COMMUNICATING COHESION POLICY: THE IMPACT ON LOCAL AUDIENCES Vitaliano Barberio, Ines Kuric WU University of Economics and Business, Vienna

This project has received funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement number 693529.

The study

Is communicating EU policy problematic?

Measures for improvement?

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I Focus groups

II Online survey

III Social media

analysis

IV Statistical analysis

Research question and design

Multilevel governance requires us to go beyond the traditional focus on the national level as a benchmark and to account for local efforts and interactions

What generates awareness and, subsequently, appreciation of EU citizens?

Standard survey design

Is there an impact of investment in communication on general support for the EU (i.e. political appreciation) and on perceived personal benefit (i.e. personal appreciation)?

Social media focus

Are there commonalities in the discourse - i.e. a European public sphere – on the local level?

Is there an impact of content and sentiment of topics on appreciation?

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Data collection – PERCEIVE survey

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Country Resp. Country

Resp.

Austria 1,000 Netherlands 500 Bulgaria 503 Poland 2,000 Estonia 500 Poland France 1,500 Romania 1,015 Germany 1,500 Slovakia 1,014 Hungary 1,000 Spain 2,014 Italy 2,000 Sweden 580 Italy UK 1,500 Latvia 500

Total 17,147

Region Resp.

Emilia-Romagna (IT)

581

Calabria (IT) 535 Burgenland (AT) 517 Dolnoslaskie (PL) 579 Warminsko-mazurskie (PL)

538

Sud-Est (RO) 532 Extremadura (ES) 541

Data collection – Facebook data

Facebook profile first post posts comments

approx. post /year

likes/ post

likes/ comment

comments/ post

Italy Regione Emilia-Romagna 27/08/2009 3.379 5.210 422 27,45 0,60 1,54

Regione Calabria POR 12/05/2016 428 339 428 16,10 0,30 0,79

Austria Regionalmanagement Burgenland GmbH 14/06/2014 578 68 193 3,76 0,40 0,12

Poland Warmińsko-mazurskie region 14/06/2012 1.777 8.319 355 30,93 0,53 4,68

Dolnośląskie region 10/06/2011 831 117 139 2,21 0,33 0,14

Romania

Regional level: Agentia pentru Dezvoltare Regionala Sud-Est 10/08/2015 551 22 276 5,60 0,00 0,04

National level: Ministerul Dezvoltar ii Regionale, Administratiei Publice si Fondurilor Europene 10/10/2013 4.687 1.339 1.339 9,82 0,33 0,29 National level: Ministerul Fondurilor Europene 07/02/2013 1.634 1.143 384 22,80 0,47 0,70

Sweden Tillväxtverket

22/02/2012 540 380 108 10,04 0,87 0,70

Spain Junta de Extremadura 20/01/2012 16.134 4.265 2.933 22,03 0,44 0,26

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Testing the impact of communication investment

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Independent var. Dependent var. Independent var. Result

Structural funds (DG Regio) Knowledge of policy (survey) + Knowledge of projects (survey)

budget ROPs 2014 cumulative

confirmed

Communication investment (DG Regio)

Knowledge of policy (survey) + Knowledge of projects (survey)

Comm. budget 2014

confirmed

Model 3

Estimate Std. Error z_value

(Intercept) -1.1804 0.3581 -3.2960 ***

Structural Funds pc 0.0029 0.0005 5.5470 ***

Communication expense 2014 pc 0.0678 0.0300 2.2620 *

Communication expense2016 pc 0.1226 0.0457 2.6820 **

Investment on awareness

Structural Funds Awareness

Communication Investment

Communication invest

a) Personal perceived Benefit from financed projects and b) political appreciation - country membership in the EU good thing

Comm. budget 2014

Confirmed personal appr. , not for political appr.

Awareness Membership of COUNTRY in the EU is a good thing Survey questions

confirmed

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Model 4

Estimate Std. z_value

(Intercept) -2.8861 0.2026 -14.2450 ***

SF_pc 0.0047 0.0004 12.0490 ***

proCap_comm_expense 2014 -0.0172 0.0238 -0.7220

proCap_comm_expense2016 0.1140 0.0300 3.7930 ***

someMention 0.2986 0.0281 10.6090 ***

Investment and awareness on EU personal appreciation

Model 4

Estimate Std.Error z_value

(Intercept) -0.7319 0.1695 -4.3180 ***

SF_pc 0.0039 0.0004 10.6880 ***

proCap_comm_expense 2014 -0.0028 0.0194 -0.1430

proCap_comm_expense2016 -0.1870 0.0280 -6.6790 ***

someMention 0.1010 0.0246 4.1000 ***

Investment and awareness on EU political appreciation

Communication Investment

Appreciation

Awareness

Structural funds

Inquiring the existence of a European public sphere

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A focus on social media - Facebook

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AT centered cluster, events and initiatives with schools

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Complaints and national and/or regional issues

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Complaints and national and/or regional issues, topics list

ID NAME OF THE TOPIC Sentiment

Avg. use in posts Avg. use in comments

1AT EMPLOYEES OF THE LMA 0 5,0% 4,4% 11ES HEALTH SYSTEM AND SOCIAL SERVICES 1,5 5,0% 4,1% 14ES DATA IN THE REGION OF EXTREMADURA 0.8 4,8% 4,8% 16ES GENERAL COMPLAINTS 1 2,4% 17,3% 17ES SOCIAL SERVICES 0.4 4,6% 4,2% 1IT GENERAL COMPLAINTS 1.1 1,8% 8,0% 3IT HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION 0.3 4,0% 5,5% 4IT INFRASTRUCTURE 0.5 3,7% 4,7% 7IT DISINFESTATION 0.7 2,1% 6,2% 8IT SPECIFIC COMPLAINTS 0.5 1,8% 8,9% 9IT VACCINES 1.8 1,9% 6,4% 14IT YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT 0.5 5,3% 4,6% 0PL BRIDGE 0.1 4,2% 4,8% 9PL ELBLĄG CHANNEL 0.2 3,2% 5,9% 16PL HOTEL 0.1 5,8% 5,1% 18PL EVENTS 0 3,3% 4,9% 2SE SOCIAL ENTERPRISES 0.4 5,9% 4,6% 3SE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 0 4,5% 4,7% 5SE INVESTMENT IN GLASSWORKS 0.4 2,9% 7,0% 16SE INFRASTRUCTURE AND SAFETY 0.1 2,8% 8,7%

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(Mis-)Use of structural funds, events and difficulties in implementation

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Instructions for applying to calls and promoting projects

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Cultural/educational policies and responding to emergency, IT prevalence

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Tourism, culture, and Spain

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Technicalities on funding, entrepreneurship, and cultural projects, RO – SE prevalence

Content (-) -> appreciation (-)

Negative sentiment and topics’ cluster will predict lower appreciation

Topic clusters confirmed

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model 1

Estimate Std.Error z_value

(Intercept) 1.2524 0.1907 6.5680 ***

SimpleSentiment -4.2453 0.2376 -17.8700 ***

TPC_CL2_EUROSKEPTICISM -10.1361 2.3280 -4.3540 ***

Content on political appreciation (one example)

Topics’ Content

Appreciation

Topics’ Sentiment

Policy implications

Communication as a mechanism for amplifying awareness and especially appreciation of EU policy: As from our analyses, more funding translates into both more awareness and appreciation. The same, however, does not appear to be true for communication budgets allocated by LMAs.

Idea of a decreasing effect of communication impacts: We suggest that communication strategies should be implemented that specifically deal with the objective of ‘sustaining’ awareness and appreciation levels in local territories once regions eventually advance to higher development levels (GDP-based) and therefore experience drops in EU structural funding.

Social media discourse might affect awareness and appreciation of EU policy in ‘non-linear ‘ways. Therefore major attention should be devoted to developing advanced and up-to-date communicative skills at the local implementation level.

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Technical reports https://www.perceiveproject.eu/public-deliverables/

PERCEIVE Web-Journal articles

https://www.perceiveproject.eu/journal/

Simulation platform – scenario analysis

forthcoming

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Useful links