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Over the past decade, the European Union has lost the trust of many citizens. This article investigates whether and how media information, in particular visibility and tonality, impact trust in the European Union among citizens. Combining content analysis and Eurobarometer survey data from 10 countries between 2004 and 2015, we study both direct and moderating media effects. Media tone and visibility have limited direct effects on trust in the European Union, but they moderate the relation between trust in national institutions and trust in the European Union. This relation is amplified when the European Union is more visible in the media and when media tone is more positive towards the European Union, whereas it is dampened when media tone is more negative. The findings highlight the role of news media in the crisis of trust in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with some fundamental changes in the socio-cultural, political and media environment, political parties in post-industrialized democracies have started to initiate substantial transformations of both their organizational structures and communicative practices. Those innovations, described as professionalization, become most obvious during election campaigns. In recent times, the number of empirical studies measuring the degree of political parties’ campaign professionalism has grown. They have relied on a broad spectrum of indicators derived from theory which have not been tested for their validity. For the first time, we put these indicators to a ‘reality check’ by asking top-ranked party secretaries and campaign managers in 12 European countries to offer their perceptions of professional election campaigning. Furthermore, we investigate whether any differences in understanding professionalism among party campaign practitioners can be explained by macro (country) and meso (party) factors. By and large, our results confirm the validity of most indicators applied in empirical studies on campaign professionalism so far. There are some party- and country-related differences in assessing campaign professionalism too, but the influence of most factors on practitioners’ evaluations is weak. Therefore, we conclude that largely there is a far-reaching European Union-wide common understanding of professional election campaigning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007, the Dutch state secretary for European affairs lamented the narrow focus on the rules of European integration in the public debate, overshadowing the EU’s impact on citizens’ daily lives. This study compares the amount and type of news about the EU in the British, French and Dutch press during the period 1990—2003. A content analysis of Dutch EU coverage for the years 2004 up to 2006 was subsequently undertaken, which saw key events such as the EU enlargement and referenda on the constitution. The results show how Dutch EU news is notable for its domestic viewpoint until 2003. The prominence of EU news in all three countries seems unrelated to the EU’s growing authority. Besides key events regarding the integration process, the EU appears to rely on crises and rows to draw media attention. Everyday politics remain invisible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Commission's press and communication service plays a central role in the EU's dealings with news organizations. However, following the fall of the Santer Commission, even the service's own press officials admitted the organization was failing and constantly on the defensive against an increasingly hostile media. It was in this context that Santer's successor, former Commission president Romano Prodi, pledged radical reform, making the goal of a modern and professional' press service a priority. The Prodi Commission concluded that it needed a much more positive and proactive way of working. At a time when the Barroso Commission is proposing its own programme of change in communication policy, this article assesses the inheritance that the Prodi reforms left behind, with particular reference to their impact as seen by journalists from one of the member states in which traditionally it has been most difficult to communicate a positive image of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, it has been argued that, despite the absence of European-wide mass media, a European public sphere is emerging, as some issues of European relevance become debated at the same time with the same intensity and with recourse to the structures of meaning throughout the entire European Union. This article examines the media framing of Silvio Berlusconi's controversial address as president of the European Council of Ministers to the European Parliament on 2 July 2003, in which he compared the Social Democrat MEP Martin Schulz to a kapò, an auxiliary concentration camp guard. The data are drawn from six EU countries, the US, Canada and Switzerland and show that while the reporting of the speech do satisfy two of Schlesinger's three criteria for the development of a European public sphere - the existence of a Europe-wide news agenda that is part of everyday media consumption of large audiences across nation-states - the data do not indicate a European transcendence of national public spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the newspaper industry in small states with a big, more powerful neighbouring country where the same language is spoken. Austria and Ireland are used as examples to show the similarities within the different frameworks, the chosen newspaper sector displaying typical characteristics of traditional market failure and providing output with strong political relevance. Therefore public policy measures are even more important than in other industries. An economic analysis of the developments in the newspaper industry (in the two countries especially) is given, followed by a survey and interpretation of recent economic policies as well as media policy options. With an overview of the changes in the newspaper industries in Austria and Ireland as a starting point, the article aims to explore whether and what can be done to hinder or even unravel the observed concentration processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the evidence about ownership of the UK national daily press, and the possibility of new entrants succeeding, in the light of concern about media concentration in European fora. It demonstrates that this market is concentrated and effectively closed and explores why this is so. The article shows that this market is stratified in ways which also display closure and concentration and demonstrates that the existing law is ineffective in preventing concentration. It concludes that the nature of the UK national daily press market results from the natural workings of the free market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]