Introduction

Abstract

This book contributes to the theoretical and policy debates on the existence and development of a European public sphere. It presents a critical discussion of the links between media, history and politics in Europe by looking at the re-organization of ideological and political determinants (such as Left-Right or East-West) and debating the existence of a European editorial culture. The volume also examines how international crises have been debated in national media in Europe throughout the post war period. It looks empirically at the national media coverage of eight crisis events: the 1956 revolution in Budapest, the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the May 1968 youth revolt in Paris, the events of August 1968 in Prague, the declaration of a state of war in Poland in 1981, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the outbreak of the Second Gulf War in 2003 and the Mohammed cartoons crisis in 2006.