Media and Communication in Europe Edited by Agnieszka Stepinska Media and Communication in Europe logoV Editor of the book: Agnieszka Stêpiñska Reviewer: Prof. dr hab. Dorota Piontek Typesetting: Ryszard Skrzeczyñski Book cover: Bartosz Stêpiñski The book was sponsored by the National Science Center, Poland (grant no. NN 166 614440) The electronic version of this book is freely available under CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched (KU). KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH Gubener Str. 47, D-10243 Berlin, Germany, phone: +49 30 428 51090 www.logos-verlag.de © Copyright by Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH 2014 All rights reserved ISBN 978-3-8325-3680-0 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. 5 Table of Contents Preface ........................ 7 Part I European Public Sphere Anke Offerhaus, Anne Mollen, Andreas Hepp: Nationalizing Europe Regionally – The Europeanization of Public Spheres in Regional Newspaper Reporting and the “Crisis” in Europe ....... 13 Knut De Swert, Julie De Smedt: Hosting Europe, Covering Europe? Domestication in the EU-Coverage on Belgian Television News (2003–2012) ..................... 33 Veronika Pitrová: Towards Cosmopolitan Europeans: Covering Europe for the Young Audience on Public Service Broadcasting in the Netherlands and United Kingdom ............. 45 Javier Ruiz Soler: The Role of the Euroblogosphere in a Context of the European Public Sphere .............. 61 Part II Media and Political Communication in Europe Beata Ociepka: International Broadcasting: A Tool of European Public Diplomacy? ..................... 77 Sandrine Roginsky: Social Networking Sites: An Innovative Communication on Europe? Analysis in the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the European Council ..... 91 Gabriella Szabo: GOVCOM 2.0: The Role of Web 2.0 in Communicating EU Presidency .................... 113 Arjen van Dalen: The Changing EU Presidency and the Media Agenda at Home: Coverage of the Danish 2002 and 2012 Presidency Compared ...................... 131 6 Table of Contents Part III Media on the Polish EU Council Presidency Romy Wöhlert: Struggling for Visibility in Times of a Family Crisis. The Perception and News Coverage of the Polish EU Presidency 2011 in Germany and Austria ............... 147 Stijn Joye, Khaël Velders, Daniël Biltereyst, Thibault Bonte, Eveline Delcart: Poland Between PR and Presidency: A Quantitative and Qualitative Content Analysis of Belgian Newspaper Reporting on the Polish Presidency of the EU Council ......... 167 Katerina Serafeim: “This is Poland Calling!”: Representations of the Polish EU Presidency in the Greek Media ....... 179 Valentina Marinescu, Mãdãlina Bãlãºescu: The Romanian Press and European Issues: A Content Profile ........... 195 Agnieszka Stêpiñska, Bart³omiej Secler: Polish Printed Media Coverage and Evaluation of the Polish Presidency in the EU Council Presidency ................... 211 Artur Lipiñski: Presidency as a Political Battleground. Media and the Polish Presidency of the European Union Council .... 227 Contributors ...................... 245 7 Preface The book “Media and Communication in Europe” aims to promote research on me- dia content and its role within the European context. In order to do this, the book brings together a range of international scholars, drawn from representative disci- plines in the media studies and journalism. The main objective is to recognize how European issues and events are covered by media both traditional and online. Equal attention is paid to other participants of the communication process, namely politi- cal actors and citizens. Papers in this volume are structured in three parts. Part I focuses on the role of media in a process of Europeanization of public sphere. Part II presents relations be- tween the media and politics within European context, and Part III provides find- ings of the international research project on “Media Coverage of the Polish EU Council Presidency”. Part I, “European Public Sphere” brings results of five empirical studies. In the first paper Anke Offerhaus, Anne Mollen, and Andreas Hepp analyse (in a longitudinal perspective) how “Europe” and the “EU” are constructed in a process of reporting within regional newspapers in 6 countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Poland) along the main developments and breaking points in the EU history. They aim in tracing a trend of Europeanization in regional papers, as well as recognizing other, possibly antidromic trends like trans- or (re-) nationaliza- tion? In their study, the Authors consider two types of Europeanization, namely vertical and horizontal. In a second paper Knut De Swert and Julie De Smedt also presents how much attention is paid to the EU-related topics in a national media. This time, however, the object of the study is news broadcasting in Belgium, that is a country that ba- sically hosts the European Union (EU) in its capital Brussels. While studying news media coverage, the Authors raise a question whether news about Europe and European institutions need domestication since news about them is actually domestic news about one of the relevant policy levels of the viewers (at least from an institutional perspective). In a third paper, by Veronika Pitrova, the fo- cus is still on television, but this time the aim of study is to assess the content of the two prominent children’s news programs, namely Newsround in Children BBC and Jeugdjournaal in the Dutch public service broadcaster (NOS). The Au- thor evaluates whether they offer balanced coverage of current affairs in terms of geographic focus and topics and thus might serve children’s socialization within the European Union. 8 Preface The first section is completed by Javier Ruiz Soler, who in a forth paper investi- gates bloggers who are listed in bloggingportal.eu – the biggest aggregator of the EU blogs. They are considered and interviewed as participants of so called Euro- blogosphere: a virtual space where people can exchange ideas and thoughts about European issues. The central question raised by the Author concerns the contribu- tion of the Euroblogosphere into the European Public Sphere. Part II, “Media and political communication in Europe” includes papers that focus on the roles of traditional media as well as websites, Facebook and Twitter profiles, and blogs in processes of political communication in the EU context. The section opens with a paper by Beata Ociepka who analyzes international broadcasting as one of the elements of new public diplomacy in Europe. As three examples under a study (British BBC World Service, German Deutsche Welle, and Polish Belsat TV) show, TV stations broadcasting internationally are involved in a country branding as they shape the image of the countries in direct way, presenting the culture and promoting languages. In a following paper Sandrine Roginsky gives an overview of the place of social networking-sites (SNS) within the European institutions (the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Council) and investigates the types of communication activities actually undertaken by spokespersons, other mandated staff, editorial staff, commissioners, members of the European Parliament, or assis- tants in their practice. Next, Gabriella Szabo examines what role web 2.0 plays in a government commu- nication, using the Hungarian government’s communication strategy employed dur- ing the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2011 as a case study. The findings are then discussed in a theoretical framework of public relations culture. In a following paper, by Arjen van Dalen the focus is still on the EU Presidency. The paper dicusses the consequences of the changing role of the rotating The EU Council Presi- dency from a communication perspective. Comparing and contrasting two Danish Presidencies (in 2002 and 2012) the Author describes how media debate in the presid- ing country has changed in terms of visibility and prominence of the topic. During the six-month period of the presidency the country may attempt to at- tract the foreign media attention as a host of numerous meetings and events. The same time may be spent on achieving political goals and building the image of the Member State, as well as an attractive for tourists and entrepreneurs country. Thus, effectively conducted Presidency of the EU Council may improve an image of the country holding this position and this is particularly true for countries that hold the chairmanship of the EU Council for the first time. In many cases, however, the inter- nal political events such as elections, political tensions, or controversies over do- mestic issues seemed to take the whole air around the country. Part III is exclusively devoted to the international project “Media Coverage of the Polish EU Presidency” launched in 2010.1 The project provided an opportunity 1 The study was sponsored by the Polish National Science Center (grant no. N N116 614440). Preface 9 to check how much attention in the news media outside Poland was devoted to Po- land and how many of them were inspired by