FRIDAY NOV 5, 2010 1ST YEAR No 1 4201 words

Euroscepticism and the Media

Difference in

EU coverage

in an English

and Scottish

newspaper

University of AmsterdamCourse Foundations of European Communication Studies

Name Emilie KasteleijnProfessor Dr. K. L. K. Brants

Index

1. Introduction p. 2

2. Euroscepticism throughout Europe p. 3

2.1 Defining Euroscepticism p. 3

2.2 Euroscepticism types p. 4

3. European media and Euroscepticism p. 6

3.1 European media coverage on the EU p. 6

3.2 Comparison of European media p. 7

4. Method and analysis p. 9

4.1 Selection of articles p. 8

4.2 Operationalisation p. 8

5. Results p. 11

5.1 Prominence of the EU p. 11

5.2 Evaluation of the EU p. 11

6. Conclusion p. 13

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1. Introduction

It is not surprising that the term ‘Euroscepticism’ was established by a journalist of a

British newspaper back in 1985 (Spiering, 2004). Ever since, the term has been

popularly used as a collective for negative opinions on the EU throughout Europe, in

which the UK has always been seen as a Eurosceptic country (Grant, 2008). This is

because ministers in the British government often oppose measures coming from

Brussels, as is it assumed that they fear the reaction of the British public that is very

negative about the EU (Schuck et al., in press), but also that of the media (Daddow,

2004; Grant, 2008). Moreover, it is widely known that the London-based news media

and the EU traditionally have a rocky relationship, as primarily the English press has

always been very critical and harsh towards the EU (Gavin, 2001; Spiering, 2004).

Not only amongst the general people, but also in most studies on the British

media and public opinion towards the EU, the English press is often mistakenly taken

to represent the British press (Daddow, 2004; De Vreese, 2007; Haesly, 2001;

McDowall, 2006; Spiering, 2004). This subtle differences in opinions on the EU and

EU coverage in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are therefore

overshadowed. However, it is plausible that the Scottish public opinion on the EU is

more nuanced as the EU can offer them benefits in order to gain their independence

from the UK (Dardanelli, 2005). In this study, I will therefore make a distinction

between the English and Scottish press in researching the extent and dimensions of

Euroscepticism in the British press. Emperically testing the extent of Euroscepticism,

I will eventually answer the following research question; “Does the press in

Eurosceptic England portray the EU differently from the press in Scotland?”

As news media and more specifically newspapers are the main sources of

information on EU issues for citizens, they are often blamed to fuel Euroscepticism

(De Vreese, 2007). Newspapers influence public opinion by selecting the issues that

they cover, highlighting specific segments of the EU and framing them in specific

ways. To research the differences in EU coverage in an English and a Scottish

newspaper, I will take that what Euroscepticism denotes as a starting point. Besides,

as the media are blamed for Euroscepticism and as they are a product of society, they

must inhibit important information to explain the presence of and differences in

Euroscepticism in England and Scotland to a certain extent.

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2. Euroscepticism throughout Europe

2.1 Defining Euroscepticism

The term was first used by a British journalist in 1985, describing public expressions

of British politicians that identified themselves as Eurosceptics (Lees, 2002). Ever

since the ratification process of the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s,

Euroscepticism has been popularly used as a collective for negative opinions on

different segments of the EU throughout Europe, which causes the term to be hard to

define (Lees, 2002; Daddow, 2004; Sørensen, 2008). Because the term was first used

in Britain, Lees (2002) argues that it relates to the specific situation in Britain and

therefore suffers a British bias. He then contradicts himself by stating that it nowadays

stands for a self-ascribed categorisation. However, the Europe-wide popular usage of

the term is the very reason Euroscepticism has lost its British bias.

Although it is assumed to be unique in every Member State, based in cultural

history (Sørensen, 2008), many researchers have focused on defining Euroscepticism

as a European phenomenon. It helps explaining the ‘how’ and eventually, when the

background is taken into account, the ‘why’ of Euroscepticism in a Member State.

Euroscepticism can range from rejection to criticism, often referred to as ‘hard’ and

‘soft’ Euroscepticism formulated by Szczerbiak and Taggart (2001, in Sørensen,

2006). The differentiation is however often based on party positions and applying it to

other levels as the media can be problematic because not many know if they want

withdrawal from the EU. The scepticism can relate to objectives of the EU or how the

EU executes its objectives (Hooghe & Marks, 2007; Daddow, 2006; Sørensen, 2006).

The future of the EU, further integration and expansion, is another third dimension

one can be sceptic about (Vasilopoulou, 2009).

Although the definition of Euroscepticism and measuring it at public opinion

level is already problematic on itself, it gets even more complex if we take the sources

of opinions on the EU into account as they are different for everyone (Lees, 2002;

Gavin, 2001). Nevertheless, one can argue that citizens of a country share the same

opinions on specific issues. Research shows that we can distinguish clear patterns of

considerations for a negative public opinion on the EU. Many researchers found

economic considerations and cost-benefit analyses as key causes of Euroscepticism

(Eichenberg & Dalton, 1993; Gabel, 1993; Anderson & Reichert, 1996; McLaren,

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2002). As the EU originally was the embodiment of European economic cooperation,

public opinion was often framed in economic performance evaluation (Hooghe &

Marks, 2007). However, when the EU intensified cooperation since the Maastricht

Treaty, this caused the focus of the EU to shift from economic cooperation to

cooperation concerning policy and cultural issues (Van der Brug & Van Spanje, 2009;

Hooghe & Marks, 2007). As people feared loss of national sovereignty and presumed

that further integration would affect national cultures, strong feelings of nationality

explained negative opinions on the EU (Eichenberg & Dalton, 1993; McLaren, 2002).

Just as national identity as a source of negative public opinion on the EU gained

attention because of further integration, so did dissatisfaction with democratic and

political functioning of the European Union. Perception of democratic deficit

negatively affects public opinion on the EU (Rohrschneider, 2002; Eichenberg &

Dalton, 1993).

2.4 Euroscepticism types

How one evaluates a previous set out dimension is dependent of a complex

framework of reference, as citizens of every country have their own experience with

and expectations of the EU. For example, a small country is more likely to

economically benefit from the EU (Sørensen, 2006). Sørensen (2008) therefore

developed four types of Euroscepticism, whereby she includes nation-wide predictors,

like cultural history, ideology and principles. The first type is ideological

Euroscepticism, that has to do with ideology of the EU that contrasts with a country’s

ideology. Utilitarian Euroscepticism relates to cost-benefit analyses and the

perception of the EU not being utile to the country. The sovereignty type has to do

with shared feelings of national identity in the country causing fear of further

integration that would weaken national sovereignty. As a fourth type Sørensen (2006)

mentions principled Euroscepticism whereby rejection of any kind of integration or

cooperation on no clear grounds is the case. This type overlaps with ‘hard’

Euroscepticism of Szczerbiak and Taggart (2001, in Sørensen, 2006).

Although Sørensen stated in 2006 that empirical research of Euroscepticism is

not enough to fully explain Euroscepticism in a country, for her 2008 typology she

went a step back by using empirical indicators to find out patterns of Euroscepticism

in Denmark. The four types of Euroscepticism she set up with help of empirical data

of the Eurobarometer were economic, sovereignty-based, democratic and social

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Euroscepticism. However, the social type seems redundant, as for example the

indicator ‘Loss of social benefits’ relates more to economic disadvantages. Sørensen

(2008) found that the types of Euroscepticism lay out a pattern of Euroscepticism in

Denmark, but to fully understand it, further research to cultural context is necessary.

A point of criticism on the article is that Sørensen (2006; 2008) constantly claims that

Euroscepticism in a country is unique, but she lacks to research the nature of that

uniqueness.

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3. European media and Euroscepticism

3.1 European media coverage on the EU

Studies on the considerations and conditions of public support for European

integration have provided us with important explanations of Euroscepticism.

However, De Vreese and Boomgaarden (2006) argue that in addition to these factors,

the role of the media on public opinion formation is very important. Throughout

Europe, the media have fulfilled a comparative role as informers to the public in

European societies and there is much in common to research (Golding, 2008). Many

studies on media effects were done Europe-wide and it is adopted that the media

shape public opinion. They are our main sources of information on political issues for

the public, as is shown in Eurobarometer data over the past years (Menéndez Alarcón,

2010). Furthermore, as EU citizens have little direct contact with the EU and as the

EU is hardly directly visible in the daily lives of its citizens, it is not surprising that

the media being the political reality are often blamed for the negative opinions on the

EU that are prevalent in Member States, and especially in the UK, where the public

has historically been very negative against the EU, according to Eurobarometer data

(De Vreese, 2007; De Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2006; Menéndez Alarcón, 2010;

Schudson, 1997). Especially newspapers are subject of research in this field, because

they include more political news and have fewer limitations in terms of time, space

and costs to cover EU topics (De Vreese et al., 2006 in Menéndez Alarcón, 2010).

It is plausible that the media influence public opinion, but how do they do so?

Many researchers take the agenda-setting theory into account, which suggests that

what is on the media agenda decides what is on the public agenda (De Boer &

Brennecke, 2004; De Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2006). To go a step further in order to

explain support for the EU, researchers suggest that the news media can also form the

grounds on which citizens evaluate political issues (De Vreese & Boomgaarden,

2006). For example; when the economy of the EU is highlighted in the media, the

cost-benefit analysis can be the dimension by which citizens evaluate the EU. Also,

when the cultural issue is more important, people take ‘soft’, less rational, and mostly

negative predictors into account, such as national identity and cultural threat (De

Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2006). Then, they found that the frame of the coverage

affects the way citizens make sense of issues. Journalists use a specific frame, whether

deliberately or instinctively, in order for them as well as their public to make sense of

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reality (de Boer & Brennecke, 2004). De Vreese and Boomgaarden (2006) found that

when is focused on potential gains and advantages of the EU, this will invoke gain-

seeking behaviour and increase support for enlargement.

3.2 Comparison of European media

All of the previously set out theories specify the assumption that “the way the media

present the news can affect how audiences understand and perceive the EU”

(Menéndez Alarcón, 2010, p. 399). Nevertheless, next to being of great function for

society, they are also the product of society, emerging in a societal context. Thus it is

logical that there are varieties in the press throughout Europe (Golding, 2008). The

British press is extraordinary in the case of the EU, as it historically is most negative

about the EU from all Member States (Daddow; 2004; De Vreese, 2007; Spiering,

2004). However, something inaccurately called ‘British’ often is just ‘English’,

disregarding Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh (McDowall, 2006). Furthermore,

positive attitudes towards specific segments of the EU present in Scotland and Wales

are overshadowed by the Eurosceptic English press (Haesly, 2001).

Specifically, Scotland often being researched as part of the UK is the reason

why there are not many figures available on Scottish EU-coverage and Scottish

opinion on the EU (Spiering, 2004). This may be inaccurate because British

Euroscepticism is constructed out of many opinions, of which the Scottish opinions

are more nuanced (Haesly, 2001). Also, the majority of the 35% Scots who favour

independence of the UK still prefer membership of the EU (Dardanelli, 2005),

presumably because EU membership can help them gaining their independence.

However, Spiering (2004) points out that there are not many studies available that

give insight in the Scottish newspaper market and coverage of EU topics in Scottish

press. Nevertheless, the two editors of the highest circulation quality newspapers in

Scotland expressed that they have always aimed to cover EU topics fairly. For me the

task to find out. In this study, I will hence compare the coverage of EU topics in an

English newspaper and a Scottish newspaper. I will make an attempt to unravel

Euroscepticism in the British media and to assess the extent of Euroscepticism in both

England and Scotland. To do so, I will use the previously set out theories around

Euroscepticism as my methodological framework. Assuming that media are subject to

historical and cultural frameworks (Berkowitz, 1997), I argue that the media in

England and Scotland inhabit explanatory information on Euroscepticism in Britain.

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4. Method and analysis

4.1 Selection of articles

For the empirical part of my research paper, I will assess if the press in Eurosceptic

England portrays the EU differently from the press in Scotland. The English press

which has high circulation numbers throughout the whole of the UK, is often taken to

represent the British press (Daddow, 2004; De Vreese, 2007; Haesly, 2001;

McDowall, 2006; Spiering, 2004). Therefore in this study, I will compare an England-

based newspaper with a Scotland-based newspaper. For my research I chose to select

articles from quality newspapers with the highest circulation that are present in the

LexisNexis database, which are The Guardian as an English-based newspaper and

The Herald as a Scotland-based newspaper. The units for this content analysis are

news articles and opinion articles which are selected from a period of three weeks

from September 27, 2010 to October 17, 2010. I however did not distinguish between

the two kinds of articles, as my point of research is to assess the overall extent of

Euroscepticism in the newspapers. To select the articles, I searched the database by

using the keywords ‘European Union’ and ‘EU’ and selected the 50 most recent

articles, from which 25 were actually useful from The Guardian and 22 from The

Herald. This means the rest of the articles had nothing to do with the EU, or the

keywords just referred to for example job functions of attendants at conferences. To

enlarge my sample in order to raise the reliability of the outcomes, I did a second

similar round of article selection. This time, I used the keywords ‘European

Commission’ and ‘European Parliament’ to find articles in the same period as the first

sample. This led to the selection of nine new articles from The Guardian and five new

articles from The Herald. In total 34 articles from The Guardian and 27 articles from

The Herald were analysed.

4.2 Operationalisation

To answer the research question; “Does the press in Eurosceptic England portray the

EU differently from the press in Scotland?”, using the previously set out theories

concerning Euroscepticism and media representation of the EU, I have set out a

codebook to analyse newspaper articles.

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Prominence of the EU

As set out earlier, Euroscepticism can relate to the EU, its objectives, execution of

those objectives and the future, but in theory it is hard to distinguish evaluations of

one of the three. In order to assess the extent of presence of the EU in an article, I will

therefore take EU objectives, executions and future, without distinguishing them, into

account. For every article, I assess if the EU is central subject of the article, ascribing

value ‘1’ to it, or if it is just mentioned, coded ‘0’. However, I make a distinction

between the segments of the EU that is related to, which are economy, policy, socio-

culture or expansion, coded with value ‘1’ for present relation and ‘0’ for no relation.

These segments do not exclude each other. I also assess if the EU is featured in a

national or foreign news article, whereby value ‘0’ ascribes foreign news and value

‘1’ national news. News from the UK is considered national news in newspapers from

both countries, as Scotland is officially part of the country UK. To explicate this, the

links of the EU to the UK and to Scotland are assessed and coded ‘1’ for a present

link and ‘0’ for no link. The link is present if the objections, executions or

expectations of the EU are in any way set out against the UK or Scotland. I will not

distinguish negative, positive or neutral links, because together with the overall

evaluation of the EU in the article, any link inhibits information concerning

Euroscepticism in itself.

Evaluation of the EU

To measure the evaluation of the EU, for each article the proportion of negative and

positive notes on the EU is calculated, with eventually ascribing value ‘1’ to more

negative, ‘-1’ for more positive and ‘0’ for even or neutral. As an example for

operationalisation of this variable, I used the codebook which also distinguishes

negative, positive and neutral to measure media frames in EU coverage of Schuck et

al. (in press). To decide if a link to the EU is negatively, positively or neutrally made,

I take possible expectations and evaluations into account, i.e. if the EU’s regulations

is supposed to benefit and has benefited the UK. I will also analyse the words used to

describe behaviour of the EU reflecting the tone. For example; descriptions of the EU

‘imposing’ or ‘pushing’ its regulations are considered negative, whereas the UK

embracing EU’s regulations is considered positive. When no clear tone can be

discovered, i.e. ‘the UK takes regulations of the EU into account’, it will be coded ‘0’,

thus neutral.

9

As from the theory can be derived, Euroscepticism is grounded on

scientifically and empirically assessed considerations. These considerations led

Sørensen (2008) to develop a typology for Euroscepticism, which is the benchmark

for this study. Each article is subjected to an analysis of possible present

considerations to discover types of Euroscepticism. The distinction is made between

utilitarian, sovereignty-based and democratic types. Utilitarian considerations concern

economic performance and cost-benefit analysis evaluations, sovereignty-based

considerations inhibit more negative issues, like loss of sovereignty and cultural threat

to national identity and democratic considerations concern the democratic

performance of the EU and execution of its objectives and policy issues, as we can see

from the theory these are strongly related. All of the articles are screened on present

considerations, which are coded with value ‘1’ for negative evaluation, ‘-1’ for

positive evaluation and ‘0’ for neutral or absent evaluation.

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5. Results

5.1 Prominence of the EU

Before starting to analyse the results, I checked the variable properties on possible

missing values or false values. The values were all valid, so I started my analysis

without having to rule out any missing values. In this content analysis I researched 34

articles from the British newspaper The Guardian and 27 articles from the Scottish

newspaper The Herald. Of all articles in The Guardian, 44% of the articles are

specifically about the EU, while in 56% of the articles the EU is just mentioned. Of

the articles from The Herald, 33% are about the EU, while in 67% of the articles the

EU is just mentioned. The EU relates in 35% of the articles in The Guardian to

economy, in 41% of the articles to policy, in 29% of the articles to socio-cultural

issues and in none of the articles of The Guardian the EU related to expansion. As for

The Herald, the EU relates in 41% of the articles to economy, in 33% of the articles to

policy, in 15% of the articles to socio-cultural issues and 11% of the articles are about

EU expansion.

As for the orientation of the articles; In The Guardian, 56% of the news is

national, whereas for The Herald, this is 67%. Furthermore, in The Guardian, in 53%

of all the articles a link is made between the EU and the UK. In The Herald, the link

between the EU and the UK is made in 37% of the articles, but in 48% of the articles,

the EU relates to Scotland.

5.2 Evaluation of the EU

Showing from the results is that in 35% of the articles in The Guardian, the EU is

mostly negatively related to. In 47% of the articles, the EU is evaluated neutrally. In

the articles from The Herald, the EU is related to mostly negatively in 15% of the

articles. In 67% of the articles the EU was evaluated neutrally. This brings us to the

present considerations to evaluate the EU present in the articles. In The Guardian,

25% of the articles in which the EU was negatively evaluated are negative on

utilitarian grounds. In The Herald this percentage is 75% of all articles negative about

the EU. As for democratic considerations, it showed that in 50% of the articles from

The Guardian, in which the EU is evaluated negatively, they are negative about the

EU on democratic grounds. In The Herald, this percentage is 25%. The last type of

considerations, namely sovereignty-based considerations, are present in 17% of the

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articles from The Guardian in which the EU is negatively evaluated. None of the

articles in The Herald that evaluated the EU negatively state something negative on

sovereignty grounds. For a visual illustration of these results, see figure 1.

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Figure 1 – Present considerations in articles that are negative on the EU.

6. Conclusion

It is not a coincidence that Euroscepticism, which now denotes all negative opinions

on the EU across Europe, was first used in an England-based newspaper. The British

have never been a popular member of the EU, not from their point of view and not

from the continental Europeans’ point of view. The British media that has always

been critical on the EU are said to contribute to this. Because of the lack of nuance in

EU coverage by the media that have the highest circulation through the UK, Scottish,

Welsh and Northern Irish opinions are overshadowed. English media are often taken

to represent the British media and society, while there are some serious indications

that the Scots might be much more nuanced in their EU opinions. As the media from

sociological point of view reflect society, I researched the question; “Does the press in

Eurosceptic England portray the EU differently from the press in Scotland?”

To assess if EU coverage in both newspapers is different, I used theories

around the phenomenon ‘Euroscepticism’ as a frame of reference. Euroscepticism as

it is used today encapsulates all negative feelings in the form of rejection and criticism

towards the European Union as an embodiment of European cooperation. In the

analysis, any kind of negativity against the EU was measured and the numbers show

that The Guardian seems more negative on the EU than The Herald. Not only the

amount of negative links to the EU is higher in The Guardian, The Herald seems to

also be more neutral. Neutral in this sense can be seen as positive, as my frame of

reference is Euroscepticism, in which ‘neutral’ does not mean negative. In general, it

seems that more Scots are positive about European integration because it could

benefit their independence from the UK, which offers a possible explanation for my

findings. Furthermore, the EU in the Scottish newspaper links more to Scotland than

the UK, illustrating the orientation of relation to the EU.

In The Guardian, policy of the EU seems more prominent on the agenda,

whereas in The Herald, the economic performance of the EU seems more prominent.

In addition to this, considerations to be Eurosceptic in The Guardian seem to be

grounded on democratic grounds, concerning execution of democracy and policy. In

The Herald, Euroscepticism seems to be framed in terms of utilitarian considerations,

relating to cost-benefit analyses. These findings might be explained by the Scottish

assumably posing more emphasis on benefits from the EU for their independence

gaining. The English might evaluate the EU more on ‘soft’ predictors, which are

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based on cultural and identity-related grounds and become more important when

cultural issues are more salient in society (De Vreese, Boomgaarden & Semetko,

2008). The seeming difference in EU coverage in an English newspaper and a

Scottish newspaper can also be explained from the high level of competition on the

English newspaper market, which makes the newspapers want to attract the big

public. The content tends to be more sensational (Spiering, 2004; Wilkes & Wring,

2006) and as many Britons already have a strong sense of national identity, the EU is

perfect material to arouse sensation (Spiering, 2004).

Although I found some interesting results, there are some serious limitations

of my research that need to be taken into account. First of all, the amount of articles

used for this research is relatively low, so generalisation to the English or Scottish

press is difficult. However, the results give reason to further research the British press.

I collected all kinds of news stories that had ‘EU’ in it, but as very often the EU was

just mentioned or referred to, I had to subjectively choose which articles to analyse.

Also, the variables in the codebook seemed too interpretative, although the variables

seemed easy to assess when I developed the codebook, especially with theoretical

back-up. For example, assessing what is negative or positive seemed more difficult, so

in the future, a scientific reference to that distinction is necessary. Also, I lost a lot of

meaningful information by turning all the information into data. I suggest that the

delicacy of Euroscepticism needs a more sophisticated research method, especially in

media when one can not steer answers and outcomes, but is dependent on existing

material. A discourse analysis would therefore fit the nature of Euroscepticism better.

14

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