think Tanks Discussing the Refugee Crisis in the Czech Republic

This article belongs to the special cluster, “Think Tanks in Central and Eastern Europe”, guest-edited by Katarzyna Jezierska and Serena Giusti. What is the role of think tanks in Europeanization of national public spheres? To address this question, our paper explores the performance of think tanks in the immigration debate in the Czech Republic. Employing political claims analysis (PCA) and treating think tanks as boundary organizations active in multiple fields, we compare the levels of Europeanization of political claims made by think tanks with other actors. Our data set includes 2,374 political claims made on broadcast public TV in the period from April 2015 to March 2016. According to our quantitative data, Czech think tanks chose the discursive strategy of Europeanization more often than any other actor represented. Thus, think tanks have the potential to support Europeanization of national public spheres. However, their representation in media coverage is relatively low. Our results also demonstrate that think tanks should be treated as sui generis organizations since their strategy in the public sphere deviates from that of other civil society organizations. Think tanks Europeanized their claims-making, but others largely stayed on the national level while discussing the refugee crisis.

National Anti-austerity Protests in a European Crisis: Comparing the Europeanizing Impact of Protest in Greece and Germany During the Eurozone Crisis

ABSTRACTProtest and social movements are drivers for the Europeanization of national public spheres. This is suggested by the literature on the emergence of Europeanized public spheres and the Europeanization of social movements as well as the discussion about the politicization of the European polity. The article tests this assumption in a standardized content analysis for newspaper reporting on the Eurozone crisis in Greece and Germany. Focusing on the public attribution of responsibility, the analysis looks for horizontal Europeanization (senders/addressees from other EU countries), vertical Europeanization (senders/addressees from the EU level), and discursive Europeanization (similar topics discussed at the same time). The findings do not identify protest as a strong driving force towards vertical or horizontal Europeanization of the public spheres in Greece and Germany. There is a weak tendency towards discussing similar topics at the same time in German and Greek media reports on protest. Consequences for European democracy and crisis politics are discussed.

The Eurosceptic Europeanization of public spheres: print and social media reactions to the 2014 European Parliament elections

The present study tests the theoretical claim that Eurosceptics contribute to the Europeanization of national public spheres. Although advocating a renationalization of European politics, Eurosceptic parties can engender public media debates of transnational or European relevance. Through a comparative research design of two national cases (Sweden and Denmark), we examine the public discourse on the day following the 2014 European Parliament elections across three media: print, Twitter, and Facebook. Separating the discussions of Eurosceptic issues and actors from other topics of the election coverage, we find that the discourses about Euroscepticism exhibit a higher degree of Europeanization in four of the six media analyzed. Moreover, while we detect significant differences in valence between the Swedish and Danish press when reporting about the Eurosceptics, such national variation is much less pronounced on the social networking sites. The findings suggest, firstly, that Eurosceptics’ contestation of the EU may have the unintended effect of giving national media debates a stronger European dimension. Secondly, the study warrants moderate optimism for the Europeanization potential of social media vis-a-vis traditional media structures: Print media was more Europeanized in scope, whereas social media publics were more aligned in their sentiment toward Euroscepticism.

The Framing of the Euro Crisis in German and Spanish Online News Media between 2010 and 2014: Does a Common European Public Discourse Emerge?

AbstractIn recent years, Europe has been facing the Euro crisis, questioning the whole process of European integration. However, scholars argue that this crisis also presents an opportunity for the Europeanization of national public spheres as public attention regarding Europe has increased. Therefore, this study examines the media discourse on the crisis and the possible convergence of the national public spheres of Germany and Spain. It investigates how the issue is framed and who participates in the discourse during the crisis between 2010 and 2014 in German and Spanish online quality newspapers. Based on a content analysis of 7,256 statements in 961 articles, frames were identified in a data‐driven approach. Results show that German and Spanish media have Europeanized their framing during the crisis and mainly support Europe's policy. This convergence has occurred despite a slight renationalization of discourse participants, indicating that Europeanization has been increasingly sustained by national actors.

Europeanization of national public spheres? Cross-national media debates about the European Union's socio-economic strategy

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the Europeanization of media coverage of the European Union's (EU) socio-economic strategy, which is a crucial building block for developing a European Public Sphere. As the EU level increasingly influences public policy in member states, there should correspondingly be a more intense and visible media debate with attention for EU-level and cross-national policies and developments. On the basis of a content analysis (2000–2010) in Denmark, France, Poland and the UK, we find that media attention for the EU's growth and jobs strategy is limited, that it does not increase over time and that it is mainly driven by the EU agenda. There are cross-national similarities in thematic focus and EU-level actors are omnipresent in reporting on the strategy. Finally, we find that coverage of the strategy has a transnational dimension in all four cases, with reference to peer countries in terms of benchmarking and reporting on criticism and advice to member states. This criticism is more often diffuse than aimed at specific member states. Therefore, we conclude that media coverage of the EU's socio-economic strategy is Europeanized, but that it remains a debate by and for EU-interested actors.

The Euro-Crisis as a Catalyst of the Europeanization of Public Spheres? A Cross-Temporal Study of the Netherlands and Germany

In this paper it is analysed whether the euro-crisis has induced a change in the degree of Europeanization of national public spheres. It is argued that ‘mediatizing politics’ on TV is a prerequisite for the accountability structures of liberal democracies. Examining the degree of Europeanization of public broadcaster news in Germany and the Netherlands in 2008 and 2011 this paper gauges the changes in terms of visibility of European issues and in terms of salience of items on European issues. Moreover it is analysed which news categories predominate, the tone of news items on European issues, and which explicit evaluations of European integration appear – and how these elements are affected by the euro-crisis. Finally, it is shown that although the Europeanization of public spheres increased as the euro-crisis developed, the EU was mostly portrayed negatively, focused predominantly on economic issues and political contestation was hardly visible.

Europe in crisis? Testing the stability and explanatory factors of the Europeanization of national public spheres

Presenting new data for a large-scale longitudinal content analysis of newspapers in six European countries between 1982 and 2008, the article explores what has previously been described as the process of ‘segmented Europeanization’ of national public spheres. Expanding on the theoretical concept of political discourse cultures, the article tests the explanatory power of national and editorial political discourse cultures on the degree of Europeanization of national public spheres. The analysis reveals the persistent stability of the pattern of ‘segmented Europeanization’ in which national public spheres increase their monitoring of Brussels but not their efforts to connect with other European countries. Still, the revealed national differences pale compared to the transnational gulf existing between quality and tabloid newspapers which may ultimately represent a far greater threat to the legitimacy of the European Union than the persistent lack of discursive exchange among the European community of nations.

The European Public Sphere, the Media, and Support for European Integration

The goal of this study is to find out whether the emergence of a European public sphere (EPS) contributes to EU support in its affective and evaluative dimensions. The EPS is conceptualized as an entity resting on Europeanized national public spheres. The media is seen as the most important place where Europeanization manifests itself. As an example of Europeanized public spheres, data on the coverage of the 2004 European Parliament election is used. The data set involves measures on EU salience in the media and tone of the messages, and is analyzed together with individual level data on EU support from the 2004 European Election Study. In contrast to earlier approaches to similar data of the 1999 EP elections, multilevel analysis is used to account for the hierarchical structure of the data. In particular, this study analyzes whether the media exerts an independent effect on evaluative and affective support. Additionally, it focuses on whether the impact of cognitive mobilization and egocentric utilitarianism as individual level predictors for EU support varies depending on the Europeanization of national public spheres. A positive, significant effect was found between the tone of the media context and evaluative support. Cross-level interaction effects revealed that EU salience significantly increases the importance of class affiliation when it comes to affective and evaluative support. Utilitarian considerations are found to differentiate people in their EU support only in the presence of negative EU coverage, but not when coverage is positive. This study comes to the conclusion that an emerging EPS can have a positive effect on support for the EU, resulting in a more critical, but also more alerted public.

`Let's Talk about Europe'

■ This article contributes to the ongoing quest for a European public sphere understood as a structural transformation of national public debates. This process of Europeanization of national public spheres has a vertical and a horizontal dimension: an increased focus on the EU as well as more attention to other European countries. A content analysis of quality newspapers in five EU member states covering a period of 20 years reveals common trends across different countries but no convergence over time. Four different patterns of Europeanization can be identified: comprehensive Europeanization, segmented Europeanization, Europeanization aloof from the EU and a parochial public sphere. This article pushes research in this area ahead by identifying and testing factors that explain these differences in newspaper coverage. In-depth case analysis as well as regression analysis show that the editorial mission of a newspaper and the size of the member state it is situated in have a significant effect on patterns of Europeanization. Contrary to common expectations, the number of correspondents in Brussels and the degree of popular identification with Europe did not significantly affect patterns of Europeanization. ■

The contribution of the press to Europeanization of public debates

In our study we seek to understand how national political contexts and different media formats constrain the role of the press in contributing to a Europeanization of national public spheres. To single out the explicit role of different newspapers in seven Western European countries we systematically compare their commentating about European integration. The role of the press is analyzed with respect to the visibility of European issues and actors and to the synchronization of conflict lines across Europe. The results show that the further a country is integrated into the European Union, the less parochial is its press and the stronger it takes part in a common European debate. Compared to these political settings the influence of specific press formats seems to play a secondary role.

7 National and transnational public spheres: the case of the EU

While many important social processes cut across national borders and have transnational institutions to regulate them, democratic participation still occurs almost exclusively within individual nation states. Public information and debate are essential ingredients of democracy, and their confinement to the individual national public sphere threatens the democratic aspirations and legitimacy of transnational institutions. Therefore, it is often argued that the European Union can only achieve greater legitimacy if there is a Europeanization of national public spheres. Has public discourse in fact Europeanized in the last decades? Here we present results from a study of major national newspapers from five European countries. Europeanization is defined in three dimensions: Europeanization of contents, Europeanization of public identities, and Europeanization of communication flows. Our results show that national public spheres are, in fact, quite resilient and that change is slow or halting. We discuss several possible explanations for this resilience, and go on to question the assumption that the legitimacy of European institutions depends on Europeanization of public discourse.