EU crises and integrational panic: the role of the media

ABSTRACT

Even a casual look at the history of the European Union (EU) since its inception in 1957 shows that at numerous junctures through its development the EU (or European Economic Community/European Community [EEC/EC] in its previous incarnations) has been portrayed as being in severe crisis. Of course, the EU continues to exist today, and it is arguably stronger and more integrated than ever. This article focuses on the role of international media coverage in framing certain events as crises and seeks to draw out a pattern across three prominent case studies: the 2003 Iraq crisis; 2005 constitutional crisis; and 2010–12 eurozone crisis. Detailed media content analysis shows that the international media was not just reporting on crises, it was framing challenges and setbacks to EU integration as existential threats. The authors introduce the concept of integrational panic to conceptualize the media's role in potentially contributing to the social construction of EU crises.

KEY WORDS:

• Constitutional Treaty
• EU crises
• eurozone crisis
• international media
• Iraq war
• media content analysis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Molly Krasnodebska and Nicolas de Zamaroczy for their research assistance. We are also grateful to Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Robert S. Cross, Asimina Michailidou, Mitchell Orenstein, Kamil Zwolski, four anonymous JEPP reviewers, and the participants in ARENA's Tuesday Seminar for their very helpful feedback.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA AND RESEARCH MATERIALS

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the Taylor & Francis website (http://dx.doi.org 10.1080/13501763.2014.984748).

Notes

1  As Cohen (1972) argues, ‘panic’ is not to be taken literally, but as a metaphor for the overall social reaction to an episode or event.

2  The total number of articles is 465 for the Iraq crisis, 266 for the constitutional crisis and 2,069 for the eurozone crisis. The data are derived through reading all new stories that mention the keywords, ‘Iraq', ‘constitution’ or ‘eurozone’ during the relevant crisis time period.

3  ‘The Economist Annual Report: 2011’ and ‘The State of the News Media 2012: An Annual Report on American Journalism’, Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism; ‘Financial Times Average Daily Global Audience (ADGA)', Financial Times, November 2011; ‘International Herald Tribune: Reader Profile, 2012', The New York Times Global.

4  This is from 29 October 2004 to 28 May 2005. For Time Magazine and The Economist the remaining percentages were not positive, but simply offered no predictions. For the FT, 10 per cent of the articles had positive predictions, while 22 per cent offered no predictions.

Additional information

Biographical notes

Mai'a K. Davis Cross is assistant professor of political science and international affairs at Northeastern University and senior researcher at the ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo.

Xinru Ma is a Ph.D. candidate in political science and international relations at the University of Southern California.