Media Effects on Public Opinion about the Enlargement of the European Union*

A B S T R A C TThis article demonstrates that public attitudes towards EU enlargement are strongly affected by exposure to the mass media. It reveals 'priming' effects by showing that media exposure affects the standards by which individuals evaluate the accession of potential candidate countries. To gain a more refined understanding about media effects on enlargement attitudes, we analytically separate three different factors that underlie EU enlargement support for a given candidate country: its economic performance, its state of democracy and its perceived cultural 'match' with the EU. Employing an experimental design, we probe the mediainduced effects of these factors on EU enlargement attitudes.

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

“…This finding strongly supports the studies carried out by De Vreese and Boomgaarden (2006) and Schuck and De Vreese (2006). In the case of our culture variable, the decline in support is statistically significant.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 82%

Shifting Europe's Boundaries

Maier

Rittberger

2008

“…Hobolt (2006) and Garry et al (2005) showed that party endorsement indeed mattered for the results in the Danish referendum on the Maastricht Treaty: if the party they supported advocated a 'yes' vote, the likelihood of people voting 'yes' in the referendum increased, regardless of their attitudes. Franklin et al (1994) and De Vreese and Boomgaarden (2006) point to the importance of domestic political evaluations. Because the national government is the institution involved in the treaty negotiations on the European constitution, trust in national politics will inevitably be part of the voting behaviour.…”

Section: Political Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regarding the Dutch `Nee' to the European Constitution

Lubbers

2008

A B S T R A C TIn June 2005, 61.5% of the Dutch voted 'nee' in the referendum on the European constitution. In the present contribution I test hypotheses from the national identity, utilitarian and political approaches to explain this voting behaviour. I collected data in the Netherlands to test whether one of those approaches has been decisive in explaining the referendum outcome. I also provide information about whether specific EU evaluations from these approaches explain the voting behaviour, thus bringing in the discussion on the importance of domestic political evaluations (second-order election effects). I also test hypotheses on which theoretical approach explains differences between social categories in rejecting the constitution. My results show that specifically EU evaluations in particular accounted for the 'no' vote, although in conjunction with a strong effect from domestic political evaluations. I also find evidence for 'party-following behaviour' irrespective of people's attitudes. Utilitarian explanations determine the 'no' vote less well than political or national identity explanations. The strongest impact on voting 'no' came from a perceived threat from the EU to Dutch culture.

“…This pattern of news coverage has been found to apply to EU summits, which are pivotal moments for EU decision-making and where news coverage of EU affairs is much more visible than during 'routine periods' (De Vreese and Boomgaarden, 2006;Peter and de Vreese, 2004;Semetko and Valkenburg, 2000). During other key events, such as national referendums on issues of European integration, EU news can take up a substantial part of the news agenda, especially in the final weeks of the campaign (De Vreese and Semetko, 2004).…”

Section: How Visible Is the Eu On The News Agenda?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The News Coverage of the 2004 European Parliamentary Election Campaign in 25 Countries

Vreese

Banducci

Semetko

et al. 2006

Self Cite

240

143

A B S T R A C TThis article analyses the news coverage of the 2004 European parliamentary elections in all 25 member states of the European Union (EU). It provides a unique pan-European overview of the campaign coverage based on an analysis of three national newspapers and two television newscasts in the two weeks leading up to the elections. On average, the elections were more visible in the 10 new member states than in the 15 old EU member states. The political personalities and institutional actors featured in news stories about the elections were generally national political actors and not EU actors. When evaluative, the news in the old EU-15 was generally negative towards the EU, whereas in the new countries a mixed pattern was found. The findings of the study are discussed in the light of the literature on the EU's legitimacy and communication deficit. IntroductionThe 2004 European parliamentary (EP) elections were an unprecedented exercise in democracy, with more than 350 million people in 25 countries having the opportunity to vote. The elections took place only weeks after the accession of 10 new member states to the European Union -the largest enlargement ever. Most voters in both the old EU-15 and the 10 new member states experience politics primarily through the media. Particularly in the case of low-salience, second-order elections, most of what citizens know about the campaign stems from the media (Bennett and Entman, 2001; see also Eurobarometer 162). Empirical knowledge about the media's coverage of EP elections is a prerequisite for assessing the well-being of democratic processes in Europe and for informing the ongoing discussion about the EU's democratic and communication deficits.Observations of the democratic process in the EU have been dominated by the 'democratic deficit'. This deficit has been identified as one of the major shortcomings of European integration and has been conceptualized in terms of institutional design and linkage institutions that focus on national rather than EU issues (Coultrap, 1999: 108;Kuper, 1998;Scharpf, 1999). The unelected nature of the Commission, the lack of European parliamentary power in policy-making, and the dominance of national issues are reflected in a lack of popular support, legitimacy and engagement in the EU among EU citizens (e.g. Eichenberg and Dalton, 1993).The importance of the media in alleviating or contributing to the democratic deficit lies in the media's ability to contribute towards a shared framework of reference and a European identity. First, the lack of EU legitimacy is viewed as a communication deficit (Meyer, 1999;Anderson and McLeod, 2004). According to this view, EU institutions have been unsuccessful in shaping European identity and promoting the connection between citizens and EU institutions via the media (Anderson and Weymouth, 1999;Anderson, 2004). Although the EU, and the European Parliament specifically, need to promote themselves, they are oftentimes confronted with media outlets that are either sceptical or uninterested ...