News media’s position-taking regarding the European Union: the synchronization of mass media’s reporting and commentating in the 2014 European Parliament elections

ABSTRACT

We analyse whether a newspaper’s editorial position regarding the European Union is related to its selection decisions in the news section. We ask whether such a synchronization between news and editorials exists, whether it is conditioned by the type of media system and under which conditions it also affects the selection of transnational voices. Our study is based on a quantitative content analysis of the quality press in seven European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom) in the run-up to the 2014 European Parliament elections. Our results support a synchronization between editorials and news, specifically with regard to the selection of national speakers. With regard to transnational speakers, they are selectively chosen by a medium if its editorial position is not supported at the national level. Furthermore, they are used to put forward a portrayal of a political community in accordance with the editorial line.

KEYWORDS:

• Commentaries
• editorial line
• EU positions
• mass media
• news
• synchronization

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Silke Adam is professor of communication science at the University of Bern, Switzerland

Beatrice Eugster is post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Communication and Media Science at the University of Bern, Switzerland

Eva Antl-Wittenberg is PhD student at the Institute of Communication Psychology and Media Pedagogics at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany

Michaela Maier is professor of applied communication psychology at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany.

Rachid Azrout is post-doctoral researcher at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, Netherlands

Judith Möller is post-doctoral researcher at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, Netherlands

Claes de Vreese is professor of political communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, Netherlands

Sylvia Kritzinger is professor for methods in the social sciences at the University of Vienna, Austria.

ORCID

Silke Adam http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8022-9101

Beatrice Eugster http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5272-7119

Rachid Azrout http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6774-3472

Michaela Maier http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7505-691X

Sylvia Kritzinger http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2765-8200

Notes

1 A detailed overview of the reliability scores is available from the authors upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (100017E-144592/1) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (MA 2244/5-1).