POLITICAL COMMUNICATION ABOUT EUROPE ON THE INTERNET DURING THE 2004 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTION CAMPAIGN IN NINE EU MEMBER STATES

ABSTRACT

This article considers the possibility of a European public sphere contributing to a reduction of the so-called ‘democratic deficit’ through engagement of citizens in the European project and enhancing processes of identification beyond the local or national environment. We elaborate on our interpretation of the European public sphere, emphasizing that political actors, including citizens, are engaged in political communication about Europe, either directly or indirectly through media or Internet-based representations. The study presented in this article investigates the extent of Europeanization of political communication on the Internet by measuring the visibility of communication about Europe on websites produced by various political actors in nine EU member states in the context of the 2004 European Parliament election. Two-thirds of the websites included in the study actually had European Parliamentary election-related content on the front page at the time of the election; a percentage we consider relatively low because of the search strategy followed. Actors addressed general European issues somewhat more frequently on their websites: in nearly three-quarters of cases, which can be considered an indicator of the existence of a European public sphere.

Keywords:

• political websites
• European public sphere
• the Internet
• 2004 European Parliament election

Notes

¹We wish to thank the following persons for making data available for this paper: M. Gregor, Charles University Prague, Czech Republic; T. Calson and K. Strandberg, Abo Akademi University, Vasa Finland; E. Danyi and A. Galacz, Central European University, Budapest Hungary; J. Ward, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; M. Miani, University of Bologna Italy; G. Voerman, DNPP University of Groningen, The Netherlands; K. Zeljan and S. Delakorda, University of Ljubjana, Slovenia; W. Lusoli, University of Chester, United Kindom.

²Further information on the Internet & Elections Project can be found at http://oase.uci.ru.nl/∼jankow/elections/ and http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/trkluver/asefhome/html/.

³Actor types originally consisted of 12 categories, subsequently collapsed into six categories: candidates, government, NGO/labour union, ‘other’ political party, press. A press organization is defined as ‘news/publishing organization that creates its own content’. This includes for example community portals that are operated by publishers of local magazines and newspapers.