| Content analyses of newspaper debates on European issues reveal a process of multi-segmented transnationalization of public spheres: While the critical discussion of EU politics is intensified within each country, the resulting European public sphere remains nationally and transnationally segmented: First, reporting on Europe occurs from a national perspective, and second, different types of quality, tabloid or regional newspapers report differently on European issues. The aim of this working paper is to explain the national segmentation of the European public sphere. Therefore, we had a close look at the practices of journalists producing newspaper media coverage. We argue that national political discourse cultures, conceived of as "socio-cultural" foundations of public spheres, result in different patterns of articulating European and foreign issues in journalistic practice. Journalists report on Europe and foreign countries from their respective national perspectives. In their everyday "doing nation" journalists articulate news content in a way that a reader living in a given country will be able to relate it to his own national experiences. Nationalization thus refers to the journalistic practices of embedding foreign issues in the context of one’s own nation. The working paper presents the results from qualitative newsroom studies conducted within 23 quality, tabloid and regional papers in six EU-countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, France, Great Britain, Poland) aiming at the description of cultural patterns in the production of EU and European foreign news. Our findings indicate that journalists in all countries report on EU- and foreign issues by employing specific nationalization practices. However, there are national differences in the specific way of their articulation which relate to the national political discourse cultures. |
No. 140/2010
Swantje Lingenberg
Johanna Möller
Andreas Hepp
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