News vs. Opinion Articles on the European Union: The Politicisation of the EU in the Mainstream Press

Abstract

This chapter assesses the politicisation of the EU in six European countries, by looking at the media coverage of 29 legislative elections held between 2002 and 2017. Using a combination of automated and manual methods of content analysis, this chapter goes beyond the existing studies to examine how the Eurozone crises impacted the traditional media coverage of the EU not only in terms of magnitude but also in terms of framing and content. Using a unique dataset of 165,341 news items, from 12 mainstream newspapers, this study answers three questions relevant to the main goal of this book: (1) does EU politicisation vary between left- and right-leaning newspapers; (2) is there a difference between news and opinion articles in terms of EU salience and tone; (3) what dimensions of EU debates are more prevalent in the media. Our analysis shows that, after the crisis, the countries’ politicisation of the EU diverged more in terms of content than magnitude. However, when we only consider opinion articles, the differences within mainstream media, from the left and right, become more salient. These results confirm the role and importance of the media for EU politicisation and its potential impact on national politics.