news media representations of a common eu foreign and ...€¦ · national media. the centrality of...

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Original Article

News media representations of a common EU

foreign and security policy. A cross-national

content analysis of CFSP coverage in national

quality newspapers

Anna-Angela Kandylaa and Claes de Vreeseb,*aMarket Research Institute, Athens.bUniversity of Amsterdam, Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

*Corresponding author.

Abstract This study is a cross-national comparative content analysis of thebroadsheet press coverage of EU Common Foreign and Security issues (n¼ 1453)focusing on the presence of indicators of a European Public Sphere. Specifically, weinvestigated the visibility of Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) stories,featuring actors, the tone of coverage and the presence of ‘risk’ and ‘opportunity’frames. We found that CFSP was more visible in broadsheets during key events.In terms of actors in the news, coverage was primarily Europeanized. Whenevaluative, CFSP news had a distinctive, positive dimension, especially withreference to the European Union (EU) as an entity. CFSP issues were morefrequently framed in terms of ‘opportunity’ rather than in terms of ‘risk’. Ourfindings suggest that the news coverage of CFSP is truly different from the coverageof EU affairs in general. Implications for the formation of public opinion and thelegitimacy of CFSP are discussed.Comparative European Politics (2011) 9, 52–75. doi:10.1057/cep.2009.10

Keywords: common EU foreign and security policy; content analysis; comparativeresearch; European Public Sphere; broadsheets

Introduction

Since the establishment of the European Economic Community, the projectof European integration has mainly been seen as an elite-driven project(Hallstein, 1972). Now that EU integration processes require the increasingtransfer of decision-making competences from the national to the EU level, the

r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1472-4790 Comparative European Politics Vol. 9, 1, 52–75www.palgrave-journals.com/cep/

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importance of public involvement in EU developments is increasinglyacknowledged. Thus, scholars have started to recognize the need for theemergence of a ‘European Public Sphere’ that would stimulate public debateon EU affairs (for example, Schlesinger, 1999). Under this perspective severalfactors provide the rationale for systematic investigation of the type ofinformation about EU issues that is available to the people through theirnational media. The centrality of mass-mediated political communication tothe Europeanization of public discourses is twofold. First, European citizensrely on their national news media for information about EU affairs(Eurobarometer 1999–2005). Second, research has demonstrated that the newsmedia have the potential to shape public perceptions of EU legitimacy,participation and public support for the European Union (EU) (Norris, 2000;De Vreese and Semetko, 2004; De Vreese and Boomgaarden, 2003; Vliegenthartet al, 2008). Yet, scientific knowledge about the media representations of EUaffairs is still only developing in scope and sophistication.

The institutional developments around a common EU Foreign and SecurityPolicy could be interpreted as important steps toward a more political Union.1

Recognizing the relevance of public discourses to the success of the entireprocess (Patterson, 1998), an investigation of the nature of mass-mediatedcommunication about Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) meritsattention. This study addresses exactly this issue by examining how much andwhat type of communication about CFSP issues has been presented to thepublic via their national broadsheets during a period when important eventsgave rise to discussions about the desired direction of EU foreign and defencecooperation. We examine the presence of characteristics of ‘Europeanization’of national public spheres by identifying, in a comparative perspective, thepatterns of visibility of CFSP stories in the news, the visibility of EU actors andthe evaluative dimensions of CFSP coverage.2

EU Public Sphere: Theoretical Considerations

Much has been written in recent years about the ‘political legitimacy deficit’ ofthe EU. Despite differences in conceptualization, discussions mainly focus onthe fact that the transfer of competences from the national to the EU level hasnot been accompanied by institutional reforms that would make the EUdemocratically accountable to its people (see Moravcsik, 2002; Folledstal andHix, 2006). Instead, citizens’ low levels of knowledge about the EU and thedecreasing turnout in European Parliament (EP) elections show that Europeanpublics remain largely uninformed und uninterested in EU politics. Under thisperspective the emergence of ‘European Public Sphere’ can stimulate awarenessand debate on EU developments.3

News media representations of a common EU foreign and security policy

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In its ideal form, a ‘European Public Sphere’ would be analogous to thenational one, conceptualized as a common communicative space beyond thenation-state that would connect EU citizens to common interests. Nevertheless,ingredients of a public sphere at the national level such as linguistichomogeneity and common media cannot be found at a supranational level(Kielmansegg, 1996). Thus, it has been suggested, what we need to take intoaccount is ‘the Europeanization of national publicized debates as an indis-pensable means of connecting multi-level governance with opinion formationprocesses among its predominantly nationally rooted constituents’ (Meyer,2005, p. 122). By definition, the existence of a public sphere relies uponmultiple channels of interaction between and within different levels of polity.National news media play a key role in this process by providing the platformwhere issues are discussed (see Dahlgren, 1995). When it comes to EU politicsthat are located at a level somewhat beyond the realm of personal experience,mass-mediated political communication becomes a pre-requisite for theEuropeanization of national discourses (Meyer, 1999).

Gerhards (2000) argued that the Europeanization of national discoursesshould be reflected in the increased presence of European issues and actors inthe national news media and in the evaluation of those from a European ratherthan a national perspective. This has led to a distinction between two forms orEuropeanization of national public spheres that can take place at the sametime. A European public sphere is to be found in news that make directcommunicative reference to EU affairs (vertical Europeanization) and in theincreased presence of news about political or civil actors in other EU member-states (horizontal Europeanization) in the national news media (see Koopmansand Erbe, 2004).

CFSP and the Need for Legitimacy

The discussion of the Europeanization of national discourses is also relevant tothe issue of CFSP. During the last decade, advances in the institutionalstructure and the scope of CFSP have been considerable, with the inclusion ofa Common Defence Policy within the framework of CFSP, the designation of aHigh Representative, and the launching of operational capabilities. Theseadvances have not always been accompanied by public support. Recentlyscholars have recognized that ‘to some extent the success of the entire projectwill depend on finding a means to conferring upon it democratic legitimacy’(Howorth, 2001, p. 779). The problem of democratic accountability isaccentuated by the limited scope for parliamentary control of decision making(Diedrichs, 2004). On practical grounds, the need for public involvement insecurity policy issues stems from the observation that ‘democratic control of

Kandyla and de Vreese

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foreign policy improves the quality of the latter y . The level of democracy isalso positively related to levels of international trade, levels of participation inmultilateral institutions, and capacity to commit credibly to internationalagreements’ (Koening-Archibugy, 2002, p. 69).

Thus, decision making in CFSP, be it national or supranational, requiresthat the public, which is directly affected, is reasonably informed. As theEuropeanization of discourses within CFSP ‘can persuade electorates comingfrom very different security cultures of the necessity and appropriateness of theproject’ (Howorth, 2001, p. 765), an examination of whether CFSPdevelopments are reflected in the national public spheres is important.The present study has as a starting point that mass-mediated communicationis a crucial ingredient of a legitimate CFSP. Given that our study exploresa novel issue, we focus on the indicators of the vertical Europeanizationof national public spheres that have been identified in European integra-tion studies and conceptualized in previous research in EU politicalcommunication.

Empirical Indicators and Research Questions

Amount of CFSP coverage

If we are to speak meaningfully of a ‘Europeanized’ public sphere, a ‘minimumdegree of adaptation in political communications patterns is needed to ensurethat citizens have access to adequate political information y to scrutinize theperformance of national representatives and European actors and to enablecross-border opinion formation on problems of collective-problem solvingin Europe’ (Meyer, 2005, p. 124). Under this perspective we can defineEuropeanized media coverage as including both news about the EU and itspolicies, and stories in which EU actors and policies are also covered. Overallresearch has demonstrated that the degree of Europeanization of news mediacoverage is still quite low. Specifically, the visibility of European affairs couldbe characterized as cyclical, with the EU being almost invisible in total newscoverage during routine periods. Around key events such as European CouncilMeetings (Peter and de Vreese, 2004), EP elections (De Vreese et al, 2006),periods of national referenda on EU issues (De Vreese and Semetko, 2004) andaround key EU issues (Anderson and Weymouth, 1999; Eilders and Voltmer,2003; Trenz, 2004; Pfetsch et al, 2008) the visibility of the EU risessubstantially. There also seems to be considerable variation in visibilitydepending on the type of the event or issue. Specifically, following journalisticpractices and news values, themes that involve possible conflict, suchas Summit meetings, are covered more frequently and intensively than others



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(De Vreese, 2001). As to country differences in the amount of EU news, the lowand cyclical pattern seems to be rather general, through with considerablevariation (De Vreese et al, 2006). Overall, when differences in the frequency ofreporting are present, they can be ‘justified with reference to national events ordebates concerning the particular EU topic’ (Machill et al, 2006).

In this study we would rather expect to find a similar pattern of cross-national variation in CFSP visibility. As to the timing of visibility, we wouldexpect CFSP to be more intensively covered around prescheduled EU events orimportant moments in EU integration and around periods of internationalevents where the EU has a say, as it was in the case of the Bosnia-Herzegovinacrisis (Norris, 2000; Kevin, 2003). To gain an idea about these characteristics ofCFSP coverage in a comparative perspective we formulated the followingquestions:

RQ1: How visible are CFSP issues in European broadsheet newspapers?RQ2: Are there between broadsheet newspapers differences in the visibility

of CFSP issues?RQ3: Are there differences in the timing and patterns of attention to CFSP

stories between countries?

Visibility of EU and other actors in CFSP coverage

Greater emphasis on EU actors has been conceptualized as an indicator of theEuropeanization of national public spheres (see Risse, 2002). Nevertheless, researchhas shown that during EP election campaigns EU officials are outnumbered bydomestic political actors, suggesting that EU democratic procedures are debatedover national grounds (De Vreese et al, 2006). EU officials feature much morefrequently during routine than during Summit periods, but their visibility is stilllow compared to that of other actors (Peter and de Vreese, 2004).

Given the centrality of issues of national sovereignty, increased presence ofdomestic political actors in CFSP coverage would signify that it has notadapted to EU developments. Additionally, a distinction needs to be madebetween news that make direct reference to EU officials (vertical Europeaniza-tion) and reference to political actors in other EU member-states (horizontalEuropeanization). Increased presence of EU officials and EU decision-makingbodies would be a prerequisite for ‘Europeanized coverage’. But also, withinCFSP issues, individual members-states have different outlooks on the desiredscope of cooperation. Thus we would expect to find political actors from otherEU member-states to feature frequently in CFSP news.

RQ4: How visible are EU political actors, domestic political actors andother actors in CFSP coverage?



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The tone of CFSP coverage

Even when the EU is present in the media ‘if more news about the communityis overwhelmingly negative y and the public takes its cues from the newsmedia, then that can plausibly contribute toward a growing disconnect bet-ween EU leaders and the public’ (Norris, 2000, p. 184). Research on thecoverage of EP elections (De Vreese et al, 2006) and EU affairs (Norris, 2000;Peter et al, 2003) has showed that the EU is mainly depicted neutrally, butwhen evaluations are present, they are usually negative, despite variationsamong member-states. However, in all the aforementioned studies theconceptualization of evaluations of the EU did not allow for a distinctionwith respect to for whom the information is positive or negative per se. Giventhat EU correspondents and national media often use the nation-state as avehicle for evaluations of the EU and its policies (Gleissner and de Vreese,2005), we would expect that CFSP developments can be evaluated as eitherpositive or negative for the nation-state Additionally, an integrated CFSP canbe viewed as serving or threatening common European interests. Thus, wewant to know:

RQ5: How is CFSP depicted in the national media with reference to the EUand the nation-state?

‘Risk’ and ‘opportunity’ (generic) frames in CFSP coverage

Another important element of news media evaluations can come aboutthrough the concept of news framing that takes as a starting point that newsmedia can portray the same topic in very different ways by emphasizing certainaspects of an issue at the expense of others (for example, Entman, 1993). Adistinction can be made between studies that investigate generic- or issue-specific frames. Issue-specific frames are sensitive to particular issues or events,while ‘generic frames can be applied to a broad range of topics, herebyexceeding thematic, cultural or time limitations’ (De Vreese and Boomgaarden,2003, p. 363). The presence of both types of frames in news media coverage hasbeen demonstrated by research (Semetko and Valkenburg, 2000).

Here we investigate the presence of ‘risk’ and ‘opportunity’ (generic) framesin CFSP coverage. Framing issues in terms of ‘gains’ or ‘losses’ from thecurrent state is highly relevant to the concept of EU integration and nationalnews media make frequent use of such frames (De Vreese and Boomgaarden,2003; Schuck and de Vreese, 2006). CFSP can be easily conceptualized as a‘risk’ versus ‘opportunity’ situation. Here, ‘risk’ framing can be perceived as



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putting emphasis on the negative aspects of CFSP, whereas ‘opportunity’framing focuses on its benefits.

RQ6: Is CFSP framed as a ‘risk’ or as an ‘opportunity’?

Research Design and Methodology

Country sample

We selected Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Britain, Spain, Poland andthe Netherlands. The choice of countries is based on their varying degree ofimportance in political decision making in the EU and CFSP in particular andensures a balance of representation between ‘new’ and ‘old’ Europe countries.

Newspaper sample

In this study we focus on quality newspapers (see Trenz, 2004; Meyer, 2005).We analyzed two leading, high circulation, national daily ‘quality’ newspapersthat have different political profiles, representing the major political ideologiesin each country.4

Data collection

CFSP coverage could focus on both institutional and functional issues. Forreducing complexity we used keywords that reflect the institutional aspects ofCFSP. We expect that the application of such search terms would retrieve allpossibly relevant articles in which functional aspects of CFSP would also becovered.5 As just the mentioning of the search terms could not guarantee thatthe news items collected were in fact relevant, coders were instructed to firstread each news item and only proceed to coding if one those terms wasmentioned at least once in the headline, sub-headline and/or in at least oneindependent sentence in the entire article.

Coding

Coding was conducted manually by groups of native and fluent speakers of therespective languages, graduate students at international Master’s programs atthe University of Amsterdam. Coders were trained both all together and incountry groups before actual coding started and were supervised frequently.During training, questions on the operational definitions of the items were



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resolved. A reliability test in a subsample of 25 articles between pairs of codersfor each language yielded satisfactory results for the individual items (reportedin the Appendix).6 The unit of coding and analysis was the distinct news story.For the analysis of actors, the actor was the unit of analysis.

Period of study

We analyzed all articles that fit the selection criteria between 1 January 2001and 31 December 2005.

Measures

Visibility of EU actors

Actors were defined as persons, groups, institutions or organizations that werementioned at least once or quoted (Peter and de Vreese, 2004). Up to fiveactors per story were coded with the same actor coded only once. The mainactor of the story was identified by his importance.7 All other actors werecoded in their order of appearance. Actors were classified as: EU supranationalactors; political actors from other EU member-states; domestic political actors;international political actors; non-political actors.8

Evaluations of CFSP: The tone of coverage

Each story was classified as portraying CFSP issues, policies and developmentsas advantageous, disadvantageous, neutral or balanced in their relation withthe EU and the nation-state. This was done using a scale ranging from veryadvantageous to disadvantageous as well as no evaluation. For analyticalpurposes we collapsed the ends of the scale so that we have the evaluativedimensions: advantageous; balanced; disadvantageous; no evaluation.

Evaluations of CFSP: ‘Risk’ and ‘opportunity’ frames

For that we used a set of items developed by Schuck and de Vreese (2006) afteradjustment : rational argument pro CFSP (against CFSP); positive quotetoward CFSP (negative quote toward CFSP); positive evaluation, outlook(negative evaluation, outlook); CFSP beneficial (detrimental). Each item wascoded ‘yes’ when the item was present and ‘no’ when the item was not present.Initially, the items that made up the frames were subject to PrincipalComponents Analysis (PCA) that confirmed loadings on two components



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and the two frames produced reliable scales (Cronbach’s a¼ 0.77 and foropportunity frame; Cronbach’s for risk frame¼ 0.64).9 Codes were summedup and then divided by the number of items so that the scales referring to eachframe range from 0 to 1.

Results

Visibility of CFSP issues in the press

We first turn to the visibility of CFSP stories (RQ1). Table 1 displays thenumber of CFSP stories and the share of total CFSP coverage for each ofthe selected countries and newspapers. Overall, the results revealed con-siderable cross-national variation in the amount of communication aboutCFSP. The German national quality press devoted by far the most attentionto CFSP related issues, followed by France. Greek, British and Dutchbroadsheets devoted an equal amount of attention to CFSP issues. Visibilitywas moderate in the Spanish broadsheets and low in Denmark and Poland.Within Germany, CFSP stories were just slightly more visible in the FAZthan in the SZ. In all other countries we found considerable between-newspaper divergence (RQ2).

Research question three referred to the timing and the patterns of visibilityof CFSP stories. The monthly distribution of CFSP stories during each yearshows that visibility did not increase from 2001 to 2005. Instead, attentionintensified during the year 2002, which involved lots of EU- and security-related events and reached its peak in 2003, the most significant year with thelaunching of the first military operations and the adoption of the ‘EuropeanSecurity Strategy’. After 2003 the visibility of CFSP steadily declined. Cross-national media attention curves (Figures A1–A5 in the Appendix) show thatcoverage was primarily event-driven. The visibility of CFSP rose around EUSummits, especially when security and defence issues were an important part ofthe Summit agenda. Coverage was higher around CFSP specific events, such asthe Summit in April 2003 and the meetings of EU Foreign and Defenceministers (February 2002, April 2004). Prescheduled events that involved otherthan EU security partners, such as NATO (May 2001, November 2002) and theUnited States (June 2001) attracted attention to CFSP as well. Coverage wasalso more intensified during the EP election campaign (March–June 2004) andthe period preceding the Constitutional Referenda in 2005. Across the EU-15countries in our sample, attention curves generally coincided. In Germany andFrance we found CFSP issues to be more of a part of routine coveragecompared to the other countries. Nevertheless cross-national variations inpatterns of visibility show that reporting about CFSP issues is driven by



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relevant national events. In Poland, for example, CFSP stories became visibleonly when CFSP issues became relevant to the public, that is after the decisionon the country’s accession. Accordingly, in France and the Netherlands CFSPcoverage was higher than in the other countries around the period precedingand approaching the national referenda on the constitution in May–June2005.10

Visibility of EU actors in CFSP stories

Figure 1 displays the proportions of actors featured in CFSP stories. It is clearthat, at actors’ level, CFSP news was overall Europeanized, with 29 per centof actors being EU institutional actors and 19 per cent being political actorsfrom other EU countries. Across countries, EU actors in general featured

Table 1: Visibility of CFSP stories (1 January 2001 – 31 December 2005)

Newspaper n Percentage

Britain 196 13.5

The Guardian 141 9.7

The Times 55 3.8

Denmark 69 4.7

Politiken 58 4.0

Borsen 11 0.8

France 234 16.1

Le Figaro 152 10.5

Le Monde 82 5.6

Germany 421 28.9

FAZ 236 16.2

SZ 185 12.7

Greece 197 13.6

Kathimerini 135 9.3

To Vima 62 4.3

Netherlands 188 12.9

NRC 130 8.9

De Volkskrant 58 4.0

Spain 116 8.0

El Pais 78 5.4

El Mundo 38 2.6

Poland 32 2.2

Gazeta Wyborcza 22 1.5

Rzeczpospolita 10 0.7

Total 1453 100

Bold signifies country totals.



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more frequently in the German and French broadsheets. Overall, CFSP newswas more international than domestic in terms of featuring actors, but it wasprimarily characterized by a high degree of Europeanization also when lookingat main actors. Last, CFSP news was mainly elite-dominated, featuring fewnon-political actors (12.6 per cent).

Evaluations of CFSP: The tone of coverage

The majority of CFSP stories portrayed CFSP issues as favorable for the EU(42.9 per cent, n¼ 624), or were neutral (39.8 per cent, n¼ 578). Only 10.7 percent (n¼ 156) portrayed CFSP as something negative for the EU and even lesscontained mixed evaluations (6.5 per cent, n¼ 95). A one way ANOVA showedsignificant between-group differences for tone (F (15, 1437)¼ 10, Po0.01). Themost neutral news was found in Britain, the Netherlands and Greece. The mostevaluative was found in Germany, France and Spain. Looking at the 60 percent of the news that did contain an evaluation, we made an index rangingfrom �1 to þ 1, in which greater values indicate more positive evaluations. Themost positive evaluations were found in Greece and Spain (Figure 2). With theexception of Germany and the Netherlands, we identified between-broadsheetsdifferences in the prominence of positive evaluations, most notably between theBritish broadsheets.

Overall CFSP was depicted neutrally with reference to the nation-state.For this item 77 per cent of coded articles contained no evaluation, suggest-ing that CFSP issues have only seldom been evaluated with reference to

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

The G

uard

ian (n

=703

)

The T

imes

(n=2

64)

Politik

en (n

=279

)

Borse

n (n

=55)

Le F

igaro

(n=7

31)

Le M

onde

(n=3

59)

FAZ (n=1

169)

SZ (n=9

14)

Kathim

erini

(n=6

12)

To Vim

a (n

=272

)

NRC (n=6

31)

De Volk

skra

nt (n

=270

)

El Pais

(n=3

53)

El Mun

do (n

=170

)

Gazet

ta W

ybor

cza

(n=9

9)

Rzecz

posp

olita

(n=5

0)

Total

(N=6

931)

Non politicalactors

Internationalpoliticalactors

Domesticpoliticalactors

Politicalactors fromother EUcountryEUinstitutionalactors

Figure 1: Actors in CFSP stories. Numbers refer to total number of coded actors.



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national interests. We identified 2.1 per cent (n¼ 31) of the articles tobe balanced, 12.3 per cent (n¼ 179) containing positive evaluations and 8.3per cent (n¼ 120) to be negative. Looking at the news that contained anevaluation we see that, overall, CFSP has been evaluated slightly morepositive than negative for the nation-state. A one way ANOVA showed sig-nificant between-group differences for tone (F (15, 1437)¼ 10.71, Po0.01).The most neutral news was found in Germany, France and the Netherlands.Spanish media were the most evaluative (Figure 3). Only in Britain negativeevaluations of CFSP news in reference to the nation-state prevail. In Greeceand the Netherlands we found between-broadsheet divergence in the directionof evaluations of CFSP.

Risk and opportunity frames

The analysis showed that both frames have been present in CFSP newscoverage (RQ7). Opportunity frames were found to be much more stronglypresent, receiving a mean score of 0.29 (SD¼ 0.35). The risk scale had a meanscore of 0.16 (SD¼ 0.24). An ANOVA revealed significant between-groupdifferences in the prominence of the opportunity frame (F (15, 1437)¼ 14.26,Po0.01) and the risk frame (F (15, 1437)¼ 7.14, Po0.01) in total coverage. Adependent samples t-test showed the opportunity frame to be more prominentin the majority of broadsheets. The only exception is Britain, where the risk

-0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

The Guardian (n=66)

The Times (n=19)

Politiken (n=37)

Borsen (n=6)

Le Figaro (n=114)

Le Monde (n=66)

FAZ (n=153)

Suddeutche Zeitung (n=128)

Kathimerini (n=61)

To Vima (n=33)

NRC (n=53)

De Volkskrant (n=23)

El Pais (n=71)

El Mundo (n=29)

Gazetta Wyborcza (n=12)

Rzeczpospolita (n=3)

1.0

Figure 2: Tone of CFSP coverage with reference to the EU (ranging from �1 to þ 1 by outlet).

n refers to number of articles that were coded as containing an evaluation.



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frame significantly prevails. In Poland and the Danish Børsen no significantdifferences were found, which can be the result of the small number of CFSPstories (Table 2).

Discussion

Our study identified the key characteristics of publicized communication aboutCFSP issues in the quality press and provided systematically generated insightsabout the nature of CFSP news in Britain, Denmark, France, Greece,Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland between 1 January 2001 and 31December 2005. We focused on the visibility of CFSP news, featuring actors,the tone of coverage and the presence of ‘risk’ and ‘opportunity’ frames.

First we provided a descriptive account of the visibility of CFSP issues in anumber of countries. When comparing cross-nationally, a number ofdifferences in visibility were found (RQ1). CFSP stories featured much morefrequently in German broadsheets compared to other countries, which iscompatible with previous research on the visibility of EU affairs in the Germanpress (Kevin, 2003; Trenz, 2004). Among the other EU-15 countries, visibilitywas comparatively high in France and low in Spain. Polish broadsheetsreported the least on CFSP issues, which could be expected by its length of

-1.0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

The Guardian (n=57)

The Times (n=14)

Politiken (n=20)

Borsen (n=2)

Le Figaro (n=22)

Le Monde (n=28)

FAZ (n=13)

Suddeutche Zeitung (n=20)

Kathimerini (n=41)

To Vima (n=17)

NRC (n=18)

De Volkskrant (n=12)

El Pais (n=38)

El Mundo (n=19)

Gazetta Wyborcza (n=5)

Rzeczpospolita (n=3)

Figure 3: Tone of CFSP coverage with reference to the nation-state (ranging from �1 to þ 1 by

outlet). n refers to number of articles that were coded as containing an evaluation.



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membership in the EU (see De Vreese and Boomaarden, 2007). With theexception of Germany, we found considerable newspaper-specific differences(RQ2) suggesting that quality newspapers can be actors themselves in definingthe attention devoted to CFSP issues. Visibility is possibly conforming tosimilar influences to the coverage of EU affairs in general, such as newspapers’domestic political affiliations and their editorial lines on EU issues (Andersonand Weymouth, 1999). In lieu of comparative studies we are unable to offer analternative explanation.

Along with previous research we found that the visibility of CFSP news wasmainly event-driven (RQ3). Quality newspapers reported more frequently onCFSP issues during prescheduled EU events such as EU Summits but alsoduring CFSP specific events. Attention intensified during EU Councils,especially when CFSP issues were an important part of the summit agenda,such as the Laeken Summit (December 2001), the period surrounding theSummit in Thessaloniki (June 2003) and the European Council in Brussels inDecember 2003. CFSP news was more visible in the periods around Summitswith strategic partners, such the Berlin-Plus agreement between EU andNATO (December 2002). The event-driven nature of CFSP coverage is alsoreflected in the amounts of coded articles per year. Across the EU-15, CFSP

Table 2: Prominence of risk and opportunity frames in CFSP stories

Newspaper Opportunity frame Risk frame Difference

The Guardian (n=141) 0.14 (0.23)a 0.21 (0.25)b �0.07The Times (n=55) 0.08 (0.20)a 0.17 (0.21)b �0.09Politiken (n=58) 0.22 (0.29)a 0.06 (0.14)b þ 0.16

Borsen (n=11) 0.11 (0.20) 0.09 (0.13) þ 0.02

Le Figaro (n=152) 0.38 (0.31)a 0.13 (0.23)b þ 0.15

Le Monde (n=82) 0.48 (0.36)a 0.27 (0.32)b þ 0.21

FAZ (n=236) 0.23 (0.32)a 0.12 (0.21)b þ 0.11

Suddeutche Zeitung (n=184) 0.34 (0.35)a 0.17 (0.25)b þ 0.17

Kathimerini (n=135) 0.25 (0.34)a 0.17 (0.23)b þ 0.08

To Vima (n=62) 0.27 (0.34)a 0.08 (0.16)b þ 0.19

NRC (n=130) 0.25 (0.34)a 0.09 (0.18)b þ 0.16

De Volkskrant (n=58) 0.21 (0.32)a 0.11 (0.16)b þ 0.10

El Pais (n=78) 0.62 (0.40)a 0.30 (0.34)b þ 0.32

El Mundo (n=38) 0.51 (0.40)a 0.25 (0.34)b þ 0.26

Gazetta Wyborcza (n=22) 0.19 (0.25) 0.11 (0.17) þ 0.08

Rzeczpospolita (n=10) 0.20 (0.28) 0.25 (0.80) �0.05Total (n=1453) 0.29 (0.35)a 0.16 (0.24)a þ 0.13

Note: Cell entries are means (standard deviations in parentheses) that range from 0 (frame not

present) to 1 (frame strongly present). Different subscripts a, b indicate significance between

condition difference with Po0.05. Difference refers to ‘Opportunity’ scale – ‘Risk’ scale.



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attention curves generally coincided when the topic or issue was of EU-wideinterest. Identified cross-national variations in the timing of visibility suggestthat the relevance of national events to CFSP discussions results in highervisibility. CFSP stories, for example, featured more frequently in the Spanishand Greek broadsheets around the period that they were holding thePresidency of the Council. The Greek veto around the Laeken Summitresulted in a substantial rise in CFSP visibility; during that period, Greekbroadsheets featured more CFSP news than any other country in the sample.Finally we note some drop-off in recent years.

The analysis of the featuring actors showed that CFSP constitutes anexceptional case. First, unlike research in the coverage of EU issues (Peter et al,2003) and EP elections in particular (De Vreese et al, 2006), we identified EUofficials and EU decision-making bodies to be strongly present, outnumberingdomestic political actors. Second, we found that political actors from other EUcountries feature frequently in CFSP news, reflecting the relevance of thepolitics of other EU member-states to the national discourses within CFSPissues. In total, EU actors, both supranational and intergovernmental, were thekey protagonists of CFSP coverage. Limiting our analysis to the main actorsproduced similar results. CFSP stories also featured more international thandomestic political actors in all EU-15 countries. The large number of referencesto EU and international political actors outnumbering domestic politicians,signifies the strong transnational dimension of CFSP communication. In sum,national publicized discourses within CFSP are, at a considerable extent,Europeanized, rooted in references to EU policy makers and EU politicalactors from other EU countries (Koopmans and Erbe, 2004).

Our study advances the empirical conceptualizations for the ‘tone’ ofcoverage by distinguishing media evaluations with reference to for whom theinformation is positive or negative per se. We found that CFSP issues anddevelopments were more frequently evaluated with reference to the EU as anentity than with reference to the nation-state. Considering media evaluations ofEU affairs from a European rather than a national perspective an indicator of‘Europeanization’, the result suggests that publicized communication aboutCFSP is in fact Europeanized. In both cases, when stories contained anevaluation, this evaluation was more frequently positive. Positive evaluationsof CFSP were rather country-homogenous, that is independent of newspaper-specific factors. At country level, Britain was the only country where negativeevaluations of CFSP with reference to the nation-state prevailed. The resultsfor tone presented here demonstrate, one more time, the exceptionality ofCFSP as an area of EU activity. Previous research has observed that EUnews is primarily neutral but when evaluations are present they are usuallynegative, which can in turn affect public support for the EU (De Vreese andBoomaarden, 2003). Within this design we cannot establish a link between the



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tone of CFSP news and public opinion on CFSP issues, but the novelty of theresult points to future research to address this issue.

The analysis provided empirical support for the presence of ‘risk’ and‘opportunity’ frames in CFSP coverage in European broadsheet press, addingto previous research on generic frames in EU news (Semetko and Valkenburg,2000; De Vreese, 2001). Overall, CFSP news was more frequently framed interms of ‘opportunity’ rather than in terms of risk. Significant between-groupdifferences in the prominence of the ‘opportunity’ frames were identified alsofor the individual newspapers. Only British newspapers framed CFSP issuesmore frequently in terms of ‘risk’ rather than in terms of ‘opportunity’. Theexamination of the presence of ‘risk’ and ‘opportunity’ frames in CFSPcoverage was justified not only by their theoretical relevance to EU foreign andsecurity policy cooperation, but also because it has been demonstrated thatthey can impact public support for EU policies such as the enlargement(Schuck and de Vreese, 2006). Even though opportunity framing is generallyless influential than risk framing on peoples’ attitudes (Schneider et al, 2001),the observed prominence of opportunity frames in CFSP coverage can have asignificant positive impact on peoples’ perceptions of CFSP legitimacy andsupport for further policy steps.

To sum up, when comparing countries across all indicators examined here,German and French broadsheets appear to be the most ‘Europeanized’, havingreported more frequently about CFSP issues also during non-routine periods,featuring high proportions of EU political actors and evaluating CFSP issuesmore frequently with reference to the EU as a whole than to the nation-state.This can be a result of the leading role of Germany and France in pushingforward CFSP cooperation, but also of a greater Europeanization of theirnational discourses compared to the other EU countries. In Greece and theNetherlands we found visibility to be moderate though with considerablenewspaper-specific differences also in the prominence of negative over positiveevaluations of CFSP issues with reference to the nation-state. In Britain, ourresults confirmed both the traditional divisions between pro- and anti-EUbroadsheets and the British Euroskepticism also over foreign and defencepolicy issues. The latter is to be found on the least positive evaluationtendencies and the prevalence of risk over opportunity frames in CFSPcoverage. CFSP news reached the Spanish newspaper agenda less frequentlybut, when visible, CFSP stories tended to be highly ‘Europeanized’. Anexplanation could be that national security and foreign policy events during theperiod of our study, such as the participation in the war in Iraq and theterrorist attack in Madrid, undermined the visibility of CFSP issues in Spanishbroadsheets (see De Vreese, 2001). Previous research has found Danish TVnews to report frequently on EU issues (De Vreese, 2001). Here, the low totalvisibility of CFSP issues in Denmark can be an artifact of the inclusion of one



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business newspaper. Other than that, visibility followed key events, featuredmainly EU actors and positive indicators for tone. The result is particularlyinteresting given the Danish neutrality in EU defence issues. In Poland, despitethe expected low visibility, we also found CFSP news to reach the news agendaaround key events and to frequently contain positive indicators for tone andEU actors.

Due to the lack of previous empirical work, our conceptualization of thecharacteristics of CFSP coverage was based on indicators developed byresearch on the indicators of the degree of Europeanization of media coveragein general that might be inappropriate for the investigation of a policy fieldwhere fewer competences have been transferred to the supranational level.Observed variations in the amount of visibility might have been an artifact ofthe keywords used rather than a result of less coverage per se. The conveniencesample of national broadsheets used here may entail a selection bias. However,as our focus was an investigation of the characteristics of CFSP coveragerather than the drawing of generalizations about the publicized communicationin the respective countries, such an omission is not such a problem here.

Limitations notwithstanding, the present study provided empirical evidenceon the characteristics of an understudied area of EU policy activity. Ouranalysis of the characteristics of CFSP news in national broadsheets demon-strates in a cross-national comparative fashion that CFSP coverage representsan exceptional area of EU news reporting at home. On the one hand, CFSPnews followed similar patterns of visibility to that of EU affairs coverage ingeneral and patterns of visibility conformed to similar influences, be itcontextual or newspaper-specific. On the other hand, CFSP news was found tofeature more indicators of Europeanization than news about other EU issuesand events. Indicators refer to EU actors outnumbering domestic politicalactors, positive evaluations of CFSP both with reference to the nation-stateand the EU, and the prominence of ‘opportunity’ frames in CFSP stories.Future research should examine the possible impact of those characteristics onthe emergence of a European Public Sphere within CFSP. Last but not least,the result presented here suggests that the degree of Europeanization ofnational discourses might differ across policy issues. Thus as each of the EUpolicy areas poses specific demands and points to specific goals, research needsto focus on specific policy fields rather than making generalizations.

About the Authors

Claes de Vreese (PhD) is Professor and Chair of Political Communication andScientific Director of the Amsterdam School of Communication Research atthe University of Amsterdam.



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Anna-Angela Kandyla (MA) worked as a research associate at the AmsterdamSchool of Communications Research and as a Trainee at the CommunicationsUnit of DG Interpretation, European Commission, Brussels. She is currentlyworking as a research executive in QED Market Research Institute in Athens.

Notes

1 It should be noted that we examine news media coverage of issues that fall under the auspices of

the second institutional pillar of the EU, that of a Common EU Foreign and Security Policy

and not Europe’s foreign policy and external relations in general. For the sake of brevity we

refer to that as ‘CFSP issues’.

2 The study was funded by Riksbankens research foundation.

3 For a discussion see Risse (2002).

4 The Danish Dagbladet Børsen, though a business national daily, was included because it was the

only newspaper available.

5 We retrieved all articles that contained at least one of the following terms (in translation): EU

Common Foreign and Security Policy, EU Security and Defence Policy, EU Common Foreign

Policy, EU Common Defence Policy, EU Common Security Policy, European(EU) Security

Strategy, Petersberg Tasks, European (EU) battle groups, European (EU) army/military, High

Representative/ Javier Solana. Keywords were translated by native speakers. Articles were

collected using online archives. The authors thank Factiva for providing access to the content of

Polish newspapers and El Pais. As no Greek broadsheet was available via online archives,

articles were collected with via the newspapers’ website. The same applies for the FAZ. Articles

that were either duplicates or were not sufficiently relevant were excluded from the analysis.

6 The reliability for the Polish newspapers was tested with a sample 20 articles because of the

small sample retrieved for Poland.

7 Indicators of importance were duration, space of information about the actor, frequency of

being quoted and statements of the actor.

8 Please note that ‘EU supranational actors’ include EU leaders and EU Ministers at Council

level. When EU representatives were referred to with their national function they were coded as

‘actors from other EU member-states’.

9 Before performing PCA the suitability of data for factor analysis was assessed. The Kaiser-

Meyer-Oklin value was 0.74, much higher than the minimum value and Barlett’s Test of

Spheristicity reached statistical significance, thus supporting the factorability of the correlation

matrix. PCA revealed two components with eigenvalues more than 1, explaining 54.4 per cent of

the variance. First factor (opportunity frame): ‘positive quote’¼ 0.65, ‘rational pro’¼0.81, ‘CFSP beneficial’¼ 0.82, ‘positive evaluation’¼ 0.77. Second factor (risk frame): ‘negative

quote’¼ 0.7, ‘rational contra’¼ 0.72, ‘CFSP detrimental’¼ 0.72, ‘negative evaluation’¼ 0.67.

10 It should be noted that with the exception of France and Germany we identified cases of

newspaper-specific divergence in the patterns of visibility. For reasons of simplicity results are

not displayed here but are available from the authors upon request.

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Table

A1:Intercoder

reliabilitymeasures

Denmark

France

Germany

Greece

Britian

TheNetherlands

Poland

Spain

Main

actor

88%

71%

92%

92%

76%

84%

70%

80%

(0.85)

(0.66)

(0.88)

(0.84)

(0.54)

(0.79)

(0.63)

(0.74)

Evalutions(fortheEU)

88%

91%

80%

92%

80%

72%

80%

96%

(0.76)

(0.82)

(0.64)

(0.84)

(0.72)

(0.65)

(0.73)

(0.93)

Evalutions(forthenations)

88%

89%

88%

96%

92%

88%

75%

88%

(0.67)

(0.59)

(0.52)

(0.92)

(0.76)

(0.76)

(0.58)

(0.75)

Rationalpro-argument

100%

84%

88%

92%

100%

76%

85%

88%

(1)

(0.66)

(0.76)

(0.62)

(1)

(0.58)

(0.78)

(0.76)

Positivequote

96%

93%

92%

96%

92%

92%

95%

92%

(0.83)

(0.61)

(0.88)

(0.83)

(0.70)

(0.82)

(0.77)

(0.84)

Positiveoutlook

84%

92%

100%

92%

92%

76%

85%

92%

(0.56)

(0.84)

(1)

(0.70)

(0.84)

(0.55)

(0.58)

(0.84)

CFSPbeneficial

88%

80%

88%

84%

92%

68%

90%

80%

(0.75)

(0.61)

(0.78)

(63)

(0.72)

(0.58)

(0.76)

(0.71)

Rationalcontraargument

100%

100%

92%

88%

100%

88%

95%

100%

(1)

(1)

(0.80)

(0.63)

(1)

(0.56)

(0.65)

(1)

Negativequote

96%

95%

92%

100%

88%

92%

85%

100%

(0.65)

(0.58)

(0.63)

(1)

(0.69)

(0.63)

(0.63)

(1)

Negativeoutlook

84%

97%

84%

92%

88%

84%

90%

96%

(0.41)

(0.76)

(0.61)

(0.91)

(0.76)

(0.56)

(0.8)

(0.83)

CSFPdetrimental

100%

97%

88%

92%

95%

100%

100%

96%

(1)

(0.76)

(0.68)

(0.72)

(0.65)

(1)

(1)

(0.65)

Note:Entriesin

parentheses

referto

Cohen’sKappameasures.

Appendix

See

Table

A1.



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CFSP coverage for 2001

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

8.0

9.0

January

Britain Denmark France Germany Greece

Netherlands Spain Poland

Signature of thetreaty of Nice

European Councilin Stockholm

EU-NATO Summit

European Councilin Göteborg. EU-US Summit

11/09.ExtraordinaryEuropean Council inBrussels

EU leaders'meeting inGhent

Laeken EuropeanCouncil

Dec.Nov.Oct.SeptAugustJulyJuneMayAprilMarchFebruary

Figure A1: Visibility of CFSP stories for year 2001. Graph points refer to mean number of articles

per month in each country.


0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

Britain Denmark France Germany Greece

Netherlands Spain Poland

GeneralAffairs Councilin Brussels

BarcelonaEuropean Council Seville European

Council European Council inBrussels

NATO SummitCopenhagenEU Summit.'Berlin-Plus'

January Dec.Nov.Oct.SeptAugustJulyJuneMayAprilMarchFebruary





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0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

14.0

Britain Denmark France Germany Greece Netherlands Spain Poland

Europol Altheaisinaugurated

Extraordinary EuropeanCouncil in Brussels

SpringEuropeanCouncil inBrussels

Athens Declaration.Tervuren Summit.

Thessaloniki EuropeanCouncil

British-Franco-German Summit inBerlin

IntergovernmentalConference inRome. EuropeanCouncil inBrussels.Meeting ofEU defence

EuropeanCouncil inBrussels.


Figure A3 Visibility of CFSP stories for year 2003. Graph points refer to mean number of articles



0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0


European Council onTerrorism inBrussels

Meeting ofEU DefenceMinisters. EU

Enlargement

EP Elections.BrusselsEuropeanCouncil

Signature of theTreaty establishinga Constitution forEuropeEU-FYROM

StabilizationandAssociationCouncil.EU launchescrisis policeforce.

EuropeanCouncil inBrussels






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0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

8.0

9.0

10.0


European Coucil inBrussels

French 'No' on theConstitution

Dutch 'No' on theConstitution

EU opens accessionnegotiations with Turkeyand Croatia

EU- Bosnia-Hercegovinastabilisation andassociationagreement

EuropeanCouncil inBrussels.






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