The European Union in the media coverage of the 2019 European election campaign in Italy: towards the Europeanization of the Italian public sphere

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the patterns of Europeanization of the Italian public sphere during the 2019 European Elections campaign. Europeanization is meant as a multifaceted process. The visibility and salience of the European Union (E.U.) within the public debate is realized by dynamics involving different actors, in terms of interactions, connections and contaminations between different public spheres. The aim of the article is to clarify whether and to what extent the Italian media covered the E.U. during the European Parliament (E.P.) elections campaign and more precisely to assess through which dynamics of Europeanization the E.U. entered the domestic public debate. We relied on data from a human content analysis carried out on 10 Italian media outlets during the seven weeks before election day. Our findings suggest that, compared to 2014, the visibility of E.U. and E.U. related issues is increasing within Italian media coverage. Italian media still maintain a neutral approach to the issue, resisting to Eurosceptic claims from political parties and public opinion. With regard to the Europeanization, we found that media tend to focus on the vertical dimension especially, providing visibility to domestic actors addressing the E.U. and its political actors. Elements of horizontal Europeanization, instead, are mainly referred to events from other E.U. member states, with few connections among political actors. All in all, our results confirm the idea of a growing centrality of the E.U. within national public debate combined with signals of more structured and substantial Europeanization.

RIASSUNTO

Questo articolo analizza i processi di Europeizzazione della sfera pubblica italiana focalizzandosi sul periodo della campagna elettorale per le Elezioni Europee 2019. Il concetto di Europeizzazione è sfaccettato. La visibilità e la salienza dell’Unione Europea all’interno del dibattito pubblico si articolano infatti attraverso dinamiche differenti, in termini di interazioni, connessioni e contaminazioni fra sfere pubbliche differenti e coinvolgendo attori politici diversi. Lo scopo di questo articolo è quello di chiarire se e in quale misura i media italiani abbiano coperto l’UE e le sue tematiche durante la campagna elettorale per le elezioni europee. Più precisamente, l’obiettivo è quello di comprendere attraverso quali dinamiche di europeizzazione l’UE sia entrata all’interno del dibattito pubblico nazionale. Per il nostro studio, abbiamo utilizzato i dati ricavati da una human content analysis condotta su cinque quotidiani e cinque telegiornali durante le sette settimane prima del voto europeo. I risultati suggeriscono che – rispetto al 2014 – la visibilità dell’UE e dei suoi temi è incrementata all’interno del dibattito pubblico italiano. Per quel che concerne invece le dinamiche di europeizzazione abbiamo osservato che i media italiani tendono a focalizzarsi maggiormente sulla dimensione verticale, offrendo visibilità agli attori nazionali che si rivolgono direttamente agli attori politici UE. Elementi di europeizzazione orizzontale, invece sono soprattutto riferiti alla copertura di eventi relativi ad altri stati membri UE, con poche e limitate connessioni fra attori politici. I nostri risultati confermano l’idea di una crescente centralità dell’UE nel dibattito pubblico nazionale combinata a segnali di Europeizzazione di natura più strutturata.

KEYWORDS:

• election campaign
• European elections
• Europeanization
• Italian media system
• media coverage

PAROLE CHIAVE:

• Campagna elettorale
• Elezioni Europee
• Europeizzazione
• Sistema dei media Italiano
• Copertura media

Notes

1. For details about codes and specific coding instructions please see the Appendix.

2. As concerns 2014 E.P. election campaign the research design is pretty similar to what applied for the last E.P. elections. Only two differences should be noticed: first of all, in 2019 we included the analysis of the Fatto Quotidiano, which replaced the Sole 24 Ore covered in 2014; secondly, in 2014 for the press we considered only the news items on the front page, without collecting news focusing on the E.U. in internal pages. Nonetheless, data presented in Figure 1 were treated in order to make the two rounds of data collection perfectly comparable.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cristina Cremonesi

Cristina Cremonesi, PhD in Political Science (University of Pavia). Her research interests are mainly in political communication and populism. Recently she published on: Comunicazione Politica, Italian Political Science, International Journal of Press/Politics.

Antonella Seddone

Antonella Seddone is Assistant Professor at the University of Turin. Her research interests are mainly in party organizations, primary elections and political communication. Her recent publications include articles appearing in: Regional & Federal Studies, International Journal of Press/Politics, Parliamentary Affairs and Acta Politica.

Giuliano Bobba

Giuliano Bobba is Assistant Professor at University of Turin and Affiliate at the Collegio Carlo Alberto. His research interests focus in particular on populism and political communication. Recently he published on International Journal of Press/Politics, PLOS ONE, and Journalism.

Moreno Mancosu

Moreno Mancosu is a post–doctoral fellow at the University of Turin (Italy). His research interests are mainly in electoral behavior, political communication and quantitative methods. His recent publications include articles appearing in Political Psychology, Communication Research, International Journal of Press/Politics, and PLOS ONE