Political Communication in Europe: The Cultural and Structural Limits of the European Public Sphere

ISBN-13: 9781137305121 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 291 str.

Francisco Prez

Opis

The patent disconnection between the institutions of the European Union and the citizens of Europe has been widely attributed by political leaders and scholars to a 'communications gap', that is, to the way EU affairs are mediated by the media, and to the apparent lack of interest by national elites in conveying the importance of Europe. This book challenges this 'mediation theory' and suggests instead a cultural and systemic explanation for the distant and bureaucratic character of the European Union. Apportioning the blame for the communication gap to the media and national politicians neglects two real deficits which prevent Europe from enjoying a vibrant public sphere: a deficit of domesticisation, a popular disconnection with the idea of the EU, and a deficit of politicisation with European politics, it being difficult to categorise as through traditional methods of 'left vs. right'. This book suggests that popular disengagement with the EU is a consequence of the fact that Europe as a cultural community is an interdependent continent rather than a nation and that, as an political institution, the EU is a pseudo-confederation full of anti-publicity bias, elite-driven integration, corporatism and diplomacy. The result is a book that is an essential read for students and scholars of political communication and of the European Union.

Recenzje

'Communicating Europe and awakening and sustaining public interest in the European Union remains problematic for many different reasons. Teasing out why this should be the case nearly sixty years after the signing of the Rome Treaty marking the creation of the perhaps misleadingly named European Economic Community is tackled in this book from a novel perspective. Francisco Pérez confronts the questions key to understanding not so much why people seemingly do not 'love' the EU but why they continue to find engaging with it unappealing. With Euroscepticism rising on the eve of the 2014 elections to the European Parliament, the book could not be more timely.'

Juliet Lodge, Institute of Communication Studies and Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence, University of Leeds, UK

'Seoane Pérez offers a sharp and astute analysis of the EU's chronic malaise coming to the conclusion that it suffers from not one, but a double democratic deficit: a domesticisation deficit, the failure to connect to the EU as is always remote, and a politicisation deficit as EU politics is not 'normal' politics, amenable to a left versus right distinction. Across the axes of community, integration and governance, the book manages through original research and analysis to open new horizons in a tired and self-fulfilling debate about the EU, democracy and citizenship.'

Katharine Sarikakis, Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Austria

'With his careful study of the system of political communication in Europe, Seoane Pérez demonstrates how the political organizations of the EU have been built to stifle any pervasive sense of a European polity. From euroskeptic Yorkshire to pro-EU Galicia, his interviews, observations and news content analysis reveals why the framing of regional issues by political actors has actually prevented citizens from feeling that EU issues are relevant or contentious enough to engage them.'

Philip N. Howard, Department of Communication, University of Washington, USA

Spis treści

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The True Deficits of the European Public Sphere: Domesticisation and Politicisation 2. The Anti-popular Bias of Integration by Stealth 3. Governing the EU: Consensus Diplomacy and Associative Corporatism 4. The 'no demos' Conundrum 5. Explaining the Domesticisation Deficit 6. Explaining the Politicisation Deficit 7. Conclusions Methodological Appendix Notes Bibliography Index TBD

O autorze

Francisco Seoane Pérez holds a PhD in Communications Studies from the University of Leeds, an MA in Communication from the University of Illinois at Chicago (USA, 2006, with a grant from the Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza) and a BA in Journalism from the University of Santiago de Compostela (2001). His scholarly interests include the role of journalism in liberal democracies, the idea of a European public sphere, and the impact of the Internet on political participation. He is an associate editor for the International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics.