Слайд 1Journalists and EU
21 October 2013
Слайд 2How researchers have studied ’EU and media’
Two somewhat different approaches
to studying the EU and media.
In one, it is
assumed that there are 'Europeans' who communicate with each other to a greater or lesser extent.
In the other, the focus is more on how people construct themselves as European.
Quantitative vs. qualitative studies
Lack of studies on information provision of EU institutions (to the media), especially activities of EU spokespersons
Слайд 3EU legitimacy
No more ‘permissive consensus’ (Lindberg and Scheingold 1970)
Pre-Maastricht (until
Danish ‘no’ 1992): focus on EU’s institutional design and matters
of constitutional law
After the Danish ‘no’ on the Maastricht Treaty: focus shifted to public opinion and media
Lack of communication as part of EU’s democratic deficit
Слайд 4European Public Sphere (EPS)
Jürgen Habermas (1996): The Structural Transformation of
the Public Sphere
Habermas (2005, 2006): public visibility of European policy
making as a requirement for a legitimate politics
EPS could link the EU with its citizens
Habermas (2006: 102): ’The missing European public sphere should not be imagined as the domestic sphere writ large. It can arise only insofar as the circuits of communication within the national arenas open themselves up to one another while themselves remaining intact.’
Transnational arena of communication where social, political, institutional, cultural and economic actors voice their opinions and ideas which are then discussed, distributed and negotiated with reference to different (crucial) events (Krzyzanowski, Triandafyllidou and Wodak 2009)
Слайд 5Group discussion: What is EPS?
Would you say it is EPS
if media in different countries talk about the same (European)
pop singer?
Or should they necessarily talk about 'Europe', European values, identity etc.?
When Berlusconi made a racist comment saying that Obama had a good tan and newspapers in different European countries reported on it, was it EPS?
When media in different EU countries talk about the "rise of China"?
Слайд 6Where do journalists find information on the EU?
Daily Commission’s
midday briefing
EUROPA Newsroom
http://europa.eu/newsroom/index_en.htm
EU4Journalists
www.eu4journalists.eu
presseurop
www.presseurop.eu
Euronews
http://www.euronews.com
EuroparlTV
http://www.europarltv.europa.eu
Слайд 7EU has no ’face’
Every EU institution has its spokespersons
Others are
not allowed to give official statements
Do EU representatives engage in
public discussion with each other?
The only ‘debate’ seems to be between Europhiles and Eurosceptics
Слайд 8Anatomy of EU-journalism
Finnish doctoral dissertation on how journalists reported on
the EU before the 1994 referendum (Mörä 1999)
Journalists’ definition of
the situation
Hard facts discourse
Economy
Foreign and security policy
West-discourse
Western Europe as the only proper reference group for the Finns
Inevitability discourse
Слайд 9Self-image of EU-journalists
Educators, not (political) advocates (Statham 2007)
Exception: The Swiss
Blick is aware of its readers’ EU-critical stance, but consciously
takes an Europhile position anyway
What about critical journalism?
Journalists from old vs. new member states (see Lecheler 2010)
Слайд 10Why so little coverage of EU?
Journalists say:
EU too complicated
Audience not
interested
Should we ask:
Do you (journalists) understand the EU?
Are you (journalists)
interested in the EU?
