The role of newspapers in the EU communication process.
- Autores: David Rodríguez Guillén
- Directores de la Tesis: Pere-Oriol Costa (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2017
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Caterina García i Segura (presid.), María José Recoder Sellarés (secret.), Carles A. Gasòliba (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Comunicación y Periodismo por la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Resumen
Summary The low turnout in the European elections, the migration crisis, the “Brexit”. Over the past few years the European Union has experienced an increasing skepticism. Although some people argue that the financial crisis is one of the main reasons for this rise, the role played by mass media in the EU communication process could have also been an important factor in the rise of skepticism. The main objective of this thesis is to analyse the role that written mass media plays as gatekeepers in the process of communication at the EU level and how they build the image of the European Union in order to see what can be done to improve the communication with EU citizens.
To do so a theoretical framework will analyse through the document analysis the main authors that have studied the role of mass media and gatekeeping over the last years through the main concepts for this field.
Taking into account the general remarks from the theoretical framework, a case study will use the comparative content analysis to make a wide research based on four parts: a first one which will be focused on the main relevant characteristics of the EU newspapers studied, a second part where a general test will compare news published on Europa Newsroom with news published in European newspapers from November 2014 to end of February 2015, a third one that will make the same comparison as the second part, but only taking into account those topics that have had a full coverage at the EU level by EU newspapers and a fourth one that will make a general analysis of each newspaper taking into account all the data obtained from the previous three analysis.
With the main outputs from the case study, an in-depth interview with experts and leaders of opinion at the EU level will be carried on to obtain an expert and solid approach from an important and representative sample composed by 16 experts coming from European public institutions and the EU private sector.
All this analysis will help us to see that although newspapers are playing an important role as gatekeepers and modifying the message of the EU, institutions have been able to send the most important messages to their citizens through both the classic and new channels of information. However, it is important to highlight that if institutions boost the current communication policy and become more interactive, the impact of EU news can be even bigger, especially if they manage to “explain simply what is complicated”. The research shows some of the areas where this improvement could help the EU to better channel its message.
