Europäische Öffentlichkeit unter dem Einfluss von Digitalisierung und Politisierung

Missed opportunity to connect with European citizens? Europarties’ communication on Facebook during the 2019 European election campaign

“…The limited recognition of Europarties in the European public relates to the fact that they confront other institutional and electoral conditions in approaching voters than national parties (van Hecke & Wolfs, 2018). Although national media outlets have Europeanized their broadcasted content to some extent (Peglis, 2015), because coverage of European issues -particularly political and economic crises -increase the visibility of EU politics in national media (Benert & Pfetsch, 2020), such Europeanization has not generally improved the visibility of Europarties in the media. On the contrary, the media focus has remained on executive EU actors and the political outcomes of intergovernmental discussions, not on transnational political debates between party ideologies at the European level (Auel & Tiemann, 2020;Peglis, 2015).…”

“…Social media platforms such as Facebook offer Europarties the opportunity to spread their messages independently from national media outlets by bypassing their traditional gatekeepers to directly inform and mobilize voters (Larsson, 2016). Social media platforms also have the potential of transnational connectivity (Benert & Pfetsch, 2020) due to their accessibility for most EU citizens (Newman, 2021). Even if the emergence of a genuine European public sphere from social media can hardly be expected, European actors can indeed reach voters more directly via social media than via the detour of national media.…”

“…In general, European citizens perceive the EU as a rather abstract institution with complex political processes that are difficult to understand and participate in (Auel & Tiemann, 2020). That detachment between EU politics and citizens is part of the debate about the EU's democratic deficit (Hix, 2005) and the lack of a European public sphere (Benert & Pfetsch, 2020). To overcome those deficits and legitimize the EU's political decisions, policymakers have discussed whether Europartiesthat is, political parties at the European level such as the European People's Party (EPP) and the Party of European Socialists (PES) -can execute key democratic functions equivalent to national parties in member states and thereby establish a link between citizens and the EU's political system (Wolfs & Smulders, 2018).…”

The State of Europeanisation: between Clash and Convergence. A comparison of the media coverage of the 2019 European Elections in seven countries

“…Risse, 2014; Picard, 2015; Bobba & Seddone, 2017; Kaiser & Kleinen-von Königslöw, 2017; Dutceac Segesten & Bossetta, 2019). The political and economic crises have led to an increased focus on European politics, which in turn has led to a Europeanisation of the political public sphere (Benert & Pfetsch, 2021).…”

“…At the same time, never before have so many issues affected the EU as a whole. During the euro crisis or the so-called 'refugee crisis', it was already obvious that polarising issues can cause the interests of national media audiences to converge (Benert & Pfetsch, 2021). This does, however, raise the question of whether different countries' media reporting on what is happening in other countries is what Habermas (2009) had in mind when he referred to the normative goal of a common public sphere, especially when such mutual thematisation appears to be couched primarily in terms of blame narratives (Müller et al, 2018).…”