The Realist

2.3 The Realist

The final strand of research focuses on Europeanized public spheres. Gerhards (1993 , 2000

) has rightly emphasized that the more realistic scenario is not a genuine supranational European public sphere in the singular and monolithic sense, but rather a Europeanization of national public spheres. Gerhards (2000

: 293) mentions two criteria for such a Europeanization of national public spheres: an (increased) proportion of coverage of European themes and actors, and, on the other, the evaluation of these themes and actors from a perspective that extends beyond their one country and its interests. The latter has been criticised for being restrictive (e.g., Trenz 2004

). The major bulk of empirical research has been developed within the ‘Europeanization’ perspective. Different distinctions in Europeanization can be made. One important difference is between news about the EU, its policies and institutions on the one hand and news about events and issues from other European countries. This distinction has been coined vertical and horizontal Europeanization (Koopmans and Erbe 2004 ). Vertical Europeanization refers to national actors addressing European actors, national actors addressing European issues or European actors partaking in national debates on European issues. Horizontal Europeanization is referred to as national media covering issues in other EU member states and national actors addressing issues or actors in another EU member state.

The notion of Europeanized national public spheres has found most resonance in large scale comparative studies of the media’s coverage of European integration and political issues in Europe. The media coverage of European affairs is in lieu of a constant flow of news and is best described as cyclical, with occasional peaks and long periods of little news (de Vreese 2002 ; de Vreese et al. 2001 ; Peter and de Vreese 2004 ). Key events, such as national referendums and EU summits can take up a substantial part of the news (van der Brug et al. 2007 ; de Vreese and Semetko 2004 ; de Vreese and Boomgaarden 2006 ), but most of the news is seen through the prism of the nation state.

There is no consensus about the extent to which Europeanized national public spheres exist. These might be ‘imperfect’ compared to the (theoretical) pan-European benchmark, but – very importantly – the contours of a European public sphere can be sketched. This development is perhaps taking place as a result of the growing contestation over the shaping of the EU polity (as evidenced in the constitutional process) and its growing policy reach and scope (as evidenced by the proportion of EU law that is ratified by national legislatures).

Research, however, is divided about the extent of Europeanization of national public spheres measured by news media coverage of European matters. The Europub project (http://europub.wz-berlin.de), investigating print news in 1990, 1995, 2000 – 2002 found strong Europeanization in the Swiss public sphere, the UK to be a deviant non-Europeanized case, and public spheres in Italy and the Netherlands to be less European because discussions about European issues take place among national actors. Issues such as monetary politics and immigration show signs of vertical Europeanization while horizontal Europeanization is virtually absent (Koopmans 2004 ).

In an analysis of broadsheet newspapers in 2000 in Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain, Trenz (2004 , 2005 ) found evidence of a ‘transnational resonance of political communications’ implying that in relation to specific actors and institutions there are cross-references. Three types of ‘European’ news were distinguished: news characterized by a shared meaning of European events and issues; Europeanized news characterized by the secondary impact of European events and issues on national news coverage; and national news on domestic events and issues characterized by evolving forms of European monitoring and rhetoric. Trenz (2004 ) concludes that despite cross-national differences, there are positive indicators of an absolute degree of European public sphere.

Sifft et al. (2007 ), focusing on the quality press in Germany, Great Britain, France, Austria and Denmark, also distinguish different types of transnationalization. In terms of what they label ‘monitoring governance’, i.e. reporting about the EU and its institutions they find a clear process of Europeanization between 1982 and 2003. However, in terms of horizontal integration they report negative developments over time. This means that European countries are not reporting more about each other today than 20 years ago. In terms of referring to discussions and topics and European speakers, they report a relative stability over the past two decades. Finally, this team reports that references to ‘Europeans’ as a collective or ‘we’ is virtually absent, albeit marginally increasing over time.

Focusing in particular on the European Parliamentary elections, de Vreese et al. (2006 ) found that the most recent 2004 EP elections took up 9.8% of the national television news, on average, in the two weeks leading up to election day in the 25 EU countries. The average visibility of EU news in 2004 was higher in the new member states (10.4%) than in the old member states (9.2%). The EU-wide average of 9.8% contains significant cross-national variation. In Greece, for example, the elections took up 21% of the news, whereas in Germany the elections took up only 3% of the news. In addition to Greece, the elections were most visible in Denmark, Slovakia, Austria, and Ireland, taking up more than 15% of the news in these countries. In addition to Germany, the elections were least visible in Belgium and the Czech Republic, where less than 5% of the news was devoted to the elections. On average, in the old member states there was an increase in the news devoted to the EP elections from 6.6% in 1999 to 9.2% in 2004, and 10 of the 15 old member states showed an increase in visibility. Among the new member states, seven countries showed more than 10% EU news. De Vreese et al. (2006 ) also assess the representation of ‘Europe’ in terms of actors in the news and the evaluative nature of the news coverage. They conclude that in terms of an emerging Europeanization of national public spheres in relation to the European Parliament there seems to be reason for a bit of optimism. In terms of visibility and share of EU actors, the trend between 1999 and 2004 is one of increase. Also the results for the new member states give a rather positive outlook. Visibility was relatively high, both of EU news and EU actors. Furthermore, the tone towards the EU was considerably more positive in the new member states. However, if these findings mainly have to be ascribed to the novelty of the elections in the new countries, then caution with respect to the optimism is warranted. Finally, looking at EU news outside the elections, i.e. during routine periods when there are no scheduled events of the magnitude such as European Council meetings for example, EU politics is marginal in national news (Gerhards 2000 ; Peter and de Vreese 2004 ; Peter et al. 2003 ). Television news, in particular, is virtually oblivious to a large-scale development in Europe and has not (yet) left the nation state.

Tacking stock of our current knowledge leads to diverging conclusions with respect to the extent, scope, nature and consolidation of Europeanization of national public spheres. Much of the difference in conclusions can be traced back to different criteria, operationalizations and foci of the studies. The key indicators for assessing the Europeanness of public spheres include the visibility of European topics (and issues with a European perspective) and some degree of mutual observation and quotation, typically in the form of inclusion of EU-actors and actors from other EU countries (see de Vreese 2002 ; de Vreese et al. 2006 ). Several scholars have formulated minimal criteria for a European public sphere. The criteria indeed include corresponding media coverage in different countries with shared points of reference in which “speakers and listeners recognize each other as legitimate participants in a common discourse that frames the particular issues as common European problems” (Risse and van de Steeg 2003 : 22). At the very least, a European public sphere should reflect national media reporting on the same topic using common sources, including EU sources and sources from other EU countries.

By and large, studies that rely on analyses of broadsheet, quality newspapers tend to find some evidence of Europeanized news coverage (e.g., Eder and Kantner 2002 ; Sifft et al. 2007 ; Trenz and Eder 2004 ). Much to the contrary, research that has focused on (national) television news, which is the most widely cited source of information about the EU for citizens in Europe (Eurobarometer), has concluded that there is virtually no trace of a European public sphere and only occasional, and brief, indications of Europeanization (Peter and de Vreese 2004 ).

In sum we may assess our current knowledge about a European public space – in 2007 – in the following manner. The notion of a pan-European public sphere fulfilling the requirements of a national public sphere has been discarded both from a theoretical and empirical point of view. This ‘utopian’ notion of a European public space would imply a supranational public space, EU level actors dominating, truly European themes being addressed, ideally in (pan-)European media. Transnational, segmented European spheres have been identified in relation to relatively confined issues and time spans. Moreover these ‘bubbles’ of discourse primarily involve specific, elitist segments of society and can hardly be said to be a public sphere but rather an ‘elitist’ notion of a European public space. The third and ‘realistic’ notion refers to the Europeanized national public spheres. This notion is based on observations of parallelization and synchrony in topics and an increase in salience of European issues and actors, a horizontal and vertical dimension of Europeanization. Research differs on the extent to which this development is emerging, consolidating or already present. Most of the divergence in the literature can be explained by the focus on different media (e.g., national broadsheet, quality newspapers vis-à-vis television news).

Given these observations we can conclude that research is crystallizing around the notion of varying degrees of (increasing) Europeanization of national public spheres.