The Eurozone crisis and Euroscepticism in the European press

Abstract

The representation of EU debates in the mass media has received comparatively little attention in studies on Euroscepticism, despite criticism on the EU having become mainstream since the early 1990s in particular. Recently, a number of salient crises have brought European politics to the fore like never before. This article presents an analysis of different types of criticism on and opposition towards the EU as present in media at the height of the Eurozone crisis in 2012. Using a four-fold typology, it looks at views about the EU and its policies as present in coverage by quality newspapers in Austria, Ireland and the Netherlands. An analysis of 1,085 claims from 454 articles shows that, rather than rejecting integration or EU involvement in certain policies, criticism was predominantly aimed at existing policies and on presenting different policy options.