Democratizing the European Union through communication: The national level perspective
(2020) STVM23 20201Department of Political Science
- Abstract
- Tightly knit to the debate about a democratic deficit to the European Union (EU) is that of a communication deficit, meaning that the legitimacy a political entity gain through the communicative processes that ensure insight into politics is flawed. Ideas on how to overcome the communication deficit often revolve around transnationalizing communication between Member States or improving the communicative performance of EU institutions. This study shifts focus to the communicative processes on national level, and the importance of national politicians and journalists to pick up on information about EU processes and make them visible and relevant to their publics.
An in-depth interview study, backed up by previous studies about... (More) - Tightly knit to the debate about a democratic deficit to the European Union (EU) is that of a communication deficit, meaning that the legitimacy a political entity gain through the communicative processes that ensure insight into politics is flawed. Ideas on how to overcome the communication deficit often revolve around transnationalizing communication between Member States or improving the communicative performance of EU institutions. This study shifts focus to the communicative processes on national level, and the importance of national politicians and journalists to pick up on information about EU processes and make them visible and relevant to their publics.
An in-depth interview study, backed up by previous studies about communication regarding the EU in Sweden, is carried out with Swedish politicians and journalists to learn more about their own thoughts on the matter, as the main agents of ensuring the communicative legitimacy. With the theoretical ideas of political communication underpinning the study, the interaction between the two actors is central. We learn that the majority of interviewees are self-critical about their neglect of the EU level of the political system, and conclusions about how to overcome the democratic deficit through communicating at the national level are drawn. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9009471
- author
- Svedérus, Anna LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- STVM23 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- the European Union, communication deficit, democratic deficit, political communication, national level
- language
- English
- id
- 9009471
- date added to LUP
- 2020-08-14 12:27:19
- date last changed
- 2020-08-14 12:27:19
@misc{9009471, abstract = {{Tightly knit to the debate about a democratic deficit to the European Union (EU) is that of a communication deficit, meaning that the legitimacy a political entity gain through the communicative processes that ensure insight into politics is flawed. Ideas on how to overcome the communication deficit often revolve around transnationalizing communication between Member States or improving the communicative performance of EU institutions. This study shifts focus to the communicative processes on national level, and the importance of national politicians and journalists to pick up on information about EU processes and make them visible and relevant to their publics. An in-depth interview study, backed up by previous studies about communication regarding the EU in Sweden, is carried out with Swedish politicians and journalists to learn more about their own thoughts on the matter, as the main agents of ensuring the communicative legitimacy. With the theoretical ideas of political communication underpinning the study, the interaction between the two actors is central. We learn that the majority of interviewees are self-critical about their neglect of the EU level of the political system, and conclusions about how to overcome the democratic deficit through communicating at the national level are drawn.}}, author = {{Svedérus, Anna}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Democratizing the European Union through communication: The national level perspective}}, year = {{2020}}, }